When Xiaomin “X” Xue shared his sexuality with his parents after graduating high school, they kicked him out of the house. 

“I first came out as a lesbian because that’s who I thought I was, with how masculine I presented,” says the 30-year-old, Austin-based sous chef. “It wasn’t until I got to college and learned about the trans community that I realized who I really am.” 

Today, Xue is proud to identify as a transgender Chinese American man, but reaching this point wasn’t easy.

“I was afraid of losing the friends I had in college and losing my job,” he says. “But it had gotten to a point where I had to live as myself.” Once he transitioned, Xue was relieved that his friends and coworkers accepted him. “I was able to finally be happy,” he says. 

Fitness played a major part in Xue’s transition by helping him feel like his most authentic self. “It allows me to be more aligned on the outside with how I feel on the inside,” he says. He began lifting weights in college, but later fell into a slump when his demanding job left little time for exercise. 

Without a workout routine, Xue’s old doubts about his body came creeping back. “I didn’t feel good about how I looked,” he says. That’s when he bought his Tonal so he could strength train at home on his own schedule.

“Working out physically transformed my body into what I’ve always imagined it could be,” he says. “It gave me the confidence that I never had before. I stand a little taller, feel prouder of the skin I’m in, and feel more at home with my body.” On Tonal, he enjoys the Divide and Conquer program because it’s similar to the bodybuilding splits he used to do at the gym, focusing on a different muscle group each workout. 

Besides offering guided sweat sessions, Tonal also became a source of encouragement for Xue. He found support in the Tonal community, and especially the Tonal LGBTQ+ & Allies Facebook group. “I thought I was just getting a great machine to work out on at home,” he says. “I never expected to be able to connect and meet some amazing people like I have.” 

Community has been especially important for Xue after losing the support of his family.  “Blood doesn’t make family. Love does,” he says. “I am incredibly lucky that I have people who are accepting of me 100 percent of the way.” He credits his loving circle of friends, both online and off, with helping him stay strong. 

Xue’s newfound pride and confidence motivated him to share his story and inspire others going through a similar struggle. The Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing increase in violence against Asian Americans also made Xue aware of the need to improve representation of Asians in the trans community. When he was transitioning, Xue didn’t have many role models who looked like him, but he’s determined to change that.

“I want to be visible for those out there who don’t know we exist. We’re your neighbors, and we’re doing great things with our lives,” he says. “I have to be vocal and stand up for what I believe in.” 

For anyone who doesn’t yet feel safe embracing their identity, he wants to send the message that it’s okay to be yourself. “The more comfortable you are with yourself, the more you allow yourself to grow,” he says. 

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As an internal medicine doctor, Alvin Rivera took pride in always being able to answer his patients’ questions. That all changed when the Covid-19 pandemic struck. The novel, rapidly-mutating virus left him—and the rest of the medical field—in the dark. 

“This wasn’t anything we’ve ever seen before,” said Rivera, who works in an Oakland, California-area hospital. “That level of uncertainty was unsettling. You want to be confident when it comes down to someone’s health, but we didn’t know what to expect.”

The decisions Rivera made impacted his patients’ health, as well as the safety of his colleagues and family. “It’s a lot of weight to put on yourself,” the father of three said in an interview with Tonal. 

Over the next two years, Rivera’s emotions ran the gamut of extremes. “At first it was fear of the unknown,” he explained. “The fear was a real thing. When you see a coworker die just trying to do her job, you’re grieving, and you’re upset. That was gut-wrenching.” 

The arrival of Covid-19 vaccines gave him reason to hope, but that hope turned to frustration  when some people chose not to be vaccinated. “There were many patients doing the best they could to protect themselves from the virus, but it was heartbreaking to see people who refused to get vaccinated show up sick in our hospital,” he said. 

Like many healthcare workers, Rivera was burned out. Between the long hours, emotional stress, and risk of getting sick himself, Rivera had every reason to give up, but he never quit. Understanding that he was in a unique position to do good during the pandemic made him stick it out; as he said, “If someone like me is not around to help, who is?” 

One constant in Rivera’s life that kept him pushing through this tumultuous time was his workout routine.  

Rivera’s Tonal arrived in February 2020, only weeks before his hospital saw its first Covid-19 patient. He was already working out on Tonal nearly every day and he wasn’t about to let the pandemic interrupt his streak. “The hardest thing to do is get started,” he said. “But once you get going, it becomes hard to stop.” 

Even with his erratic schedule—working up to 14 days in a row at the hospital—and three young kids at home, Rivera kept waking up at 5 a.m. each morning before his shift to get in a workout. “It becomes a daily thing like brushing your teeth,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like work. It’s part of life.”

While Rivera said Tonal’s data tracking and his drive to reach new milestones—he’s lifted 14 million pounds and counting—fueled his consistency, his workouts also gave him the mental strength to be more present as a doctor, father, and husband. 

“To be there for other people, you have to be there for yourself,” he said. “Tonal was that refuge for me. It was that hour a day that was for me.” 

After tackling a tough workout before a shift, Rivera knew he could take on any challenges the day had in store for him. “I would rather use Tonal’s Burnout Mode than let work at the hospital burn me out,” he said. “If you appropriately stress your body through exercise, then the outside external stresses are not going to bother you as much.” 

Although Rivera still doesn’t have much free time outside of work, his workouts give him the energy and patience to enjoy his days off with his wife and kids. “We make it a point to just spend some quality family time together, even if it’s simple as an afternoon in the park,” he said. “We like to seek out humble hole-in-the wall places to eat. Fried chicken and ice cream are my guilty pleasures.” 

The strength Rivera has built through his workouts helps him balance his professional and family responsibilities. Rivera’s wife Boramee Douk is also a physician and dedicated Tonal member. Juggling going to the gym with childcare would have been nearly impossible for the two busy doctors during the pandemic, but having Tonal at home lets them both enjoy the benefits of exercise. 

“It allows us to be parents and doctors, and get our exercise in all at the same time without abandoning each other,” he said. “That strengthened our relationship because we could still be a team.” 

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Jillian Mercado talked about exercise the same way many others do: She replayed an ongoing internal monologue that ranges from “okay, this is hard” to “I’ve got this.” She laughed about her pain faces that she described as “not cute,” and smiled when describing the euphoric feeling that washes over her once a workout is complete. 

“I get this adrenaline rush after a workout where I’m like, I can take over the world right now,” said the 35-year-old who stars as Maribel on Showtime’s series The L Word: Generation Q. 

It does seem like the world is no match for the actress and fashion model, who landed her first modeling gig in 2014 with Diesel, has been featured in several major brand campaigns, appeared on the cover of Teen Vogue, and took the runway at New York Fashion Week. 

As a child, she was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. The condition causes a progressive weakening of her muscles as well as pain and stiffness. Mercado said she can feel her muscles tightening dramatically whenever she experiences intense emotions, anything from excitement to exhaustion.

The New York City native with Dominican roots grew up spending a lot of time in physical therapy to combat her condition until college life packed her schedule and zapped her motivation. That perspective shifted, however, when Mercado began struggling with simple, everyday tasks such as getting out of bed, climbing into the bathtub, or cooking for herself. 

“That’s why I started working out,” she said, “because working out helps me build muscle and strength so that things could not be such a challenge anymore.”

Now, Mercado, who makes her way around in an electric wheelchair, dedicates two or three days a week to training. But the gyms don’t always feel welcoming or accessible, especially without elevators. 

“It’s really bizarre going into a gym and feeling like I’m the only person there having equipment that’s not adaptable or safe for me,” she said. 

It’s not just the machines that don’t address her needs or the lack of accessibility. Mercado said she also felt like she didn’t belong in a traditional gym setting. Having an intelligent at-home trainer released her from the pressure of feeling like she needed to be “glammed up” with a matching outfit, or nail each movement with perfect form because someone might be watching. 

The fact that Tonal offers a strength assessment at the start, provides suggested weight, and includes the Spotter feature gave Mercado the confidence to know she’s strength training safely. “You don’t have to pretend you’re advanced,” she said. “You can go at your own pace in your own sanctuary.”

Her strength journey, though, is less about what she lifts and more about what she’s been able to let go.

“It was honestly creating a mindset that said ‘I don’t give a f–k what anyone thought,’” she explained. “For people like me, whose disability is very visible, I think we’re bombarded by so many opinions of other people and how they’re uncomfortable, not how we’re uncomfortable.” 

Mercado, a disability advocate, is not shy about sharing her workouts on social media, showing her body on screen, or giving audiences a view of what living with a disability can look like. She said she struggled to find herself in her youth because she didn’t see people with disabilities represented in the media. “And it’s really hard to aspire to be someone or do things when there is no guidance, no rules or feeling like you’re literally not accepted in society,” she explained.

As a woman of color who identifies as queer, Mercado aims to be a representative for her various communities that she didn’t have when she was growing up. She uses the strength she’s gained not only to fight back against her body, but to empower others who are facing their own battles.

“If I can give advice to anybody wanting to work out but maybe not feeling like they are included in the conversation—it’s about what you want to do and listening to your own inner voice,” she said. “Because it’s your body, nobody else’s body.”

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When 47-year-old Nigeria Moore was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2020, she initially didn’t believe it. The retired Naval Intelligence Specialist was incredibly active—regularly strength training on Tonal, hiking, cycling, and often doing two workouts per day. So when she started experiencing abdominal pain and fatigue, she never expected it could be cancer.

“I was in denial. I felt strong and full of life,” said Moore in an interview with Tonal. “I didn’t want to deal with it.” 

Because her mother was also ill at the time, Moore didn’t want to add to her family’s burden by telling them about her diagnosis. Her mother ultimately passed away before Moore finished her cancer treatment, which she says was the most difficult part of her journey. But it was also a push to face her disease head-on and fight. 

“The doctors promised they were going to do what they needed to do to get me through this, and I had to do my part by having a good attitude and being as positive as I could be,” she says.  “I didn’t want this beast to take over my life.” 

Shifting her perspective was critical to getting Moore through her battle with cancer. “In the beginning, I wasn’t the happiest camper,” she says. “I was upset and angry, but that wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I made up my mind to just push forward. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I trusted the process and didn’t let this cancer take away my happiness.” 

Although she eventually opened up to her family, Moore faced much of her illness on her own. She lives in California while most of her family is on the East Coast, and her husband, who’s still on active duty in the Navy, was frequently deployed during the year she was sick. Moore joined a cancer support group and leaned on her faith and close friends.

During those challenging months, Moore realized the depth of her inner strength and ability to survive the unthinkable. “I’m mentally stronger than I ever thought,” she says. “I learned to persevere, and I learned that I’m resilient.” 

One of Moore’s biggest motivators along the way was her desire to get back to exercise. “Fitness is part of my identity,” she says. “I want to make sure that my quality of life is the best it can be throughout my life.” 

Moore finished her cancer treatment in October 2021 (she currently has no evidence of disease) and slowly began building back her fitness. She started with walking and returned to strength training on Tonal by December. “After I got diagnosed, Tonal was very instrumental in gaining my strength back,” she adds.

After serving in the Navy for 20 years, Moore is no stranger to discipline and hard work. Despite her medical setbacks—when she spoke to Tonal in April she had recently undergone surgery unrelated to her cancer—she’s determined to rebuild her fitness. “I’m not 100 percent yet,” she says. “I’d say I’m around 65 percent of the way to where I was, but I’m looking forward to building more strength back.” 

With Tonal, Moore can increase the weight she lifts one pound at a time, something she couldn’t do with dumbbells, but that’s been necessary in her gradual recovery. And although Moore says she isn’t competitive with numbers like Strength Score, she does appreciate being able to see her metrics and track her progress. “It’s a gauge to let me know what I did yesterday and what I can do today,” she says. “I love that I can see where I’ve been and where I need to be in the future.”

Moore has lots of reasons for wanting to stay healthy in the years to come. She’s expecting her first grandchild in August, and she and her husband recently bought a house in Florida where they plan to enjoy life together after he retires. Even looking back on the challenges of the last few years, Moore remains admirably optimistic. As she says, “I have no complaints about anything.” 

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Exercise was always part of Megan Redmond’s life, but she didn’t realize the true power of her strength until a devastating car accident in June 2017. 

On that fateful day, Redmond, a mom-of-four from Dayton, Ohio, was airlifted to a trauma hospital where doctors performed emergency surgery to relieve pressure on her brain. She spent a week on a ventilator and the next month in the hospital with numerous bone fractures and a traumatic brain injury. Suddenly, the active cyclist and former Division 1 college soccer player had to relearn how to walk, get dressed, and feed herself. 

“I had to process and grieve the person that I used to be,” she told Tonal in an interview.

Because of the severity of her injuries, she explained, it’s “a miracle” that she can live a normal life today. The road to recovery wasn’t easy, but Redmond never let herself get discouraged. For her, strength means perseverance, and she drew on a deep internal reserve to make it through. Even on her toughest days, Redmond listened to the internal voice telling her, “You can do this; you’re strong; you can get through it.” 

After leaving the hospital, Redmond spent a month in a rehab facility working on basic life skills. She had damage to her vestibular nerve (located in the inner ear, this nerve affects body positioning and coordination) leading to problems with balance and making it difficult to walk. But even after conquering those hurdles, she faced more challenges. She remembers struggling to play with her youngest daughters—identical twins who were 3-years-old when the accident happened—while battling bouts of dizziness. 

She gradually returned to exercise, first with cycling and then with lifting weights. When the pandemic disrupted her workout routine, Redmond looked into new ways to build strength at home—which is how she discovered Tonal. 

Lifting adaptive weight on Tonal let Redmond focus on her form and technique more than she could when using dumbbells. Since she still struggles with memory loss from her brain injury, Redmond appreciates how Tonal tracks all of her metrics and knows how much weight she should lift for each exercise. Improving her Strength Score also keeps Redmond motivated to keep working out. “I’m very competitive,” she said. “I can look at that data and know where I started and where I need to be.”

The benefits of exercise go far beyond appearances for Redmond. She’s able to play with her kids again and can better deal with anxiety. Being able to maintain consistency with strength training has helped Redmond grow the confidence and resilience that have been crucial to her recovery. 

“After my accident, I knew that my physical strength was going to come back. It was my mental strength that I needed to really focus on,” she said. “When you start doing a strength program like this, it really helps you not just physically but mentally as well.” 

Finishing each work out is a reminder that she’s strong and capable. “I may not want to [exercise], but then I start doing it, and I get through it,” she said. “Then I can say to myself,  ‘You got through that. You can do these hard things.’” It’s this determination that’s driven her to be able to run, drive a car, and coach soccer at a local club—things doctors said she would never be able to do again.

Birthdays since the accident have profound meaning for Redmond. As Redmond celebrates turning 42 this year, she welcomes another year she gets to spend with her family. “I don’t care about getting older, because five years ago, I might not have been here,” she reflected. “I owe it to the doctors who took care of me and the fast response of the emergency teams, but especially the strength I had knowing that I needed to be here for my kids.”

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Most moms want to be an uplifting influence on their children, but Boramee Douk takes the lifting part literally. The Bay Area-based primary care physician and mother of three wants to stay strong enough to pick up her kids—no matter how big they get.  

After photographing herself holding her twin sons on their first birthday, she decided to continue the tradition each year. The photos are a reminder of how much the boys, who were born premature with a combined weight of just 8.9 pounds, have grown. Plus, they show off Douk’s impressive strength. 

Lifting the boys together started to feel challenging on their fourth birthday, but Douk was determined to keep up the tradition. The twins recently turned 9 and she’s still at it, hoisting their combined weight of 157 pounds thanks to the strength she’s gained working out with Tonal. 

“I never expected I’d still be doing this on their ninth birthday,” she tells Tonal in an interview. “One day, they’ll have to carry me, but I’m going to keep this going for as long as I can. I’m the strongest I’ve ever been.”

For Douk, strength means more than the ability to lift heavy weight (or kids). It’s also about setting an example for others and advocating for herself in situations where others doubt her abilities. 

“As a woman and a minority, there’s a tendency to be underrepresented and under-recognized in our society,” she says. “There are just so many more adversities and stereotypes for us to overcome.” The daughter of Cambodian immigrants, Douk says her strength to “speak up, be seen, and be heard” has allowed her to achieve her goal of becoming a doctor and helping her community. 

One way Douk motivates her family, friends, and patients is by sharing her lifelong passion for fitness. “Exercise is a huge part of what I do for stress relief,” she says, adding that, from a medical perspective, she knows how important strength is as we get older. “I joke with my friends that when we’re 80 years old and fall down, we have to be able to get back up.”

As a doctor and busy mom (along with the twins, she also has a 7-year-old daughter), Douk knows how difficult it is to find time for exercise, but she’s confident that if she can squeeze it in, others can, too. “I counsel my patients on weight loss and exercise all the time, and you have to practice what you preach. I can’t expect my patients or my kids to trust what I say unless I’m doing those things for myself,” she says. “So I try to lead by example.” 

During the pandemic, Douk says her time spent caring for patients “exponentially increased,” so she was grateful for the ability to do shorter workouts on Tonal that fit into her schedule. “I’ll drop off the kids at school, and then come back home to do a Quick Fit before I leave for the office,” she says. “I’m a little bit sweaty, but that’s okay.” With the Tonal app, she can even do a mat workout in the office during her lunch break if that’s her only free time in the day. 

“For a lot of people, working out is daunting,” she says. “Amongst my own group of friends and family, I try to create fun challenges to do together to normalize fitness and make it less of a chore.” She recently organized a workout calendar to keep a group of roughly a dozen neighbors on track. Afterward, they’ll celebrate with a get together and prizes for those who did the most activity. 

“With a little added competition, people are more motivated to exercise,” she says. “It’s not something you have to do anymore, it’s something you want to do.”  

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When 61-year-old Pilates instructor and yoga teacher Deborah Galletti was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, she could have easily scrapped her workout schedule. There would be challenging days ahead, but she’s not built like that. 

“I was already feeling so strong,” she recalled during a sit-down interview with Tonal. “I was running the fastest I had ever run, and then, boom, out of nowhere, this diagnosis. I was like, you can feel sorry for yourself, or you can take the bull by the horns and fight it.”

She opted for the latter. Two days after Galletti underwent surgery to remove the cancerous lump in her breast, she was back in indoor cycling class with one arm pinned to her waist to protect the surgery site and the other on the handlebar. 

“I wanted to live,” she explained. “I was determined to get back on that bike. I couldn’t run for a while, but I was definitely going to do everything but run. My doctors were asking what planet I was from, but for me, it worked.”

With that determination, it’s no wonder that Galletti, who also works as an international intellectual property lawyer, has been training most of her life. She started out as a ballet dancer, attending The Washington School of Ballet. Dance required a level of discipline that then provided Galletti the foundation and structure for consistent exercise through the years, but now, training isn’t about performance or aesthetics. Galletti works out because it makes her a happier person. 

“I started realizing as I matured that I just want to be me, my best me,” she said. “I want to look the way I am. But it’s not just about the look; it’s about how I feel and what I can do.”

And she can do plenty. Her Instagram, which is now over 100,000 followers, showcases Galletti pushing and pulling weight, practicing a variety of handstand holds, cranking out pull-ups, and performing aerial Lyra and boxing—all things she said she couldn’t dream of doing even in her 20s. “I flipped a 220-pound tire last week,” she said. “That is empowering.” She’s on a mission to share that power and inspire other women to stay active at any age. 

The fitness pro loves to mix up her workouts, but there’s always a strength element to her program. That’s what made Tonal a perfect addition to her routine. Galletti said she likes to program her own workouts in the morning, then she can hit an extra pump session on-trainer in the evening at home where she only needs to tap a few buttons to choose a class. Galletti was working through Coach Liz’s three-week Lean In program at the time of this interview.

Seeing the real-time stats on the screen, measuring her power output, and monitoring her range of motion also adds another layer of motivation. Galletti remembered being shocked when she completed a session and learned she had lifted over 7,000 pounds. “How many cars is that?” she asked. “It’s got to be at least one.” (For the record, it’s about two.) 

The heavy lifting doesn’t happen every day, but there aren’t many days that pass without Galletti joining some kind of training session. “Some people would probably say I don’t recover enough,” she said while being sure to mention she emphasizes sleep. But she has found what works best for her, and that may not work for everyone.

Whether she adds in active recovery, a different training modality, scales intensity, or simply hits different body parts, Galletti isn’t exactly interested in skipping training days.“I’m doing what I find makes me happy,” she said. “Fitness, strength training—I love it, so I’m a happier person.”

Galletti might seem like an anomaly, but her goal is to encourage others to join her so she isn’t an outlier. Now cancer-free for seven years, Galletti preaches that anyone, of any age or gender can and should embrace strength training in whatever way feels accessible. 

“You need to find your path,” she said. “You want to age gracefully. I don’t want to be 20. My kids are in their 20s, but I can deadlift more than my kids. I can do more pull-ups than my kids. And that’s incredible.”

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During the quarantine that locked most of us away in our homes in 2020, Kira West laced up her running shoes and escaped to the pavement. The streets were still mostly empty–so barren that she could hear her footfall on the concrete through her headphones. 

At times, West would get lost in the cadence of her own breath, slipping away into a moving meditation, away from the walls of the apartment she shared in Connecticut with her now-fiancè, away from an endless string of Zoom conferences. These runs became one way to explore the city and combat the stress accompanied by a global pandemic. She started to tag them #SanityMiles. 

“Sanity miles” started as an excuse to get out of the house during a global pandemic and to create a safe space to think, but they became bigger than that. West posted the runs on social media for fun to keep herself accountable. She tagged friends who also ran, creating an informal virtual run club. Soon, her makeshift squad decided to raise money, collecting two dollars for every mile completed and donating the money to local charities. #SanityMiles evolved into a community-building platform. 

West’s running habit dates back to college when she started logging runs on the treadmill to stay in shape. Not long after graduation, the Brooklyn native signed up for a half marathon and soon decided to run a race in each of New York City’s five boroughs for charity. Dedication is kind of her thing. 

“One thing I really love about myself is my commitment and determination,” she said.   

When West wasn’t logging miles, she had become a regular at boutique fitness classes around New York City. That’s when she began to notice a lack of diversity in both the trainers and the clientele. The gap in representation inspired West to start sharing resources with her friends and followers to amplify Black fitness professionals, trainers, and brands and focus more of her travel and wellness content on building inclusivity. 

“You can’t be what you can’t see,” she said. “So I focus on being seen in spaces where you don’t typically see Black women because there’s going to be someone out there watching who realizes that they have an opportunity to do the same.”

West’s focus on progress, inclusivity, and diversity started at Cornell University, where she studied social entrepreneurship. It sharpened during the Covid-19 lockdown. Running morphed into a mental health exercise to escape her newsfeed in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and the racial reckoning that followed. 

West, who co-founded an anti-racism wellness company called ACTIV-ism, explained that social justice and diversity work can be exhausting emotionally, and running is part of how she recenters herself. “It’s how I processed these things, it’s how I found peace with what was going on because it was traumatic as a Black woman,” she said. 

Whether creating inclusive fitness spaces or working toward self-improvement, West’s approach is grounded in incremental change. She talked the same way about strength training, which she said is foundational to her running, and acknowledged that it could be more welcoming.

“When I first thought about strength training, it felt so male-dominated that I didn’t feel like there was a place for me,” she said. “But I am giving myself grace, starting where I’m at, and realizing that progress and continuing to challenge yourself is really important.”

West lives in Chicago now, where she mounted a Tonal in her home office. The convenience of working out at home helps her maintain consistency, she said. Plus, it’s another opportunity for West to expand her ever-growing community. She’s a regular in the Official Tonal Community, where she said she finds encouragement, tips, ideas, and inspiration by watching other members progress in their own strength journeys. 

“Perfection is not attainable,” she said. “It’s really not a helpful use of energy. So I focus my energy on progress, and I think there’s so much beauty in being able to look back and see how far you’ve come.”

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When you look at Lindsey Horan’s career evolution, it looks a little bit like destiny, but it’s a lot more deliberate than that. It’s more like an intentional course that Horan charted for herself—a dream that matured into a belief, molded into a goal, and carefully chiseled over the years into reality. It’s like she always knew something that everyone else was still figuring out. 

Horan started playing soccer at five years old. By 11, she was playing on an elite travel team, and at 18, Horan, already the best youth player in the country, bucked the conventional route. She passed on a scholarship at the University of North Carolina to travel alone to Europe and play with the pros. 

In 2021, the 27-year old midfielder was named U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year. Horan’s rise required an immense amount of strength, and it was a journey that reinforced Horan’s self-esteem. 

“I think the biggest thing I learned was the belief in myself, the confidence to step out and be me, be Lindsey,” she told Tonal in an exclusive interview. “I think that’s always been my biggest strength, being secure in who I am and standing up for who I am and continuing to do that every single day.”

It’s clear that confidence has always been a driver for Horan. Ever since she saw a teenage Lionel Messi playing for FC Barcelona—a shrine to Messi lived on her childhood bedroom walls—Horan fantasized about playing in Europe and set her sights on the biggest tournaments in the world. 

At one point, she told a former coach that she had international aspirations, according to a piece she wrote for The Players’ Tribune in 2018. In the story, she said he laughed. But she knew the path that lie ahead of her. Years later, she was off to Europe to play for Paris Saint-Germain without speaking a lick of French before boarding a one-way flight to France. 

Before long, she would come back stateside to join the Portland Thorns in the National Women’s Soccer League and was named league MVP in 2018. After six seasons, she sought out a new challenge and returned to the French league in January to play for Olympique Lyonnais, on loan from the Thorns for 18 months. 

As Horan’s recognition grows, so does the belief around the globe that she can be the best footballer on any pitch. That’s just one of the reasons why Carli Lloyd passed down her prestigious No. 10 jersey to Horan when she retired from the U.S. Women’s National Team last year. The number is usually worn by a team’s best player–-signaling that Horan is the premier player on the premier team in the world. 

“We became really close toward the end of my career,” Lloyd said. “I felt like I was this veteran who could help her, and there was no one better to hand that No. 10 off to than her.” 

The gesture symbolized Horan’s readiness to lead the charge for the national team—the path that she had been plotting all along. To do that, she has to stay healthy. Horan said that strength training is an important part of her routine, especially during the off-season. As an attacking midfielder—think of her as a point guard in basketball—she’s a playmaker tasked with sticking the ball in the other team’s net on her own or by setting up her teammates to score. 

That’s why she needs to be explosive, fast, and aggressive. “Strength training is probably the most important thing for me now,” she said. “I need to be running from box to box, so I need to keep my endurance up, and I think when you’re at your strongest, you recover well, and you’re able to keep going in the game.”

The national team captain has said that she always held the belief that she could be the best player in the world. Even though Horan has become a power player on the world stage, fear kept her from speaking her goals aloud. Now she’s unafraid to make her intentions known. 

“Even if you’ve doubted yourself at points, you need to bring yourself back up, and I think it’s us who can do that,” she said. “It’s not everyone else around you that is going to bring it out of you. Obviously, support is is amazing, but you need to believe in yourself first before you’re able to accomplish anything.”

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By now, there should be no doubt that Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joe Haden lifts weights. The veteran player made that explicitly clear in a viral Mic’d Up video from 2020, which has amassed 1.4 million likes on TikTok and hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. What’s less clear in this video is his approach, which includes focusing on maintenance during regular play and lifting heavy during the off-season.

“During the season, I’m not really trying to build mass or get swole,” said Haden in an exclusive interview with Tonal. “It’s more the off-season when I’m trying to add weight, trying to get bulky, and lifting heavy.”

That time is now for Haden, who just wrapped his 12th professional season after a blowout loss to the Kansas City Chiefs back in January. After taking some time to recover, the 32-year-old will transition his training by incorporating classic lifts that hit major muscle groups, concentrating on the lower body. 

“I mostly focus on a lot of squats and a lot of lunges because of running and wanting to stay fast, just keeping my legs in shape,” he said. That also includes box jumps, vertical jumps, and other plyometrics for explosiveness on the field. “That’s mainly because I’m trying to high-point the ball a lot and trying to catch the ball in the air,” he added.

That’s not to say he ignores his upper body. He likes to go hard on bench pressing and never forgets his biceps, admitting that curls are one of the exercises he would do for the rest of his life. “I just like having big arms,” laughed Hayden, who earned the nickname “Joe Money” from teammates thanks to his endless swag. 

Performance benefits and vanity are two relatable drivers for exercise—we can all admit to times when we wanted to be a little faster, stronger, or more confident—but that doesn’t mean that training and consistency come easy. Even pros like Haden, an athlete known for his energy and exuberance, struggle to stay dedicated at times. 

When his motivation wanes, it’s simply perspective that keeps Haden fired up. “I’m just like, ‘Dude, you play football for a living,” he said. “Wake up and go get it! There are way other worse things you could be doing. And then when I start working out, I feel better.”

It’s not just the dedication to his workouts that keep him in it, but it’s also his commitment to recovery that contributes to his longevity in the game. After more than a decade as a pro in a physically-demanding sport using his body as a human bumper car, Haden knows the value of taking proper care of his body. 

“I’m really taking care, getting massages, and getting cold tubs,” he said. “And then not really having a real off-season because there’s no real time for you to get out of shape to get back in shape. You should always stay ready so you ain’t never gotta get ready,”

Consistency is key, and Haden encourages all athletes to take that mind-over-matter approach, digging deep to find your own why. “You’ve got to want it for yourself,” he said. “Give yourself goals and try to stay locked in on them as much as you can.”  

He learned that discipline from his father, Joe Sr., who as a certified personal trainer and professional bodybuilder helped train Haden in the gym. “My dad had a quote, ‘Hard work beats talent but talent doesn’t work hard,’ and that really really stuck with me,” he said.

Now, Haden hopes to pass down the life lessons he learned from his father to his own two young sons who put everything in perspective for him and make him feel strong. “They’ve made [my career] more simple,” he said. Football is important, yes, “but when I go home, nothing else matters but my wife and kids.” 

As for that viral video, when asked about it, all Haden could do was laugh. It’s an infectious laugh because on top of—or maybe in spite of—all the professional and personal accomplishments and the years of training and competition, Haden still emanates a joie de vivre as he speaks, exuding love for the game and appreciation for his position in life. It’s that grounding and holistic concept of strength that put him right where he needs to be.  

“When I’m mentally in a great space,” he said, “having my religion on point, having my family right, having my body right, health, happiness—that’s when I’m just cool.” 

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