Meet Our New Ambassador, Nicole Winhoffer
Hi #FITGIRLCODE community! I’m Nicole Winhoffer and I represent new way of fitness. In order to change your life, the first thing you have to learn is to think outside the box. In my workouts I incorporate music, art, fashion, pop culture and freedom. Whenever my students first come to class I let them know that working out is a form of expression, not just an effect and a result, it’s a full experience.
The ideas for my training come from movies, music, books, fashion, colors and light. I have a very strong imagination and I’ve always been in touch with it since I was a child. Everything in our body is centrifugal force. Everything is a rotating, circular motion. In my philosophy I like to combine the scientific facts of working out and the effects it has with each one’s anatomy, as well the artistic element. This, believe it or not, is crucial to people’s soul. Unfortunately, we can lose sight of the child within us and that’s what makes us grow older. When you work out with me all of that changes. My workouts have been compared to the fountain of youth because I keep the neurons of your brain connected to the muscle pattern and I also get you to think differently. When you do something out of the ordinary it wakes up new neurons and gets you to move in a new way and have new muscles. Through curiosity, playfulness and being a child in your movement gives you that glowing skin and tight body that you crave, but also, a happy mind and a happy soul. It’s an expansion of your mind and open your consciousness.
It may sound radical, but I equate my workouts to the feelings of invincibility that people get when they’re high, drunk or having mad sex. Or maybe they’re at a concert and they’re shaking their heads up and down or they are at a club and dancing like there’s no tomorrow. I work not only the external, but also the internal. For example, if you’re doing a leg lift, you are also working the kidney, which is the organ of fear, so you’re exercising and moving the blood around that organ, releasing those pent up frustrations and allowing breathing space for new and better things to come. Speed and agility play a big part in my classes, waking everybody up to get those stagnant and rooted preconditions of their daily lives out. My classes are about movement and finding balance in the body, so my clients can find it in their life. Also, the classes are a bit about suffering. But, why is that? By getting through my class they are able to get through their problems in their life.
Meet Our New Ambassador, Nicole Winhoffer
Dance has always been a part of my life because it is my therapy. If I got into a fight with my mom, my boyfriend or something bad happened in school, I would go to dance class and put that emotion in my body. I’ve translated that passion into teaching all of my clients, no matter what body shape, gender or age, to use working out and dancing as a therapy. My workouts are choreographed. There’s a flow. There’s a journey. Music has always been a part of my life. It’s therapeutic self-healing that moves my soul. So I choreograph my workouts to music. For those sixty minutes that my students are with me, the music is perfectly timed. The rhythm of each beat affect the movements and the persons journey in my class. Having them connect to the beat, the song lyrics and the sound focuses their membranes, their blood, their heartbeat, their pulsation and gets them in touch with that mind, body connection that I want ultimately for everyone to achieve.
I’ll always be eternally grateful for the fact that Madonna gave me the chance to express myself through fitness and dance. Having body awareness and knowledge as a trained dancer is crucial to fitness. Wellness has always been a part of my life. My dad played sports and we always had a gym in the basement. We were surrounded by soccer, wearing Adidas track suits from a very young age and training every day before school with my younger brothers. I was always into competitive sports. Growing up I was a diver, a swimmer, a dancer. I became infatuated with the human body when I started heavily training in the Balanchine method with my ballet teacher from the School of American Ballet. I realized that through meditation. But it didn’t end there. I also studied Bruce Lee’s passion for martial arts, Joseph Pilates, rhythm gymnasts, watching videos, going to New York City to study and learning the power of the mind I completely changed my body.
I never gave up on my dreams and they are still happening today. I danced in Broadway shows, danced for Shakira, the MTV Video Music Awards and in 2009 I was hired to train Madonna’s dancers for her Sticky and Sweet tour. A year later, I was hired to be her personal trainer. Eventually I became the Creative Director of Hard Candy’s Addicted to Sweat program from 2010-2014 so I had the unique opportunity to create programs for global gyms and hire all the personal trainers who taught my way of fitness. Teaching in countries where no one spoke or spoke very little English is where I realized the power of the body, how people can connect through body language and how dance is really universal. You can go anywhere in the world and connect with people through music and dance.
At the end of the day I just want to make people happy. I love doing that and seeing the power that they have through movement. I hope that through my workouts they find their personal freedom in their body. Because when you’re in your body, you are out of your mind and you can expand to be and to do anything really. I’m all about changing peoples mind. You can get results, not just by doing physical exercise but by also using your feeling, your emotions and your passion in your work. When people work out with me, I want them to say, “Oh My God! That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I never thought I could do it and I did.” Also, “Oh my God, the music made me move so much.” I want them to connect with the feeling behind the movement. And, last, but not least, I want them to change the way they think about fitness. Your hormones, emotions and feelings are very much a direct catalyst to your results and when you feel negative or repressed we use weight to hide or we close-off. We need to be open to new things.
I want my philosophy to be a part of everyone’s life. Fitness is not about re-creating the wheel. It’s about motivating and inspiring people in your own way. Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawing of the Vitruvian Man is so powerful for me because through human proportion we are already perfect. We have the triangle, or the center, or the square and I recreate that in my movements. Those are the paths that I follow geometrically and also with getting everyone in tune to their chakras, the spiritual and also making it clear to my clients, that they can exist through movement.
In my workouts I re-create that feeling of falling in love with someone, but with themselves through movement. I’m a hopeless romantic and that’s why there is so much love and passion in my workouts because it’s basically like my husband. That feeling is like nothing else. When you know that someone is there for you and will take care of you and be there for you no matter what.
Love Yourself!
Nicole
Adidas announced its partnership with internationally acclaimed fitness artist Nicole Winhoffer as its new ambassador for adidas by Stella McCartney. Nicole will debut pieces for adidas by Stella McCartney through the upcoming FW14 season and beyond. In her capacity as an adidas Global Trainer, Nicole will be involved in creating unique training sessions as well as attending both global and local events for adidas by Stella McCartney, sharing her knowledge in new training techniques to bring its performance and style credentials to life for both media and consumers.
"It is beyond my wildest dreams to be able to collaborate on a global level with adidas, the leading sports performance brand, and Stella McCartney, a pioneer to women's fashion and style. I am honored to be a part of their family. Fitness is art, and together, our marriage of movement, performance, and fashion will create a new standard. The sky is the limit!” – Nicole Winhoffer
