Karen Chapman Lifts Heavy and with a Purpose

Spending the day with Karen Chapman you may come to think that she doesn’t ever stop moving. Whether she’s in the gym or on her way to meet with a client, or at home making meals for the next day, she’s always on the go, constantly in motion. She’s like a shark in that way. A shark that’s a licensed hair stylist.

I met Karen on her way to our first filming location. It was her second or third training session of the day. She had been up since 5 that morning. I…had not.

She walked a young girl through a session, testing her limits and pushing her body farther than it had gone the day before. By the end of the session the young girl was out of breath and we were just getting started.

Immediately after the first session we are on our way to the next. A twenty minute drive with Massachusetts traffic and then right into another workout with another teenage girl. An hour later we were on our way to the gym where she exercised for the camera more intensely than most people work out for their whole session at Planet Fitness.

After workout we had both worked up an appetite and sometimes you just got to treat yo self.

Karen’s not shy about her love of a good burger. “I have a very healthy relationship with food,” she said, “if I want a burger. I eat a burger. Everything in moderation mine just happens to be a little bit more on the bad side than the good side.”

After eating a massive cheeseburger at Five Guys we drove further into Boston for an interview and some additional filming and that’s where I met Karen’s daughter Mariah, who’s is 19 years old and the most important person in Karen’s life.

“We’re like a team,” she says, “it’s really awesome being a single mom and raising her on my own. She’s blossomed and developed based on the way she was raised. I couldn’t imagine a life without her.”

Starting the day with Karen Chapman I had the sense that she never stops moving and by the end of it I totally understood why.