Fitness instructor Roz Mays is challenging everything the fitness industry gets wrong. Growing up plus-size in a cardio-obsessed sports world, Roz shares how the industry’s fixation on thinness and extreme strength leaves everyday people feeling disconnected from fitness and athletics. In this episode, she talks about discovering her own strength through pole dancing, redefining what it means to be an athlete, and why weight loss isn’t the same as success.

We unpack common fitness myths, how shame impacts motivation, how new trends like GLP-1s impact the search for an easy button to health, how to build a healthier relationship with your body and how you can get into fitness even if gyms intimidate you, you’ve tried before, or life pulled you away.

Roz Mays’ career began in 2011 at a pole dancing studio in Brooklyn. Over the last decade, she has gone on to teach TRX, BOSU, conditioning, and flexibility classes in 42 different states and 10 countries. She’s been featured on the Tamron Hall Show, in Talks at Google, in Self and Glamour magazine and more. She has dedicated many late nights at the gym to helping non traditional and underrepresented athletes overcome gym-timidation and making fitness accessible to everyone.

Follow Roz on Instagram, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube and LinkedIn. Book her services at her website. 

Connect with Megan on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Follow The Middle on Instagram, Threads, YouTube, and LinkedIn.