Does Denver really need another gym?
This is the question I asked myself when one of Compass’ founders called to tell me they were selling Compass and asked whether I was interested in buying it. You see, I’ve wanted to build my own gym since my twenties, and when Heather called me in early 2024, it felt like the universe was presenting me with the perfect opportunity.
I’ll be honest: my first reaction was to say no because, in my observation, Denver didn’t need another gym that was the same as the rest. So many gyms promise to help you achieve your fitness goals and join the best community around. Plenty claim to be “no ego” and welcoming, yet when you walk in, you can feel the opposite among members and instructors alike. I remember walking into one such gym and being sized up by members who didn’t know me and barely greeted by the instructor. I’m a fitness professional who can hold her own in any group class or weight room, and even I felt intimidated. I can’t imagine how others might feel!
I taught and trained at Compass in 2020 and remember it feeling different. But several years had passed, and I didn’t know whether Compass was still the same or had become another ego-driven space that claimed to be different but wasn’t. Then, halfway through my master’s program, Heather called me with the perfect opportunity to make my dream a reality: a gym with a community that shows up for themselves and each other.
What’s Missing from Fitness?
Many gyms and traditional forms of intense exercise emphasize external performance metrics, aesthetics, and achievement while neglecting psychological growth and internal awareness (1, 2). That may not sound bad until we recognize that it fosters a culture of disembodied movement—a disconnection from internal body sensations.
What I’m going to say next might be somewhat controversial, but the world doesn’t need another gym that only helps people get stronger, faster, or fitter. And don’t get me wrong: focusing on physical and physiological improvements is what keeps us in business and, quite frankly, keeps humans healthy and alive. But what good is being physically healthy and strong if you’re not psychologically healthy and strong?
My Personal Mission
A few years before Heather called me, I was talking to my mom about my psychology degree, which had seemingly gone unused. I ditched my psych degree because I didn’t want to diagnose and treat mental disorders, which is what much of psychology had become. I also didn’t want to spend my days “sitting around talking to people” when I knew that talking alone wasn’t enough to achieve the change most people desire. Movement and action are key ingredients in moving forward. Then my mom asked me, “Well, what if you could be different?” It was with that simple question that I discovered Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology. These fields look at the whole person and their potential, and use coaching to help individuals flourish and thrive. Positive psychology isn’t about diagnosing and treating disease; it’s about working with people to help them achieve balanced and fulfilling lives across the core dimensions of psychological well-being and happiness (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment, and health)(3).
Through my work with my own personal training clients, I also experienced the power of combining intense exercise with intentional coaching. It can have a profound impact on the self, often increasing positive embodiment (how we inhabit our bodies through social experiences; 4), self-awareness, self-regulation, and several other positive outcomes. But I didn’t have the formal training, education, or research to back it up. So I went back to school to earn my Master of Science in Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology. I envisioned opening a coaching psychology-driven fitness space that combined intense training with intentional coaching to provide members with physical and psychological benefits through exercise. And THAT’S the type of gym Denver (and the world) needs.
I spent nearly three years in grad school studying the intersection of intense exercise and embodiment. I designed a theoretical framework and an exercise intervention for increasing positive embodiment through intense exercise. But why did I dedicate my studies, and now my life, to cultivating positive embodiment in myself, my clients, and the Compass community?
Research links positive embodiment to enhanced well-being, including positive body image (5), life satisfaction (6), and self-esteem (7). It has a profound influence on physical and psychological health. I wanted Compass to be a place that fosters positive embodiment both within our walls and beyond them. This was the core mission of my dissertation.
Research also shows that many traditional forms of intense exercise prioritize performance, aesthetics, and external metrics over internal connection, contributing to a culture of disembodied movement at intensity (1, 2). In exercise settings, distraction or disconnection can lead to dysfunctional behaviors such as ignoring pain signals (8), under- or overexertion (9), and negative rebound effects from suppressed internal cues (10).
The absence of embodiment-focused interventions in intense exercise settings represents both a research gap and a missed opportunity. Exercise science grounded in the dual-mode theory of affective responses to exercise (11) suggests that people naturally shift inward at higher intensities to regulate effort using internal physiological cues. This presents a promising entry point for cultivating internal connection and embodiment. When done intentionally, we can reframe intense exercise as a space for internal connection and self-awareness alongside performance.
But becoming “stronger mentally” is vague, and TBH, many gyms already talk about this. I’m curious how many spaces intentionally do it. Which spaces are guided by the latest exercise science and psychological research? Which apply positive psychology interventions and strategically bring them to life? Yes, we can find this in yoga and Pilates studios, but I think we all know the mental release that comes from slamming a medicine ball after a hard day, getting a deadlift PR, or finally completing a flawless Turkish get-up. With a trained coach who knows what to say and when, you might leave ready to crush your next fitness goal and perhaps also ready to ask for that promotion, take that trip, or ask that person out.
What This Means For Compass
What does the world need? The world needs a space that helps you get both physically stronger, faster, and fitter and supports psychological and emotional growth. We combine intense physical exercise with intentional, research-backed coaching to help you build what you need to thrive inside and outside the gym. That combination is why I bought Compass and is the vision that guides us: a space that delivers efficient, effective fitness classes and powerful coaching, resulting in you becoming stronger physically and psychologically.
While so much of gym and fitness culture focuses on external metrics—how much you’re lifting, how you look, and how strong you are—Compass exists to do things differently.
Compass Fitness aims to be a positive embodiment-driven fitness studio. We draw on embodiment and psychological research, exercise science, and positive psychology practices to provide an effective (and fun as hell) workout and a felt sense of positive internal connection and self-awareness.
The theories I studied in grad school suggest that, when thoughtfully guided and effectively applied, the intense exercise we do at Compass can be a powerful avenue for cultivating positive embodiment.
I have personally witnessed the transformative power of embodied living. Integrating embodiment practices with intense exercise has allowed me to observe positive changes associated with increased body attunement and embodied agency: listening to, trusting, and responding to bodily signals in ways that align with personal needs (4). By combining my studies with Compass, I hope to extend this impact more broadly.
When you leave Compass, you should feel proud of the work you achieved inside our walls, and you could also start to feel like you can achieve anything outside them. What we call “a high five and a hell yeah!”
You may have noticed that we started a “Focus of the Month.” This is where we focus on the psychological aspects of intense training, and every coach at Compass is being educated on the focus and how to bring it alive in class.
We quietly launched our coaching psychology offering for those who want one-on-one guidance. We have also started to educate you on the why behind our programming: why we choose those moves, why we put them in that order, and what benefits you can expect. This is how we abolish junk training and deliver the type of training that moves you toward your physical goals.
If we do our jobs right, you might not notice much has changed. But if you pay attention, you’ll hear us start to educate you about body awareness, interoception, embodiment, resilience, and grit—and how our workouts can help increase these psychological aspects.
This is a big ship to set on a new course, and it will take some time. But I believe that once we get this all implemented, you won’t be able to imagine training anywhere else. You’ll stick around because we offer more than just a booty-kicking workout: we offer you the chance to uplevel your life, physically and psychologically.
Be Well,
Sunnee
Sunnee is the owner of Compass Fitness and holds an MSc in Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology. She is a positive psychology practitioner and coaching psychologist, certified personal trainer, and certified health and nutrition coach, with more than 20 years of experience in health and fitness. Her work brings together movement, intentional coaching, and positive psychology to help people grow beyond the workout.
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Supporting Research
Porcari, J. P. & Foster, C. (2010). Exercise physiology. In C. X. Bryant & D. J. Green (Eds.), Essentials of exercise science for fitness professionals (pp. 67-92). American Council on Exercise.
SantaBarbara, N. J., Whitworth, J. W., & Ciccolo, J. T. (2017). A systematic review of the effects of resistance training on body image. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 31(10), 2880-2888. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000002135
Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Free Press.
Piran, N. (2017). The developmental theory of embodiment: Discovering paths in the body journeys of girls and women. In N. Piran (Ed.), Journeys of embodiment at the intersection of body and culture (pp.1-42). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-805410-9.00001-3
Menzel, J. E., & Levine, M. P. (2010). Embodying experiences and the promotion of positive body image: The example of competitive athletics. In R. M. Calogero, S. Tantleff-Dunn, & J. K. Thompson (Eds.), Self-objectification in women: Causes, consequences, and counteractions (pp. 163-186). https://doi.org/10.1037/12304-008
Gattario, K. H., Frisén, A., Teall, T. L., & Piran, N. (2020). Embodiment: Cultural and gender differences and associations with life satisfaction. Body Image, 35, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2020.07.005
Piran, N., Teall, T. L., & Counsell, A. (2023b). The experience of embodiment scale: Development and psychometric evaluation. Body Image, 34, 117-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2020.05.007
Calogero, R. M., Tylka, T. L., McGilley, B. H., & Pedrotty-Stump, K. N. (2019). Attunement with Exercise (AWE). In T. L. Tylka (Ed.) Handbook of positive body image and embodiment (pp. 80-C8.P62). Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/med-psych/9780190841874.003.0009
Wallman-Jones, A., Perakakis, P., Tsakiris, M., & Schmidt, M. (2021). Physical activity and interoceptive processing: Theoretical considerations for future research. In International Journal of Psychophysiology, 166, 38-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2021.05.002
Farb, N., Daubenmier, J., Price, C. J., Gard, T., Kerr, C., Dunn, B. D., Klein, A. C., Paulus, M. P., & Mehling, W. E. (2015). Interoception, contemplative practice, and health. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(JUN). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00763
Ekkekakis, P. (2009). The dual-mode theory of affective responses to exercise in metatheoretical context: II. bodiless heads, ethereal cognitive schemata, and other improbable dualistic creatures, exercising. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2(2), 139-160. https://doi.org/10.1080/17509840902829323