Welcome to Warrior Fitness!

Hello! Thank you for making your way to Warrior Fitness’ new blog. Let me start by telling you a little background about myself…

My name is Desi, and I’m a 28-year-old female currently living in North Aurora. I’ve been married nearly five years (no, no kids yet) to who I consider the world’s greatest guy, and we’re both very family oriented. How family oriented?? Well let’s just say about 95% of our family – both sides – and friends live within a 15 minute radius from us, and no one is ever allowed to leave... EVER. By trade I am a physical therapist working out of Batavia as well as a certified fitness trainer. Besides my family, my driving force is a fierce passion to learn about and provide for optimal health and wellness to every stretch of the community where I can make my presence known.

Ok enough with the standard background facts… what is Warrior Fitness and how did we get started? As previously mentioned, I am a certified physical therapist licensed in Illinois. For the past 8 years I’ve worked at an outpatient, orthopedic facility treating patients of all ages presenting with all types of diagnoses. I love my job, everything about it – the co-workers, the patients, the fast-paced mobile environment, the constant challenge, the daily learning and teaching about the interworking of the human body, how to reach the highest level of functioning in the most efficient ways possible – everything. But as I dove into my new position as the main physical therapist about two years ago, I began to notice one troubling factor more and more with each work shift… so many of the injuries I was treating could be prevented. That didn’t sit well with me, so I started to do some research and soul-searching. How could I make an impact? How could I provide education and possibly even help decrease the prevalence of preventable injuries such as generalized back pain? I have a doctorate in physical therapy… of course I could get my word out there… I thought.

NOT SO FAST. Unfortunately in the state of Illinois, physical therapists with any level of a degree are technically not allowed to provide any sort of education or advice to the community about health and wellness unless specifically authorized by a medical doctor. (Btw I have a clinical doctorate, not a medical doctorate… semantics I suppose). But that wasn’t going to stop me! So I decided after 8 years of college, it was time to hit the books again and become a certified fitness trainer through the International Sports and Sciences Association (ISSA). Fast forward six months and I now had a whole bunch of fancy letters after my name AND the ability to educate and work with the general public. And so the fitness endeavors began.

It’s only natural that my fitness classes were run out of the Defense Training Institute, a martial arts studio that has been and still is a home to me since I was 14 years old. My uncle, Eddie Perez (known to me as Tío Eddie) has owned and operated the school for over 20 years. After recently retiring as commander of the Batavia police department, he too decided to obtain a certified fitness trainer license through the ISSA. From there, we put our heads together, and Warrior Fitness was born! Our mission two-fold. First we aim to provide education about fitness and nutrition to all members of our community in hopes of helping each person obtain an optimal level of functioning on an individual basis. Second we hope to help create an environment in which health and wellness is recognized as a fundamental aspect of living a long, happy life.

So what exactly do we offer? Warrior Fitness provides both group classes and individual sessions designed to not only provide the most efficient work outs possible, but also take into account clients’ individual characteristics and circumstances. Our goal is to help YOU become your healthiest self, so the focus is on YOU. Current services provided include: one-on-one personal training, Warrior Fit group circuit training Fit-to-Fight CardioKickboxing, Combat Conditioning, and nutritional guidance.

As far as this blog is concerned, you can expect to find the following: updates about the Defense Training Institute and Warrior Fitness, new fitness-oriented articles monthly from yours truly, Warrior Fitness recipes of the week, and answers to any questions you may have for me. Do you want to get in better shape but don’t know where to start? Are you unsure about proper nutritional habits or what a good calorie count for you looks like? Any questions you may have about a certain topic regarding health and wellness… please let know, and I will address them on this site (or with you individually if you prefer).

If you’ve made it this far into my first blog post, I sincerely appreciate that you have taken the time to read it all.

Until next time warriors!

~Desi