Karen Seraphine adopts new fitness regimen using sequential
muscle movements
She’s been a recreational gymnast and a personal trainer for the
past 15 years, but the greatest workouts that Karen Seraphine ever
had didn’t include weights, equipment or jumping exercises.
Karen Seraphine adopts new fitness regimen using sequential muscle movements
She’s been a recreational gymnast and a personal trainer for the past 15 years, but the greatest workouts that Karen Seraphine ever had didn’t include weights, equipment or jumping exercises.
Instead, her workouts now focus on a workout that’s called T-Tapp. Developed in the early 1990s in Florida by Teresa Tapp, it’s a series of sequential muscle movements designed to put the body in proper functional alignment.
Seraphine first got into the unique method of working out last summer and has been doing it ever since.
“It’s phenomenal,” said Seraphine, who owns and operates a small personal training facility out a converted garage at her home in Gilroy. “Its focus is to build muscle density as opposed to bulk. It’s like the chiropractor meets stretching.”
In June, the 38-year-old trainer plans to start teaching T-Tapp for both Morgan Hill’s and Gilroy’s recreation departments while continuing to teach from her home.
Seraphine, 38, who holds a master’s degree in physical education from New York University with a concentration in fitness management, is the only certified T-Tapp instructor in the area. She became certified in T-Tapp in January. Now she hopes to spread the word of its benefits.
“It’s like the physical therapy approach to exercise,” Seraphine said. “It works your muscles smarter, not harder. It works the muscles layer by layer. It makes the big muscles fatigue so that the small ones have to work.”
Seraphine points out that in normal exercise the person who’s working out works one muscle at a time. In T-Tapp it’s not uncommon to work several muscles at a time.
In demonstrating how T-Tapp works, Seraphine made a typical flex of her bicep muscle and then flexed it again using the techniques of T-Tapp. In the typical bicep flex, Seraphine contracted and released her muscle or tightened and relaxed it. In T-Tapp, “you keep everything tight as your making the movement. The contraction never releases.”
As a result, the workouts are more effective, which is good news for anyone wishing to lose weight, Seraphine said.
“I’ve lost eight inches in one month doing this,” Seraphine said. “And my energy levels have skyrocketed with this. As a trainer, this is the first thing that made me really think ‘wow.'”
Now she’s says she just wants to get the word out there about T-Tapp and is offering anyone who is interested a free, one-hour session at her studio to introduce them to the workout, which also claims to establish better alignment, increased strength and flexibility of the spine, lymphatic function and metabolic rate.
Her normal rate is $50 per hour.
“I still believe in the older stuff (common workout routines) but I would let other trainers know that they should try this and feel the difference,” said Seraphine, who guarantees that her students will see results using her method for just 15 minutes a day. “It’s like a left/right mind/body connection where you’re very focused on everything that you are doing.”
Seraphine is holding a contest through the end of March on her website: www.T-Tapp.com/California Winners of the contest will receive a free T-Tapp video and workout with Seraphine, who is one of two certified instructors in the entire Bay Area.
“I will take the contest winners measurements before and six weeks later, and they will see results,” Seraphine said.
Seraphine grew up in New York. Her parents were avid fitness buffs, which helped pave her interest in overall fitness. In fact, her mother has been doing T-Tapp since 1999.
“I started joining gyms as soon as they (the gym) would let me,” Seraphine said. “I’ve been working out all my life.”
It was through recreational body building that she met her husband, Steve, 13 years ago.
“We used to workout together,” said Seraphine, who was bench pressing 225 pounds at the time despite being only 117 pounds and standing 5-foot-2-inches tall.
She moved to California with her husband in 1997. Up until last year Seraphine had been a personal trainer at Xtreme Fitness in Morgan Hill but left in July to start HomeRun Personal Training out of her garage.
For additional information, Seraphine can be reached at 408-981-1566.
