Ambassador Spotlight: Shauna Harrison, PhD
Before Instagram fitness influencers were all throughout Instagram, Shauna Harrison, PhD, was sharing her fitness and health knowledge with her growing audience.
Today, she’s a trainer, yoga teacher, writer, brand ambassador, and adjunct professor based in the Bay Area. We caught up with Shauna to share her story, which begins as a high school senior working out for all the wrong reasons.
A Fitness-Driven Origin Story
While in college, she began teaching fitness as a way to stay active without playing college sports. It was during this time that she began to re-center her relationship to fitness by continuing to workout, but with a different mindset.
This continued focus on building a healthier lifestyle soon led her to pursue academia, going first to Stanford, then to UCLA and Johns Hopkins, where she graduated with her PhD in public health. And this is where her unique focus on fitness and public health really begins.
Shauna has always been interested in health, specifically body image, nutrition, and chronic diseases. Completing her PhD was a way to expand her knowledge and experience to help people build healthier lives.
As is typical for Shauna, though, she didn’t believe she had to be just one thing. Which is why she soon began to build a presence online sharing her expertise while teaching fitness classes near Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.
Helping Others Live Healthier Lives in Person and Online
When Shauna initially started promoting her classes on Facebook, social media isn’t what it is today. There were no fitness influencers, giving her an opportunity to build her niche in an uncrowded market. This growth led to Underarmour offering her first brand partnership and launching a new facet of her career.
Once Shauna moved back to the Bay Area during a break from higher education, she began teaching at local studios while starting the #SWEATADAY challenge to encourage people to move every day while also building a community online.
This led to more brand partnership opportunities, bringing attention to products that help people build healthier lives. As her platform has grown, Shauna continues to deliver great workout ideas and the motivation to see it through. Part of why Shauna has this extensive platform, though, is that background in academia and public health.
Using an Academic Background to Analyze Fitness Trends
As social media continues to drive fitness trends, Shauna is in a unique position to think critically about them. Her background in public health and training certifications help determine what movements and diets are helpful. And which aren’t.
This is part of why she dedicates her time to writing for Self, MindBodyGreen, Yoga Digest, Glamour, and more. She focuses on the science behind these trends, and makes the science accessible to readers of all fitness levels so they can determine what is authentic and what should be avoided.
Creating a Life and Career You Want
In addition to her busy fitness and academic teaching schedule and her work with publications and brands, Shauna preaches the results of consistent hard work. (And a little luck.) She believes that it’s possible to truly love who you are while creating a life and career you want. Her current career wasn’t planned, but she couldn’t imagine it any other way.
She’s taken her passion for fitness and movement and paired it with being her true, complete self online, choosing to stand out in a world of people choosing perfection over progress and honesty.
Incorporating Recovery into an Active Lifestyle
Staying active and pushing your limits is an important part of living a healthy life. But recovery is just as important. Shauna enjoys all kinds of movement, from running to yoga and cycling to boxing, and says that Reboot is an essential piece of her recovery puzzle.
Because, to an extent, Shauna believes that people are over-trained and under-recovered. This is just one of the reasons why we’re excited to partner with her. San Francisco needs a recovery do-over!
When asked about which therapy is her favorite, Shauna immediately says sauna. “My functional medicine doctor recommended sauna as a way to help me physically, and it’s a big part of my wellness routine,” she explains. Our spectrum infrared sauna helps the body better stimulate metabolic activity to help detox through sweat, as well as the liver and kidneys.
She also enjoys floating for both the physical and mental benefits in the midst of a busy career. Floating helps ease physical soreness while revitalizing the mind through sensory deprivation. In a world where notifications tend to rule our lives, floating for an hour away from phones, work, and life can help support a better mental state.
Reboot’s Value to the Bay Area Fitness Scene
“Any recovery is highly needed. People have to rest,” Shauna says. Because not enough people are focusing on recovery and are instead going at 100% intensity in every workout, Shauna believes that Reboot has a unique place in the Bay Area fitness scene.
Whether you enjoy the sauna, cryotherapy, or floating, these services help professional and every day athletes achieve more by taking a step back and focusing on mental health and recovery.
Shauna describes Reboot in two words: rejuvenating and calming. If you’re ready to rejuvenate and re-center your day with calm, we’d love to help you make the most of each of our services. Sauna and floating can help you relax, while cryotherapy gives you the desired mental boost and physical recovery in just three minutes.
We’re proud to partner with Shauna and can’t wait to see what the coming year brings for her. To learn more about her favorite recovery techniques, give us a call at (415) 800-2011 or visit here to book your session at one of our three Bay Area locations.