About Jessica Breznau (Founder and Owner):
Before starting Southside Booty Camp, Jessica was the Founder and Executive Director of Sister Communities, a local non-profit dedicated to fostering relationships amongst the diverse communities of the Puget Sound region. She created the All Nations Cup Festival which now hosts over 40 local soccer teams, representing their homelands in a tournament that is surrounded by food, music, and dance from around the world.
Jessica has been involved in several other soccer activities for many years and you can often see her around local fields. She currently coaches a girls soccer team for the Beacon Hill Soccer Club. She has also been a soccer referee for 7 years and has been playing since age 8. She lives in the Rainier Beach area and enjoys spending her free time in her garden. She holds a certification in Outdoor Action Fitness through the American Council for Exercise, has studied C.H.E.K. (Corrective High-Performance Exercise Kinesiology as created by Paul Chek) and functional fitness philosophy and is currently training with Russian Kettlebells.
For a couple years I was in and out of physical therapy for chronic back and hip pain. I had also gained weight due to the stress of putting on large events and emotional eating. Even though I loved soccer, I was playing less and less, because I had stopped taking care of my body. I worried that I would never be able to play again. I thought, maybe this is just what happens in your 30s!
Then I discovered Boot Camp style outdoor fitness. What an eye opener. It was the jump start I needed to get out of the spiraling cycles of unhealthy habits. I rediscovered that my body is strong and it likes and needs to be worked. It thanks me for daily exercise and pays me back in super abundant energy. Most amazing is that in a month my back and hip pain disappeared, not to mention the weight loss and gain in strength. Why didn’t I know about this sooner: that my muscles just needed to be worked in a balanced and consistent way in order to maintain a pain-free and active life.
I saw that fitness is not just losing weight to look good. Fitness means that whatever your size is, that you are strong and healthy. Losing weight was a goal of mine, but it soon became secondary as my muscles gained strength, a new body started emerging that gave me, yes – super cheesy – but, ‘a new lease on life’ … And of course a nicer booty!
My journey into fitness and health inspired me to create an opportunity for women in the South Seattle neighborhoods who also desire to reclaim their bodies as their own.