KATHERINE ALVAREZ
Katherine grew up in South Carolina where she was active in team sports.
In high school, she began attending exercise classes and quickly fell in love with the enthusiasm and camaraderie found in a group fitness workout environment.
While attending Clemson University, Katherine became AFAA certified and had the opportunity to teach everything from kick boxing to boot camp classes. She graduated with a degree in Psychology and two years later attended culinary school in Houston, TX. After bouncing around the country working in many restaurants, she settled in NYC teaching children's cooking classes. Here she met her husband, and in 2010 they fled the big city in search of a simpler life in Chapel Hill.
Katherine's days are now spent caring for her husband and their two small children, while making sure to get her daily sweat on. A professed cardio junkie, Katherine has run numerous half and full marathons. She is excited to share her love of fitness with the PopUp community and is looking forward to helping each person reach their full potential!
Exercise is an important part of Katie’s life. With three young boys and a hectic schedule she enjoys both the physical and mental benefits that she gets from a great workout. Sharing this love of exercise and the numerous positive benefits it can provide is one of the main factors that led Katie to create PopUp Workout. Her goal is to make each class a challenging and unique workout that will leave you energized, motivated, and stronger to tackle the rest of your day. PopUp Workout started in driveways, basements, and parking lots and has grown through the support of great clients who have spread the word. Bringing PopUp Workout to unique and accessible locations in order to make it easy and cost effective for people to get a great workout is the goal of her business. Katie became an ACE Certified instructor in her hometown of Kansas City where she had the opportunity to teach at an innovative fitness studio, Fusion Fitness. In 2011 her family relocated to Chapel Hill where she taught at Pure Barre for 3 years as a Level 111 instructor. PopUp Workout was founded in spring of 2013. “I love my job and our clients. Experiencing first hand the life changing effects that a healthy lifestyle has on a person is truly a gift.”
CARRIE WILLIAMSON
Carrie grew up in Chapel Hill and has always been described as "energetic"! To help burn some of that energy, Carrie participated in many activities from swimming to cheerleading to dancing.
Carrie's parents knew she needed to stay busy - and active!
After graduating from ECHHS, Carrie attended Elon University where she followed her love of teaching and majored in Middle Grades Education. She took her degree to Atlanta where she taught 8th grade for two years before returning to NC to teach 8th grade in Winston-Salem. She returned to Chapel Hill when she got married and taught 6th grade at Durham Academy. Carrie found the trick to keeping middle schoolers attention was to bring her energy into the classroom daily.
No longer in the classroom, Carrie stays busy with her family: husband Eddie, two energetic little boys Cal and Andy, and pup Hank. Carrie enjoys working out and knows how important a healthy lifestyle is.
The teacher in her is excited to share her love and knowledge of exercise and enthusiasm with others.
GINA NELSON
Gina has lived all over the place and just finally moved back to Chapel Hill to escape the cold weather and raise her family in her favorite town (Go Duke!). Gina has been teaching group exercises classes continuously through all phases of her life/education/career/family for over 20 years and has taught everything out there except for yoga. Gina stared taking group exercise classes in middle school with her mother and has never looked back. She became certified and starting teaching in high school. Gina has taught all over the country to every type of population and through all the fitness trends of the past 2.5 decades.
In her other life, Gina is also a structural engineer. She went to Vanderbilt University for undergrad and then both M.I.T. and Duke for graduate school. She worked briefly on both the design and construction side of structural engineering before starting a family and spending all of her nonexistent free time focusing on her fitness career. Gina and her husband have 3 young children and are building a house in Chapel Hill to finally "settle down" after 20 years of constant moving.
Gina has been focused on interval training and kickboxing in the Chicago area for the past few years and is excited to share her love of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) with the PopUp crowd. HIIT is a fast and effective way to workout anywhere and anytime with no equipment needed that has a profound effect on your metabolism that lasts long after your workout.