"Women are pow­er­ful be­ings," says Danielle Hart. "We un­der­es­ti­mate our strengths some­times." Hart and her hus­band, War­ren, own Spin­ner­sWorld, a car­dio cen­tre in Port of Spain. The cen­tre grew out of an ear­li­er busi­ness which on­ly of­fered Rev class­es, which were pi­o­neered by her hus­band and fa­ther in law (na­tion­al cy­cling coach Richard [Dick­ie] Hart. It now of­fers a chal­leng­ing, dy­nam­ic, full-body ex­pe­ri­ence in­clu­sive of oth­er car­dio ac­tiv­i­ties. "Rev works the en­tire body," she ex­plains, "not on­ly the out­er but the in­ner, from your mind down." Oth­er pop­u­lar of­fer­ings are TRX and Ket­tle Bell class­es, which in­volves the use of re­sis­tance bands and/or Ket­tle Bells. But as much as these regimes can work mir­a­cles on a woman's body, look­ing good isn't the on­ly things on the agen­da for most of their clien­tele – every­one has dif­fer­ent goals. "As women, you need to ex­er­cise, be­cause of the stress in our lives. You need to have that bal­ance. Even if your job in­volves ex­er­cise, you need to get away and ex­er­cise your mind and body. You have to stay healthy. You need to feel good about your­self, and ex­er­cise helps with that. Your size doesn't mat­ter."

Though her gym vis­its were pure­ly about the busi­ness of stay­ing fit, love some­how man­aged to use her quest for fit­ness to sneak in­to Hart's life; it was at a gym that she met the man she lat­er mar­ried. She now spends her days work­ing in a de­mand­ing ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tion at a ma­jor in­sur­ance com­pa­ny, and her evenings and week­ends sweat­ing it out along­side her clients. So, as a wife with a day job, two very young chil­dren, and a busi­ness that de­mands at­ten­tion, how does she man­age? "You have to have a good sup­port sys­tem – I have the best one there is and am tru­ly grate­ful. I don't know how women do it with­out one; I take my hat off to them." With Spin­ner­sWorld open every day, it's hard for Hart and her hus­band to find time for each oth­er, but they are de­ter­mined not to al­low their mar­riage to suf­fer. "We try to main­tain a re­la­tion­ship with God." The cou­ple hosts a week­ly meet­ing, where­in she and her friends share their in­ter­pre­ta­tion of The Bible and hold each oth­er up in prayer. It al­so helps that her sis­ter, Joelle Aching, is an ac­tive mem­ber of the Fam­i­lyLife pro­gramme, a faith-based in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion that holds reg­u­lar sem­i­nars aimed at heal­ing wound­ed mar­riages and help­ing strong ones thrive. Hart con­sid­ers Spin­ner­sWorld to be a "small" car­dio cen­tre...yet in­clud­ing her­self and her hus­band there are 17 in­struc­tors, as well as ad­min­is­tra­tors. For her it's more about love than mon­ey. "It's good to watch peo­ple get the ben­e­fits, and see the re­sults. That's where we get our joy."

Spin­ner­sWorld's in­struc­tors don't be­lieve in the bul­ly's school of mo­ti­va­tion, where clients are bawled at and hu­mil­i­at­ed in­to keep­ing up with the pack. Every­one goes at their own pace, al­though they are en­cour­aged to chal­lenge them­selves. The cheer­ful, up­beat mu­sic al­so keeps the class pump­ing. "I tell them, even if they're tired, don't give up. It's a mind game...BAD mind. Your mind con­trols your body. Your mind can get you past the pain." Be­ing on the bike with her class, not on the side­lines, lets her feel for her­self what they're go­ing through. Most of her clien­tele are re­al­is­tic about their ob­jec­tives and de­ter­mined to at­tain them. "You might still have a bit of a stom­ach...but what woman doesn't af­ter hav­ing two chil­dren? You just work at it un­til you're sat­is­fied." Hart's prime mo­ti­va­tion for ex­er­cis­ing may not be to look bet­ter, but she is stun­ning nonethe­less. How­ev­er, a lithe body is no match for one of the great­est side-ef­fects of a reg­u­lar ex­er­cise regime: be­ing able to in­dulge her sweet tooth. "I love to eat; my main weak­ness is creamy desserts.

I eat healthy dur­ing the week, but I be­lieve you must have one day to let go. Life is too short not to in­dulge every so of­ten." With women out­num­ber­ing men 10-1 at Spin­ner­sWorld, Hart feels ho­n­oured for her role in bring­ing about pos­i­tive change in the lives of so many of her sis­ters. She on­ly wish­es women were more sup­port­ive of each oth­er. "Women should ad­mire the beau­ty in women. Every one is beau­ti­ful in her own way. But we tend to put down, in­stead of find­ing some good qual­i­ty. I don't let it both­er me; I in­ter­act with every­body." She's re­laxed, fit, hap­py and healthy, and much of this she owes to her sense of grat­i­tude. "I look in the mir­ror and say some­thing pos­i­tive to my­self. At the end of the day I lie in bed and think of all the good that hap­pened that day, and I say 'Thank you'. I think of all the good things I want to hap­pen the next day, and say 'Thank you' again. The ef­fects are re­mark­able."