Today we’d like to introduce you to Slava Achildiev.
Slava, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My family and I immigrated from Russian back in 1989. I was the oldest out of three kids I was 11 years old my middle brother was 10 and my youngest brother was 7 neither one of us or my parents spoke any English. My parents came to America for a better life and to build a better future for us. After being in America 24 days my parents found a job and started working hard to raise our family and put food on the table. Mom went to school during the day to study English and eventually becoming a register nurse at Mass General Hospital my dad past his driving test and got licensed to be Boston Cab driver. My parents leaned on me to take care of my brothers.
In my high school years I was always active with sports by playing soccer, basketball, volleyball, and also ran track the 300m hurtles but never was on varsity teams. I didn’t relay know what or who I wanted to become when I grew up but I always loved physical and mental challenges. I ended up majoring in auto mechanics in high school and liked taking engines apart and fixing them. When I was graduating high school there was a tremendous pressure on me on what collage I should go to and who I should become, although as much as I liked auto mechanics I never felt that I loved it. After graduating high school I ended up joining Franklin Institute of Boston and majoring in auto mechanics. I went to that school for one semester and ended up dropping out and joining the US Army.
Of course my parents were against it at first, and told me that they won’t let me go. They gave me this speech that we left Russia because of how bad the military there was and they wanted to make sure that none of their kids would go through what they went through in Russia. No matter how hard or how much they tried to talk me out of it I still had that urge to join the army and fight for our freedom. I went in to the Army in May of 1997 as a tank mechanic served 3 years and also was deployed to Bosnia for 9 months then got out may 20 2000.
After the Army I went to college and got my associate degree in small business management. I knew a part of me wanted to be in customer service but didn’t know what field I wanted to be in. I jumped around from working at dealerships to restaurant management to office management and still didn’t know exactly what I relay wanted to do until I meet my wife.
When I met my wife she was studying to be a physical therapist and was always stressed out with school, so she and I started going to the gym together to melt our stress away, at that point I started to understand who I wanted to become. I felt like all throughout my carrier I was always good on giving advice and making people feel better just in the wrong field. Every time I entered the gym I always felt I was in a different world. I started to read more and more books about benefits of exercise building muscles, and being stronger, and how your mood affects your day if you are not active. I ended up taking a certified personal trainer course with ISSA and got certified as a personal trainer.
After I got certified as a personal trainer I started to work at Fitness Together in Brookline, Radovan who is the owner of Fitness Together franchise in Brookline taught me not only how to be a personal trainer but how to become a Fitness Coach. There is a big difference between coaching than training. I coach my clients not only to reach there fitness goals but also how to stay fit till the day we die. I worked at fitness together for about 3 years and then decided to open my own business by providing in home fitness coaching.
I understood the biggest problem in America is that we think we are free but our freedom comes with a big price by being slaves to our work. The biggest complaint that I get from my clients of reaching their fitness goals were that they don’t have time to go to the gym because of work, school, or kids. So I decided I would go on a mission and try to free as many people from their limitations and be there for them at their time and their convenience.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Obstacles? Here is a little secret there are always gonna be obstacles down the road, as soon as you tackle one another will appear no matter how hard you try to make it perfect, and that’s the way I like it. Imagine life being perfect for you, where you don’t have to worry about anything money, work school, if that would be the case then it will be boring to live in this world. It is with in our nature to want more than what we have so we always gonna create obstacles and challenge ourselves to be greater than where we are now.
Yes, coming from a secured steady job Monday through Friday 8-5 with all the benefits like medical, vacation time, personal days, and holidays off, too entrepreneur world there is always that challenge and fear of failing that keeps me moving forward. For me that was my biggest hurdle of starting from scratch with a family of two small kids, but the fear of failing was the biggest motivator for me to prevail and be the best fitness coach for my clients.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Slava’s Freedom Fitness – what should we know?
Slava’s Freedom Fitness is about being free by staying Fit. What I mean by staying Fit means that you are always free to do whatever and whenever you want with any limitations. In this life if you don’t have your health you don’t have a life no matter how much money you got. I bring the ease and comfort to my clients straight to their front door at their time and their convenience. The number one compliant I hear from people is that they want to be fit but never have the time to go to the gym, or if they do end up going to the gym most of the time they don’t know what to do and get lost in their thought until they give up. We work with many verity of clients like CEO, VP, Directors, Lawyers, Doctors, Professors, College Students, Teenage kids it don’t matter what your fitness goal is we always make it fun and achievable.
We specialize in everything and anything with what the clients want, you don’t need the whole gym to have a great workout you don’t need to buy any special equipment, we will bring everything we would need with us weather it is a TRX, Bosu, Bands, Kettlebells. With us it’s always about our clients and never about us. We strive to help our clients reach their fitness goal no matter what the fitness goal might be. We work with clients who wants run any races like 5k, 10k, half marathon, and also obstacle course races, and also work with clients who just want to stay fit.
What sets us apart is that right from the beginning we take the time with our clients and talk with them about their fitness goals. We talk about their past and about their future goals, we find out what exactly they are trying to accomplish. By taking the time and talking with our clients that gives us a better view of what type stress level they are under in their personal life and gives us a better understanding on how exactly we can help them achieve their fitness goal. Before we start any workouts we first do a full body assessment with body measurements we check their upper body, lower body strength, and their flexibility. This would be very important to us because we don’t want to overload our clients to a point where they get hurt and not be able to reach their fitness goal. We use Functional Movement Screening to determine their core strength how mobile and flexible the client really is and what are their limitations. Once we do the testing we specifically tailored the workout towards the clients’ goal based on the results of the physical assessment test. We would then set a goal for long term and short term and reassess every 4-6 weeks. By doing these assessments with clients it gives a clear picture in black and white with their results, and then this way they are not standing in front of the mirror guessing “did I lose weight or not?” I think these pants are used be tight or they are not tight now? Once the clients sees the results written on paper they get even more motivated to do better, their confidence goes up and they are much more happier at home, work, and with themselves.
My most proud moments are my clients achieving something that they’ve never thought they could ever achieve. I have clients who never thought they could run a 5k in their lives and now all of the sudden they are doing half marathons or marathons. I have clients who came to me with low self-esteem who couldn’t even do one push up or a sit up and now all of a sudden they running Triathlons, Spartan Races, Tough Mudderes and other obstacle races they can find.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I feel that my past experience and my mental toughness made me who I am today. A wise man always said it’s good to know a little about everything rather than a lot about one thing. The fact that I jumped from one carrier to another gave me a better understanding on life and who I really wanted to become, by joining the United States Army prepared me for mental toughness, how to lead, and how motivate. My clients always tell me that they can’t wait for our workout session because it’s not just a workout for them but also therapy, they call me “Dr. Phil”.
Pricing:
- $100/session
- $1,100/12 sessions
- $1,760/20 sessions
- 2-4 small group $35/session
Contact Info:
- Address: 83 Clematis Ave
Waltham MA,
02453 - Website: www.slavasfreedomfitness.com
- Phone: 857-636-9172
- Email: slavafirstclass@yahoo.com
- Instagram: @slavasfreedomfitness
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SlavasFreedomFitness/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/slavas-freedom-fitness-waltham
Image Credit:
Reebok Spartan Race, Bone frog
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
