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The Duo Behind New York’s Most Instagrammed Gym

Dogpound, where you’ll lunge beside a Victoria’s Secret model.

Fitness
The Duo Behind New York’s Most Instagrammed Gym

What do Josephine Skriver, Taylor Hill, and Romee Strijd have in common? That is, besides lithely limbs, unicorn beauty, and a set of wings. They workout at Dogpound. Y’know, New York’s black-walled ~hard-core~ (just *try* their 60-minute routine and tell us otherwise) personal training and boxing gym, that seemingly every toned body frequents. Yeah, that one.

You’ve probably also come to know the faces of the ones barking (pun totally intended) orders (in the most encouraging way, of course) at the fleet of Angels that are constantly Instagramming them—founder Kirk Myers and trainer Dara Hart.

But as much as it feels as though Dogpound overtook our feeds overnight, its beginnings and growth happened quite organically. “Dogpound started as a bunch of guys and their dogs working out together really early in the morning,” Myers told us. “Kirk developed strong relationships with his clients [Ed note: a particular extremely fit Marvel character included] and they had amazing results—his clients brought their friends and it just grew from there,” continued Hart. “Everybody’s always like, ‘How did you get Victoria’s Secret Angels?’ Through building relationships and getting results!” she tells us. They make it sound easy, don’t they?

 


It wasn’t without its bumps, though: “Just like any startup, there were typical struggles—finding a space, building a reputation and a client base,” explains Myers. “We didn’t want it to feel like a typical gym. Because for me, fitness was never about just lifting weights or looking good. I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure at 21, which was a huge wake-up call. I was forced to change my entire lifestyle. Through fitness I could not only turn my life around, but do the same for others, too. Dogpound follows that same [M.O.]; it’s a clubhouse, and a family, and a lifestyle,” he goes on to say.

So how do they keep their clientele motivated on the road to, let’s say, the VS runway show? “We send them a little workout program that they can do in the hotel room,” Hart divulges. “We like to keep it interesting and mix it up for our clients so that their bodies are always working hard,” Myers adds. And hard they do look, friends.

 

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