Former Longboat trainer opens Sarasota studio

If you have been on Longboat Key for any length of time and you are interested in fitness, chances are the name Cinde Carroll is familiar to you. She came here from Chicago in 1988 to be the fitness director at the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort. She also worked independently, seeing personal training clients in their homes and condo gyms up and down the Key. After 15 years on Longboat, Carroll opened her own studio in the Rosemary District downtown. She thrived there for several years until building issues made the space unsuitable for her purposes. Then, she taught at various studios around town.

Carroll had a good deal of experience before she came here. A student of anatomy and physiology, she taught her first fitness class at age 16. She was an athletic trainer and physical therapy assistant. She took balance-training seminars before Reebok popularized the concept, studied three kinds of martial arts for a total of eight years, and spent three months in Toronto becoming certified in Stott Pilates in its earliest days. Most recently, she has advanced to the level of  Pre-trainer meaning she trains trainers, of Gyrokinesis and the Gyrotonic Expansion System, which together comprise an emerging discipline that stresses natural, circular movement to increase strength, flexibility, coordination, balance and posture.

The big news for Carroll and her clients is her new studio, which opened just last month in the Gold Tree Plaza on Ringling and Tuttle, upstairs from the popular Garden of the Heart Yoga Studio. It is an interesting place to see with a long row of six Reformers, Trapeze Table (also known as a Cadillac) and other Pilates pieces of apparatus on one side and an equally impressive lineup of Gyrotonic equipment on the other — not to mention the BOSU and TRX  trainers, Swiss exercise balls and more stashed in various closets.

The studio has a lot of gear that amounts to an impressive toolbox, and its owner knows, in depth, a lot of modalities. But what is most interesting about the studio is Carroll herself. She taught her first class in 1975. There are not a lot of fitness professionals here or anywhere else with four decades of experience.

What got her into teaching in the first place was that her sensei (martial arts instructor) recognized her gifts not just as a student but also as a potential instructor. He wanted her to teach a strength-training class to men. He had to talk her into doing it, and her macho students gave her more than a bit of attitude, as in “What can this little slip of a girl teach us?” (Remember, this was the 1970s.)  They got over it when they discovered that anything they could do, she could do better. And she loved doing it.

Carroll’s gift is recognizing what her clients need and caring passionately about helping them achieve it. She can look at someone and how he or she moves and know intuitively and with startling accuracy what they need to accomplish to be more comfortable and function better in their own bodies. And she has the tools and experience to provide whatever that might be.

Cinde Carroll Studio offers group classes and duets and personal training in Pilates, Gyrotonics, TRX, BOSU and other modalities. Prices range from $20 for a walk-in Pilates Reformer Group class to $65 for a package of five to $90 per hour for individual private training, or $600 for a package or eight. Studio is at 2886 Ringling Blvd., Suite D (second floor). For information, visit cindecarroll.com.

Molly Schechter is an ACE-certified personal trainer with a specialty in older adult fitness plus YogaFit Instructor Training, SCF Yoga Fundamentals I and II and Power Pilates™ Mat Certifications. She teaches classes at the Bayfront Park Recreation Center. Email her at [email protected].