Christine King

How Your Best Fit Began—Christine’s Story

In July of 1996, Christine King broke her back, shattering a lumbar vertebrae in a JetSki accident. She was paralyzed from the waist down, and doctors couldn’t say whether she would ever walk again. In an eight-hour emergency surgery, two rods and four screws were inserted to hold her back together, and bone was taken from her hip to replace the vertebrae that had exploded.

The surgery repaired her back, but nerve damage and internal injuries meant a long, slow rehabilitation and post-rehab process. During rehab, she slowly regained feeling in her lower body and then gradually became strong enough to walk. Before the accident, Christine had been in excellent physical shape, and doctors said this was the main reason she was able to walk again.

To retrain her body to perform everyday activities, she exercised with resistance bands, hand weights, stability balls, tubing and other tools. In doing so, she built strength, flexibility, stamina and balance. This type of training—functional training—targets groups of muscles simultaneously, mimicking the movements made in everyday life. It is very different from resistance training with gym machines, designed to strengthen isolated muscles.

The experience gave her an acute awareness of the importance of exercise, and especially the benefits of functional training. She realized that this type of training could make a profound difference for everyone—from healthy, active people to those with injuries and medical conditions, to those who want to lose weight.

Before the accident, Christine was vice president of a video production company. But the accident changed everything. She decided to dedicate her life to helping people develop healthier lifestyles and become more functionally fit. After getting certified by the American Council on Exercise, she became a post-rehab specialist. In 1997, she founded Your Best Fit and later became a medical exercise specialist. For several years, she worked with people individually and in small groups. Driven by a mission to make personal training affordable and accessible to everyone, she opened Florida’s first functional training studio in Delray Beach in 2004.