Highschool timeframe
Me sharing my journey started in high school. I tore my right ACL and meniscus my freshman year in a soccer game and my mom encouraged me to start a YouTube channel to talk about my experience with this. First video about this here. I went through the full recovery and shared videos about therapy/home workouts/stretches/mental aspects of the situation to try to encourage other athletes as they went through the same/similar injuries.
As I was getting my touch on the ball back and building my confidence, my junior year rolled around. I then tore my left ACL and meniscus. Very Derrick Rose of me, I know 😛 Soccer felt so far away and my heart broke a little more than the first time I experienced this freshman year. Video about this here.
So of course I circled back to the YouTube channel and shared my second story of learning how to be resilient as a person while being patient with my body. Since then, I have continued to share all sorts of tips and tricks on my social media. I even started using a hashtag on snapchat called #collegetipswithbrooke that focused on easy life hacks that you can implement in your college experience. This whole time I was doing Pilates in my room and did not use weights as part of my fitness journey.
College timeframe
During the winter of 2019/2020, my neighbor Ashley was creating work out plans for her sister, my sisters, and me so that we could all workout together. Ashley would videotape our workouts as a time lapse, post them to her Instagram, and then tag me. She would also post videos of her working out alone, videos of moves she recommended, and body updates. I wanted to do this just like Ashley because I knew how much seeing her posts made me want to go get better. At first I felt weird sharing videos of myself working out to other people’s timelines, but eventually it built up my confidence for what I was doing with myself and my body.
As covid became more prevalent in the US and we spent more time indoors, I really got into sharing videos of myself doing workouts or yoga poses that I found new and exciting. One day, one of my friends tagged me in an Instagram photo that said something along the lines of “if you have been debating about starting a fitness Instagram, just do it already.”
That is when breakawaywithbrooke came to be.
Present day
I am starting this blog so that I can have my thoughts and ideas in one central location. I also love the idea of others growing with me as I grow because I believe that we can all be better, together. I am hoping that more frequent check-ins will help keep us all on a positive track.
crutches and ACL braces long gone 😉 2020
At this point, I have really spent the last 2-3 years learning about myself mentally/emotionally. I have also been learning about my body, and learning how to work to connect my mind and body in the healthiest, most sustainable way that I can. I post on all my platforms so that I have a collection of raw and inspiring posts to help me move forward. I hope that you can take something away from this visit today that will help you take one more step towards the version of yourself that you want to be.
2023, Boston living, working towards getting my PhD in Biomedical Engineering