The Lifestyle of Training w/ Dannibelle

Jay Houhlias

With the AusFtness Expo 2023 just passed, many of us are motivated to get into tip top shape like this guy…

Jokes aside (although I’m joking, that photo is still a legitimate and unedited picture of yours truly taken only a few days ago), it seems we are all trying to get healthier in some way. Attending the AusFitness Expo myself this year, I got the chance to speak with Dannibelle (Danielle Robertson), a certified personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, and founder of DB Active & WRKout with DB.

We spoke about training for life, her programming, mindset, and the importance of glute strengthening for general health and performance.

Dannibelle told me something I think rings true with most of us – “You don’t look after yourself until something goes wrong.”

I asked Dannibelle how she sees her body; its purpose, function, and her relationship with it. Dannibelle is a former track and field athlete, and when she was much younger, she did this in conjunction with modelling. Dannibelle says it was “conflicting”.

“My modelling agency recommended I do walking and Pilates… and then I would go away and do track and field training – triple and long jump – all lower body. And then I’d come back and they’d ask, ‘how was the Pilates?’” She laughs. “But I know the industries have changed. I left the industry at 20, so I don’t know what it’s like now.”

“In regards to how I see my body, I’ve always been into strength training and lifting, but I’ve recently been doing it competitively… I’m so excited because it’s the first performance based goal that I’ve had in a really long time. I’ve missed it so much!”

“Instead of seeing my body from a physical standpoint – trying to improve my physique – I am trying to improve performance. As a by-product from strength training and when you have a performance goal, you do see a physical change. You build muscle, you get leaner… I saw my body for what it’s able to do… What am I capable of doing?… I just love that. It’s about what sort of goal I’m working towards.”

She continued, “Aesthetics won’t change overnight. When you are constantly focusing on how you feel, am I getting stronger? – this is so much healthier. You’re so focused on performance, and this other thing (aesthetics) is just happening in the background.”

“People think they need to do a whole bunch of different workouts to see results. But what they really need to do is stay focused on doing the same workouts well and progressively making it harder. That’s the way you actually see results.”

We moved on to Dannibelle’s training programs.

“Our programming is designed to help beginners through to advanced, but we are also really focused on teaching people how to train rather than just a bunch of workouts. We are looking for people to create sustainable, long-term results – we use subscriptions where people get new workouts every month… It’s about teaching someone how to make training a lifestyle.”

“Our client base is very broad… from beginners who’ve never been in the gym to someone like my mum who is over 60 years old with her primary goal to maintain strength and improve her quality of life – we’ve got something for everyone. Our speciality is glute focused training because our glutes are the largest muscle.”

I found this fascinating because, particularly as a man (although I won’t speak on behalf of all the fellas), glutes are something you’d never think to train or strengthen. Dannibelle believes that, “Having strong glutes can improve posture, reduce the risk of injury… it’s just a powerhouse. Having strong glutes makes everything else in your life better!”

“I used to be a track and field athlete, and I think about if I had the glute strength I have now back then, I would have performed infinitely better than I did… It’s going to help in so many other areas of our life, it’s not just an aesthetic thing.”

Something that has always been curious to me, particularly with holistic lifestyle fitness programs such as Dannibelle’s, is whether or not after enough education and practice with a program, people would eventually stop needing the program. Is the ultimate goal of coaching for a client not to need a coach? What does Dannibelle think?

“That is the idea… I mean, ideally, I’d like them to keep coming to me,” she jokes. “But really, you want to be able to teach someone to train – to give them the tools to continuously do it themselves, to give them the independence. But people could get used to it (their program), and they might want to just stay… I still follow a plan. If I go to the gym without a plan, I am in shambles. I won’t have a good workout.”

We then moved on to speaking about reach and exposure. Dannibelle has a huge following, and I asked if having a larger following comes at the detriment of personability and being able to connect with individuals more.

“I think that being personable is key to reach. It used to be that you could just take a photo and people would judge it on face value. But when you’re personable and you have a lot of personality on social media, that’s when you’re going to get more reach. You shouldn’t put out content just for that purpose, you should just be yourself, but I think that being open and authentic on social media is the key to connecting and building loyalty … I’d always prefer a small group of clients who I know rather than a larger group I don’t.”

I asked how the worlds of men’s and women’s fitness differ. Does Dannibelle think a male having a female trainer makes a difference, and vice versa.

“The most important thing is for the trainer to be aware of their clients’ individual needs. It doesn’t matter whether the trainer is male or female – if they are able to understand their clients and train them based on their own individual abilities and goals then that is what makes a good trainer.”

It was a great pleasure speaking with Dannibelle and I hope the health and fitness industry will foster more genuine, caring and infectiously happy trainers like her.