One Woman’s Journey from Building Airplanes to Supporting Parkinson’s Patients
Sarah Underwood hasn’t always been a fitness guru. Hailing from Toronto, Canada, she started out her working career with a degree in electrical engineering working in the aerospace field on aircraft. She had been doing that for ten years before her first daughter was born. At that point, she stopped working full time to spend time with her daughter and later with her second daughter. While living in Savannah, GA, she started exercising with a group called Stroller Strong Moms. They would meet in a park with their kids to do exercise boot camp. But it wasn’t just an exercise class. It was community. They had other activities, like Moms Night Out and lent support to their members.
During that time, she realized how important the exercise was and got certified as a group fitness instructor, teaching for Stroller Strong Moms and different types of classes choreographed to music. Then the Pandemic hit. Sarah and her family moved to Denver in May 2020, so her husband could start a new job. She put her effort into supporting her kids’ educational efforts during lockdown. Then halfway through 2021, when things began to open up, she started teaching classes for the YMCA and Chuze Fitness Centers. A couple of months later, accepting an offer to work remotely as a project manager for a Toronto firm, she was back to working full time and still teaching classes. Toward the end of 2022, she found that she really loved teaching classes more than she liked her day job. There was more of a personal impact with the people she taught in her fitness classes.
So, in November 2022, she quit her day job. While teaching at the YMCA, another instructor, Bethany Labue, reached out to her with a job at Parkinson’s Pointe. Since April of 2023 she has taught FitBoxing, and recently adding Supported FitBoxing and Strength and Balance, while still teaching for the YMCA and Chuze.
“It’s a nice balance. I get to do what I love and make a difference in people’s lives, while still being able to drop my kids off at school and be involved in their activities. It’s a lot more personally rewarding to me than my aerospace career. These classes really make a difference.”
As to why she especially likes teaching at Parkinson’s Pointe, she says she saw it as an opportunity to expand her skill set, and to work with a community that may need some extra motivation or connection to keep them coming to class. By creating a fun, engaging and personal experience for the members, it will make it easier for them on the hard days to get out the door and show up.
“I enjoy the challenge of knowing our community needs extra consideration in creating their exercise routine, and the opportunities it provides me to be creative and thoughtful in my workouts. I also enjoy working with those who have made an active choice to fight for their health during a difficult time. When people come to Parkinson’s Pointe, they have made the decision to ‘make lemonade out of lemons’. My job is to take that spark that they have and help turn it in to a consistent routine that they enjoy and that continues to provide the benefits they need and deserve.”
