ROB MURRAY: I’m speaking with Food, Body Image, and Fitness Coach Fiona Groves. Great to have you back on the show. You’re involved in an online competition and doing quite well. What’s going on?

FIONA GROVES: I’m currently in the Ms. Health and Fitness 2021 cover model contest. It’s for a muscle and fitness HERS magazine, and the winner gets $20,000 US and will be featured on the cover of the magazine. Thousands of contestants started the competition and now we’re down to the top five, and the winner of each group goes through to the quarterfinals.

RM: Why is this competition important to you?

FG: It’s been a few years since I entered anything like this. I just decided this was something I wanted to pursue again, especially to like inspire, empower, and motivate women. There is so much more to fitness than just the athletic side of things. It’s about overall health, it’s about wellness, it’s about having a healthy relationship with food and with our bodies, and that age is just a number and it doesn’t mean anything. I’m in my early forties and I’m in a cover model contest, so it’s pretty exciting.

RM: When does voting for this round close?

FG: The group winners will be announced on July 15th so people can vote once every 24 hours.

RM: The COVID-19 pandemic has been very challenging for a lot of fitness instructors and people involved in the fitness industry. I remember the last time we had you on the show you had just started up some virtual classes. How have those ended up going?

FG: We’re actually still running four to five days a week. To compliment that I actually have an on-demand library of classes. I think a lot of people are really enjoying the convenience of working out from home because you can turn up in your pajamas if you want. I have an amazing loyal membership base. My schedule is confirmed at least for now until the end of August.

RM: How is this going to work? As people start to transition back to in-person fitness training, is everyone going to transition back? Is virtual fitness around to stay for a while?

FG: I feel like it’s kind of going to be a hybrid moving forward and I think a lot of businesses are recognizing that. There are definitely certain types of fitness and classes that really are conditioned more for the gym. Like, I’m back doing CrossFit in person and I’m absolutely loving it, but then I’m also still doing workouts at home. I feel like you’re going to have some people that are just going to be 100% back in the gym, some people that are going to stay 100% online because it works for their schedule or their family dynamic, and then you’re going to have people like myself who are all about the hybrid. I’ll do some workouts at home and then I’ll do some workouts in the gym. It’s definitely been a shift, that’s for sure.