Lizz Jones
Owner & Trainer

Hi, I’m Lizz Jones, the owner of Hurt So Good Fitness. In the present, I am a certified Elite Trainer with ISSA. I got certified as a personal trainer in January of 2015 after being honorably discharged from the United States Marine Corps, where I served 5 years and achieved the rank of E-5 (Sargeant). While on active duty, towards the end of my service time, they came out with a new fitness program for Marines stationed overseas and needed to have Marines qualified as instructors for the new program. I volunteered to become an instructor and went through a week-long, 8-hour a day, qualifying course. I became certified as a TRX level 1 instructor, and a High Intensity Tactical Training Instructor in 2014.  

When I got home, I was finishing college, which I had started while in service, and got a job at the local LA Fitness. My love for fitness had already sparked and after working the counter at the gym, I decided my passion was to teach health and fitness to others. So over winter break from school, I quickly got my personal training certification and haven’t looked back since. I finished my Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice for Forensics. From there I got my Fitness Nutritionist Certification. After that I got my Master’s Degree in Business Administration, as my main goal in life was to open my own private training studio where clients could be trained in peace, away from the public gym atmosphere. I then went on to earn my Exercise Therapy Certification because I wanted to not only teach people how to exercise and eat according to their goals, but because injuries happen in life and I wanted to help people overcome those setbacks and be able to still achieve their goals. Having many injuries myself, this was very important to me. This is when ISSA gave me the title of Certified Elite Trainer. Constantly on the quest for more knowledge, I went to school yet again, and received my Vinyasa Flow Instructor certification for Yoga. My personal goal is to be as well rounded and as knowledgeable as possible to help any type of client with any goal, given any circumstance. So after my Yoga course, I went to school for my Recovery Specialist certification. I have now been instructing clients for over 10 years, and I am constantly learning and adapting my methods to fit the needs of any client that comes my way. 

My passion for fitness and helping others has a much deeper root than from just joining the military. I was very overweight growing up. I had zero knowledge of what that was or what fitness was, or the impact that it has on your health later in life. It was in 8th grade that things started to change for me. I wanted to get faster at running a mile so I could go play with friends during gym class. I started running a mile every night at home until I didn’t need to walk at all or take breaks. My older brother, who was in high school at the time in NJROTC, started to teach me about nutrition labels, serving sizes, and other body weight exercises that I could do to help me improve. By the time I started high school I had lost 20 lbs. I joined NJROTC, where I became the Commanding Officer my senior year, and decided to join the Marines after high school. At this point I still only ran and did bodyweight exercises related to physical training for the Marines. My true love for fitness started in 2013, when the talk of females having to start doing pull ups for the physical fitness test started to circulate. I couldn’t do a pull up to save my life! I started asking my male counterparts how they trained to do pull ups, and what I needed to do in order to be able to do them. They gave me a list of exercises to do at the gym and I got to work. I would Google and print out workouts to bring to the gym. I would ask any big guy in the gym what the exercises were and then do them. I was finally able to do 3 pull ups! But, 3 was not enough and I hit a plateau. Later that year, I teamed up with one of my Marines who I had overheard talking about training other Marines in a gym off base. I asked if I could join because I needed to be able to do at least 8 pull ups. He said yes, as long as I didn’t pull rank on him in the gym, to which I happily agreed. From there, he taught me all the basics of working out, how to train different muscle groups, and to overcome plateaus. I helped him with his running too. Every day of every week I was with him working hard and it paid off. I finally hit 8 pull ups before I finished my time in the Marine Corps.

During my time working out with this Marine is when they asked for volunteers to become HITT/TRX instructors and I volunteered because I wanted to learn as much as possible. This is how my love for fitness started and grew to what it is today. When I got home, I started doing Saturday workouts in my mom’s front yard with friends and neighbors and decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to have fun working out with others, while teaching them how to exercise and be healthier at the same time. 

My passion wasn’t born out of wanting to look a certain way. The looks that come along with it are just an added bonus! It was about wanting to be better and accomplish things I thought to be impossible. This is what Hurt So Good Fitness is all about. Improving yourself and your life through fitness.