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A spirit that is not afraid

Athletic trainer starts sports performance company

“My goal is to take what I learned here at Auburn and put it into my company.”

Kathryn Clardy trains her clients with outdoor and indoor exercises.
Kathryn Clardy trains her clients with outdoor and indoor exercises.

Kathryn Clardy has wanted to combine her love for sports and science ever since she watched her siblings grow up in the sports recreation leagues of Auburn. 

That’s where the idea for an athletic training company originated. 

Clardy’s sports performance company is Starting Line Fitness, and it’s where she trains future, current and former athletes. 

“My goal is to take what I learned here at Auburn and put it into my company,” she said. “I’ve learned different injury prevention techniques, different exercise fitness techniques (and) motivation techniques. I’m putting everything into one umbrella and hopefully helping the community here in Auburn.”

After finishing her master’s degree in exercise science in August, Clardy began running the company full time. She took the knowledge from her degree and her experience as a former personal trainer to create workouts for her clients. 

Clardy has always loved sports, though she didn’t play herself. Throughout her childhood, she watched her siblings’ sports activities instead.  

“I really grew up watching my siblings,” Clardy said. “Growing up in [recreation] league, I kept the book, I followed them. It was really cool for me, because I was always interested in the ‘why’ and the ‘how.’”

She was drawn to sports. That’s why, as she grew older, she looked for ways to be involved in sports other than actually playing a sport.  

“I always loved science and knew I wanted to help people,” Clardy said. “Coming into college, I found you can combine sports and science. I started to study the science behind why we move the way we do and how humans can perform at such optimal levels.”

Clardy has a different perspective on athletics than most in her field both because of her history in rec sports and her internship with EXOS, where she worked in their performance specialist department. 

There she worked with high-profile athletes looking to better themselves for their upcoming seasons. As she worked, it solidified her career and degree choice.

Throughout her undergraduate and graduate education at Auburn, Clardy said she learned the ins and outs of human performance and the optimal ways to train people. 

She mainly works with children in middle and high school, preparing them to play at the next level in their sports. Instead of teaching them how to play their sport better, she teaches them how to be a better athlete as a whole.

“Taking the junior kids, high school kids that maybe want to play at the next level,” Clardy said. “Or just have a really good high school career and stay injury free.”

One of her main goals is to teach her younger clients about the weight room and the dangers that can come with it. She shows them ­— many of whom are just beginning to work out in a weight room — how to work out safely and effectively. 

Clardy uses the Mint Personal Training Studio in Opelika to teach her clients about training in a weight room. She does the rest of her coaching outside.

She meets with clients wherever is easiest for them and gives them the space to do their workout well. 

She works in individual and small-group sessions to create a well-rounded, age-appropriate workout customized for each client.

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“We can do all sorts of fun, high-intensity interval training stuff,” Clardy said. “There are lots of options. It really just depends on the person there.”

Through her workouts, she hopes to teach her clients the right way to work out while giving them the type of workout they want, Clardy said.

These workouts are meant to prepare her clients for whatever they want, from improving their skills in a sport to preparing for a Spartan race.

Clardy said her overall goal as a trainer is to help people reach their personal fitness goals while she applies what she learned in the classroom to her new company. 

“I came back to try to learn specifically about how we learn new skills, movement skills, motor skills, and how we can teach people to more efficiently learn and perform them,” Clardy said.


Elizabeth Hurley | Community Editor

Elizabeth, senior in journalism and political science, is the community editor for The Plainsman

@lizhurley37

community@theplainsman.com


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