Terri Todd

Lorna Oppedisano

After having a career in the wellness industry for more than two decades, Terri Todd discovered the benefits of reformer pilates on her own body and knew she had found something special.

“I couldn’t believe the difference in how my body felt in comparison to the spin and HITT classes that I was teaching,” she remembered.

Terri started in the industry as a personal trainer in 1992. When she began her career, she was a single mother of two boys. The relief brought on by exercise inspired her to pursue the field professionally, earning her National Academy Sports Medicine Personal Training Certification.

Her practice began to shift when she earned a STOTT PILATES® Mat certification. Then, when her daughter began college in 2016, Terri had the ability to learn more about reformer pilates, which incorporates a reformer machine into the workout. Along with the many NASM certifications she had earned, she became STOTT PILATES® Reformer certified, as well. She found this to be helpful in conjunction with the spin and HITT classes she was teaching.

“I felt it was so much more restorative, so I started cross-training my clients, one day with traditional weight training and one day on a reformer,” she said. “I soon realized they got better results and felt better with this, so I transitioned over.”

Terri explained that a huge benefit to pilates practice is balance and restoration, as well as lengthening and strengthening of muscles, ligaments and tendons, a result of constantly moving from one exercise to the next. While other forms of exercise can compress the spine, she said, reformer pilates helps to decompress the spine.

Looking back over the past couple of years, particularly in regard to the wellness industry, Terri is thankful for the decision she made to focus on reformer pilates, as fitness facilities closed due to pandemic regulations and more people gravitated toward at-home workouts. Prior to the pandemic, Terri trained her clients out of leased space in a local fitness facility. When the facility was forced to temporarily close its doors, she began thinking about the future of the industry and what that would mean for her career. Terri knew there would be risk involved in stepping out completely on her own, but she was ready to make that move.

“It’s my path,” she said. “It’s been wonderful.”

After spending a year and a half searching for the perfect space, she found her new home for Precision Pilates at 205 Brooklea Drive in Fayetteville, where Olive on Brooklea was once housed. She is now able to hold both private sessions and group classes, with the line of reformers offering a safe space of six feet between clients. She carefully curated the atmosphere of the studio, from her choices in paint to lighting to the different essential oils she uses during sessions.

“This is where people get other things than just their workout,” she said. “They find peace here.”

With support from a couple independent contractors, including a physical therapist, Precision Pilates offers a variety of classes and sessions throughout the week to a myriad of people. While the majority of her clients come to her with back problems, she’s also helped people facing other challenges such as sports injuries, depression or menopause. From a 9-year-old competitive ice skater to a 97-year-old client, who has also been a business mentor to Terri, her client base runs the gamut, she said.

Terri feels blessed to help her clients, especially those feeling the physical effects of the pandemic.

“During these difficult couple of years that we’ve had of sedentary behavior, everybody’s needs have changed,” she explained. “Immobility has increased. Obesity has increased. Medical issues, such as diabetes, have increased.”

The art of healing and being able to read people’s bodies has always come naturally to Terri.

“I have always had this affinity to help care for people or pets,” she said, adding that healing is her calling.

Having been in her space in Fayetteville since August 2021, handling the administrative aspects of the business along with being present as an instructor for her clients can be challenging, she said. Terri credited a few people for helping her along the way: her husband, her 97-year-old client and mentor, and other women in business. Learning how to run a business is about listening to those who have already done it, she said.

She advised anyone working to start a business — wellness or otherwise — to seek out the right tools and people, like fellow female entrepreneurs or the WISE Women’s Business Center, and to have confidence along the way.

“You are so much more capable than you can give yourself credit for,” Terri said. “So, climb those stairs because at the top is a huge reward.” SWM

For more information about Precision Pilates, visit precisionpilatescny.com.