By Jess Oaks 

joaks@torringtontelegram.com

TORRINGTON – In a world saturated with diet fads, trendy exercise routines and social media fitness influencers, finding a reliable approach to health can be challenging. With countless options promising miraculous results, many citizens find themselves overwhelmed and frustrated when trying to identify fitness plans which genuinely work for their individual needs. The one-size-fits-all routines promoted across social media platforms often leave people disappointed and searching for more personalized guidance. This frustration is what motivated Dane Jensen, one of Goshen County’s newest residents, to bring his expertise to the community.

Jensen, a certified personal trainer and nutritional coach accredited by the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), has recently partnered with GitFit Fitness Club to offer personalized fitness training in Torrington. His approach focuses on fundamentals rather than trends, emphasizing evidence-based methods which can be tailored to each client’s specific goals and needs.

“We literally quit everything we had and brought our entire lives here,” Jensen explained, describing his family’s move from Georgia to Wyoming to help his grandmother. “It was a perfect opportunity for me to start my fitness career.”

The move represented a significant life change and professional risk for Jensen and his family, but the opportunity to establish his fitness career in a community where personalized training services were limited was too promising to pass up.

Jensen emphasizes his credentials are substantial and differentiate him in the fitness industry. 

“I am NCCA (National Commission for Certifying Agencies) certified through NASM. You can get just the standard personal trainer certificate with no accreditation, or you can do the ‘big dog’ version with the whole course and proctored test. I did that and passed, so I’m fully accredited and certified,” Jensen said.

What sets Jensen apart is his combined focus on both exercise and nutrition, which he sees as inseparable components of a successful fitness journey. 

“I’m also a certified nutrition coach. I’m trying to bring nutrition and training as one package for everybody,” he said. 

This dual certification allows him to address the complete picture of health rather than just focusing on exercise alone.

Jensen acknowledges maintaining proper nutrition can be difficult for many people, especially in today’s food environment. 

“It’s so easy to get bad food. It’s right around the corner and it’s fairly cheap,” he explained. “I try to help people make sense of nutrition. When you dive into all the studies, it seems like a lot of information. It could be enough to confuse everybody. I’ve always been good at taking complex concepts and breaking them down more simply – because there’s a time for details, there’s a time for nuance.”

According to Jensen, nutritional science can be overwhelming for the average person, but the fundamentals remain consistent. 

“I can take all of that, but the fundamentals still work for everybody. You just get your basic fundamentals. Your energy, your calories in, your calories out, the laws of thermodynamics – all that still works,” he noted.

His approach to nutrition is straightforward yet customized. 

“For each client, I provide custom nutritional guidance based on their goals. It’s as simple as getting some chicken, beef, turkey, fish, pasta, veggies, rice, potatoes, eggs and dairy, if you can tolerate it. That’s really about all you need,” Jensen said. 

This simplicity, he believes, is key to helping clients maintain their nutritional programs long-term.

He recommends an 85-15 split for daily nutrition, which allows for sustainability and enjoyment: 

“Eighty-five percent of your foods should be clean, whole foods that meet your goal. The other 15% is for daily living because we’re human and like to eat for pleasure. It’s all about trying to really put the eating for pleasure aside and eat for sustainability, but then still allowing yourself a little bit to stay on diet. It’s all got to be within a certain confine,” Jensen said.

In an industry often driven by trends and quick-fix solutions, Jensen firmly distinguishes himself from trendy fitness approaches and fad diets which dominate social media and fitness publications.

“That’s where I also come into play too, because I don’t do fad diets. There’s no fluff, no fad, no trendy anything. I don’t do trendy workouts. I don’t do trendy diets. It’s literally, you have your fundamentals. You stick to those fundamentals,” he emphasized. 

His approach relies on proven scientific principles rather than whatever happens to be popular at the moment.

Jensen breaks down his approach to body composition changes in simple terms: 

“If you want to lose fat, you go into a calorie deficit. If you want to gain muscle, you go into a calorie surplus, only a little bit. You don’t have to do massive bulks to where you’re putting on so much fat, trying to put on muscle. You don’t have to take yourself down to 1,000 calories a day to burn fat. You just find your maintenance based on your activity level, you dial in the nutrition and then you just go under for fat loss and you go over for muscle gain,” Jensen noted. “It’s just that simple.”

The real challenge, according to Jensen, comes when adjusting diets as clients approach their goals and their bodies adapt. 

“The more fat you burn and the leaner you get, the harder it becomes because you have to adjust your calorie intake. Because now, you weigh less. If you weigh less, you require less food to hit those goals and that’s where that nuance comes in. That’s where I try to come in and help people get to where they need to be,” he explained. 

Jensen’s particularly critical of social media fitness culture and the confusion it creates for consumers.

“The problem though is that you get on social media, you’ve got millions of influencers out there that are telling you one thing, telling you this, and telling you that. They’re contradicting each other constantly. You don’t know what’s real anymore. You don’t know what to do. You don’t know what to follow because everybody thinks they know everything,” Jensen said. “That’s one thing I’m not. I’m not a social media person. I hate it. I’m not an influencer – I’m a coach.”

While Jensen acknowledges he will use social media to attract clients in today’s digital environment, he strongly prefers in-person consultations and training sessions where he can provide more personalized guidance. 

“I do better with people in person. Because of that individualization and customization, you need that more direct connection to somebody to help you get where you need to be. Especially if you start falling off a little bit and you need a little bit of help getting back. Everybody’s different. That’s the hugest thing,” he explained.

When Jensen arrived in Torrington, he didn’t immediately set out to establish a business partnership. Instead, he was primarily searching for a place to continue his own training regimen. 

“The cool thing is, because it was a new town, it was a new experience. I wanted to start this career. I wanted to take myself to the next level and be able to help people,” Jensen said.

He explained how his partnership with GitFit Fitness Club developed organically.

“Once I arrived here, I was just trying to find a place for me and my wife to train,” he said. “I landed with GitFit. Then, talking with the people there, especially Deanna and her sister Debbie, they didn’t have anybody that was offering any training. They had Robert Martin, but Robert only has about one or two clients here and he’s out in Nebraska a lot more. He kind of migrated away a little bit. So, since we moved here, there was that sort of vacuum to fill and Deanna and Debbie were all about it,” Jensen explained.

What began as a search for a personal workout space evolved into a mutually beneficial business arrangement. 

“We sort of got this partnership thing going on to where I’m going to train exclusively at GitFit. Of course, you have to be a member. That’s the only kind of caveat is you already have to be a member of GitFit or get signed up with them to get these services because it’s their gym,” Jensen explained.

Jensen sees the arrangement as advantageous for both parties. “They didn’t have anybody really – any personal training offered at their gym either. We’re trying to see where that fits in,” he said.

This partnership allows Jensen to focus on his coaching while the established gym provides the necessary facilities and equipment, creating a comprehensive fitness solution for community members looking to improve their health.

What distinguishes Jensen’s training philosophy from many other fitness programs is his commitment to evidence-based approaches. He isn’t interested in fads or trends but rather in what scientific research has proven to be effective.

“The interesting thing about the way I train and the way that I teach to train is I use scientific methods and principles. NASM, who I got my certification from, they are a very evidence-based organization. They use references constantly, site studies, meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and that kind of stuff,” Jensen explained.

This scientific foundation provides the basis for all his training and nutritional recommendations. Rather than relying on anecdotal evidence or what worked for him personally, Jensen draws from a broad research base to inform his coaching methods.

He continues his education by following experts in the field and staying current with the latest research.

“Then once I started studying through that course, I found a bunch of PhDs online. Guys in exercise science who have PhDs in this – they’ve built their careers around exercise science,” he shared.

Jensen acknowledges the complexity of fitness research and the challenges in interpreting studies correctly. According to Jensen, there are hundreds of studies going on to try to figure out how the human body reacts to exercise and nutrition, but the problem is trainers can’t go by just one study. Jensen explained how the studies are sometimes manipulated to get predetermined results.”

Jensen is aware of the potential biases in research and approaches the scientific literature critically.

“Of course, certain people try to get certain results as opposed to just actually seeing what science has to say about it. So, you have to fight through that as well. But a lot of these guys that I follow, there’s sort of a scientific consensus now in the fitness community on the science side of things that are trying to figure out what’s optimized, how these things work. That’s where I get a lot of my education now,” Jensen said.

His commitment to ongoing education extends beyond his initial certification.

“Then you have to dive further to get more of the full story behind what we’re doing scientifically in the fitness industry,” Jensen explained.

This dedication to understanding the science behind fitness allows Jensen to provide his clients with methods that have been proven effective rather than temporary solutions based on trends.

One of Jensen’s most passionate beliefs is fitness is not limited to young athletes or those already in good shape – it’s accessible and beneficial for people of all ages and fitness levels. He’s particularly interested in helping older adults improve their quality of life through appropriate strength training.

According to Jensen, getting into the best shape of your life can happen at any age.

“The one thing I’ve been learning out of everything is that it works for everybody. Bodybuilding style training just works for everybody,” Jensen said.

However, Jensen is quick to clarify “bodybuilding style” doesn’t mean everyone should train like a competitive bodybuilder. Rather, it’s about applying the principles of progressive resistance training in ways appropriate to each individual’s abilities and goals.

“Now, how do you do that training? That’s, again, where I come in. Everybody can benefit just from basic lifting and nutrition, energy expenditure and then recovery. It’s like the four pillars for everybody that works,” he explained. “Obviously, somebody who is 65-70 years old, we’re not coming in and benching 200 pounds. We’re not even going crazy like that. I always start with movement assessments.”

For older clients or those new to exercise, Jensen takes a measured, progressive approach which prioritizes safety while steadily building strength.

“We go with machines first, making sure that if they’re not used to exercising, we are getting the movements right. They know they’re getting older and things aren’t feeling the way they used to; we’ll try to get some lean muscle put on them. We’ll move,” Jensen explained. “We’ll start with machines. We’ll do everything in progression. We start light and work our way up.”

His approach for senior clients focuses on functional improvement rather than aesthetic goals.

“My goal is to get the mature community just moving and get to where they’re lifting a little bit. Lifting by itself can do so much just for the human body. It counters so many things,” he explained.

The benefits of strength training, according to Jensen, extend far beyond appearance and include significant health improvements.

“It counters Alzheimer’s, which is mental, neural stuff. Puts on lean mass, which means your metabolism changes because the more muscle you have, the more your metabolism fires off, so you burn more. It’s easier to lose fat. You strengthen your bones. There’s a million! The immune system boosts. Everything, just from lifting, not even going and hitting the treadmill for 20 to 30 minutes, trying to run – not even doing that. [It’s] a huge stress relief. There are so many benefits to it and anybody at any age can get these benefits,” Jensen noted.

Through his partnership with GitFit Fitness Club, Jensen has developed a variety of coaching options to meet different needs and preferences in the community. His business, Spitfire Coaching LLC, offers several service tiers designed to accommodate various schedules and fitness goals.

Jensen provides in-person training sessions for those who prefer direct, hands-on coaching. For clients with busy schedules or those who live farther away, he offers online training programs which can be completed at the client’s convenience. Additionally, he’s developed a hybrid approach which combines in-person sessions with online support.

Understanding the importance of making fitness accessible to those who serve the community, Jensen offers discounted rates for law enforcement officers, military personnel, and firefighters. Senior citizens also qualify for reduced pricing, aligning with his commitment to helping older adults improve their health and quality of life through appropriate exercise.

For more information about Spitfire Coaching LLC’s services or to schedule a consultation, interested individuals can contact Jensen at 307-900-2822 or dane@spitfirecoaching.net.