SUSAN BLOCK VEZINA

Founder and President of Fitness By Phone® and the Association of Fitness By Phone® Coaches, Susan Block Vézina, is a recognized leader and pioneer in the health and fitness industry, having set new trends in fitness training, coaching and motivation.

Fitness and health have been an integral part of Susan’s life since a young girl, having excelled in sports, both as a cheerleader in high school and aerobics, where her high school team took second place in The Reebok National Aerobics Championships.

It didn’t take Susan long to realize that a career in the health and fitness industry was her natural calling. Recognizing that there was a need for a healthy outlet for those undergoing stress on the job, she began working in the fitness industry as an aerobics instructor, earning a Bachelor of Science degree from UCLA in Kinesiology (exercise physiology) in the late 80's.

Following graduation from UCLA, Susan expanded her work at the Sports Connection, Inc., in Southern California. In 1986, she was promoted to aerobics manager where she was in charge of overseeing the company's three fitness clubs. After just one year, the company named her "Activities Director," where she was instrumental in growing the prestigious fitness chain The Sports Clubs, to new heights. During her successful tenure at The Sports Club Susan created a series of innovative programs which ranged from ski trips and river rafting to the club's annual celebrity-studded gala event, "The Super Star of Sports Spectacular."

In 1992, Susan finally gave in to her entrepreneurial spirit and founded Fitness Dynamics, a popular personal training business which provided customized workouts to professionals at their homes or offices. During this time, Warner Bros. Studios hired her as Fitness Manager for their brand new, state-of-the-art fitness center at the studios famed headquarters in Burbank, California.

By 1995, Susan had expanded her business operations with a new company, Exercise on the Move. Going beyond just working with clients one-on-one, Susan developed and successfully launched the groundbreaking workshop and lecture series "Move Yourself Into Action," which taught her clients "self efficacy" or the ability to be self-reliant in their exercise regimes. To help them track their progress she began offering a product line of heart rate monitors and Caltrac activity monitors. The success of this new approach to fitness training led Susan to create a program that would soon revolutionize the health and fitness industry. The program involved weekly coaching over the phone and would become known as "Fitness by Phone®".

After being invited to speak on the subject of phone coaching at the IDEA International Personal Training Summit in Anaheim, the largest and one of the most respected associations of fitness professionals in the world, word quickly spread of this new way of training and motivating clients over the phone to healthy and successful results.  In January of 1998, Susan started the Association of Fitness By Phone® Coaches (AFPC), supporting fitness professionals all over the country who not only want to reach more individuals than traditional personal training permits, but who want to effect greater motivation and results for clients.

Today, Susan is as active as ever as she not only guides Fitness By Phone® to new and exciting growth, but she continues to be at the forefront of change in the multi-billion dollar fitness industry. As an inspiring and innovative leader, Susan has made access to personal trainers more affordable and fitness programming more effective, by catering to a long-neglected niche market: the busy, working professional who is either too uncomfortable with, can't afford, or doesn't have the flexible time schedule for conventional personal training programs. In doing so, Susan and her team of certified Fitness By Phone® Coaches are revolutionizing the way personal training will be done in the new millennium.

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