Meet Shauna Harrison, PhD + ‘Sweat Dealer’

We’re lining up San Francisco’s best fitness instructors for our upcoming Virgin Sport San Francisco festival of fitness this October 14–15 — and we couldn’t be more excited to announce that Shauna Harrison will be teaching a Muscle & Flow™ class at our Go Fit Yourself line up.

We caught up with Shauna:

Who are you and where are you from?

I’m from the Bay Area, and I live here now. I never really know how to answer the question of ‘who are you or what do you do’ because I do so many things… at the base level, I am a fitness/yoga instructor building my own personal brand, I am an ambassador for a variety of brands, but I also work fulltime for Zenrez, a fitness startup.

Busy busy! Are you a runner?

I always hesitate to call myself a runner, because I feel like runners are their own breed. But I do run multiple times a week. When I was younger, though, I couldn’t even run a mile in P.E.

Now, I run a lot of hills and stairs. I run to be outside and to be away from the craziness of my life!

Running certainly is a great form of moving meditation. Where do you like to run?

I’m a big fan of Baker Beach — the Sandladder is one of my favorite places to train because it is super hard. I also run some hills in the East Bay. Sometimes I’ll run Lake Merritt. I like where I run to be epic because I run for escape and to be out in the natural world.

Who inspires you?

There isn’t one person necessarily, but I’m always trying to be better than I was the day before, the week before, the month before…

I am more inspired to be better than I am, rather than trying to be someone else.

There are a lot of people that I admire for their hustle, brains, talent, they are aspirational, yes… but what gets me up and moving and trying to do what I do is constantly to be better.

What’s been the most challenging part of your fitness journey?

Well, the beginning of my journey into fitness was tough. I couldn’t run a mile, couldn’t do a pull up, couldn’t do a push up. It wasn’t until my early teen years that I learned to love movement. I had played basketball as a kid, but that was the only physically activity that I liked, but I only liked playing, not training.

I struggled with an eating disorder and I was using fitness to lose weight and to achieve an unrealistic body ideal. I did some damage to my body and mental state along the way, but then I fell in love with the concept of movement and challenge —and used those concepts to break me from the disordered patterns that I had. Instead of focusing on what my body looked like, I began to focus on what my body was able to do.

How you feel is definitely more important than how you look. What would you say to someone who’s afraid of starting a fitness routine?

I always tell people to start with something that interests them — if you’re not intrigued by it, if you’re not going to do it. Just keep trying things and if you don’t like it, try something else. There are so many ways to move out there — just keep showing up.

Yes! One thing to try would be your Muscle + Flow class at Virgin Sport SF — can you tell us more about it?

Muscle + Flow is my signature yoga class. It’s yoga, but mixed with different things and infused with hip hop and r&b music. I take the concept of a flow class and mix in other modalities — plyometrics or strength based!

Sign up to be a part of Virgin Sport SF on October 14–15 here — and follow Shauna on Instagram to keep up with the latest!