Santa Monica Workout | Santa Monica Exercise | Santa Monica Stairs

Jason Kozma Biography

Santa Monica Personal Fitness Trainer Jason Kozma has in excess of 20 years of fitness and weight loss experience.  Using his knowledge and experience he is an expert at weight loss,  enhancing tone, strength and size, or sports performance.  Jason has done it before for hundreds of other clients and can certainly do it for you. Have a look at his amazing Before and After and Testimonials sections to see how he has help people just like you to get in the best shape of their lives!

Jason has worked with pro athletes from many sports including Major League Baseball and the NFL as well as celebrities, bodybuilders and fitness competitors, executives, CEOs and people just like you.

As a competitive bodybuilder Jason has won the following titles:

Mr. America, Mr. Muscle Beach, Southern States Champion, Tennessee Valley Champion, Kentucky Derby Champion.

Jason is a trainer of trainers, having educated personal trainers, fitness instructors, gym owners and coaches all over the United States. 

He has encyclopedic knowledge in the areas of weight loss, body building, body sculpting and athletic performance training, nutrition and supplements, motivation as well as an extensive background in martial arts, holding a black belt in Wado-Ryu Karate.

Jason's personal training service features rapid visual results as well as extreme improvements in strength, fitness and health.  He has successfully trained clients of all fitness levels: from rank beginners to competitive athletes. He also offers his Ultimate High Performance Online Training program.

Deena Russo is a certified personal trainer and weight loss specialist in Santa Monica. Her clients are women and men of all ages from high school students to seniors. She encourages women to stay fit before, during and after pregnancy with specific pre-natal and post-partum exercise techniques. She has been involved in the fitness industry in New York and Los Angeles for the past 14 years.
 

Deena believes in a "Fit Family" lifestyle and encourages parents and children to lead a healthy, active life. Giving her clients the tools they need to get in shape and stay in shape as a family is one of her happiest achievements.

Her experience in New York includes private training and aerobic at Nassau College, Long Island as well as many other gyms in the Tri-State area. Deena has trained extensively under master trainer Jason Kozma, and works with him in Santa Monica.

She currently resides in Santa Monica, CA and provides training at a variety of locations including private homes and gyms. On weekends, Deena leads a fitness group for outdoor activities in Santa Monica, including the famous Santa Monica Stairs. She enjoys taking clients on outdoor excursions where aerobic activity is mixed with resistance training for body sculpting.

Deena works in conjunction with holistic doctors, chiropractors and acupuncturists to assist her clients with physical limitations or special rehabilitation needs. She has recently trained clients for the Avon Breast Cancer Walk in San Diego as well as many other walking/running fund raisers.

Her career in fitness began as a talk show host for a New York based television health show entitled "Creative Wellness. The show covered such topics as exercise, nutrition, self empowerment and holistic healing. She has worked as a self esteem coach and has led guided meditation and goal setting groups.

Deena is also a working mother. She understands the unique challenges of balancing family, career and a healthy lifestyle. She develops programs for her clients incorporating cardio, balanced nutrition plans, strength training and more to achieve maximum weight loss, fitness and body shaping goals - all while addressing the needs of busy professionals, parents on the run and stay at home parents.

Deena believes in a "Fit Family" lifestyle and encourages parents and children to lead a healthy, active life. One of her favorite things is giving her clients the tools they need to stay in shape and to watch them thrive.

If it's a trainer who genuinely cares about people and motivates her clients to push past their comfort zones and become leaner, stronger, healthier and more self confident, it's Deena you want.

To schedule training call (310) 772-5105 or contact us

Jason and Deena's training location is on Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade, conveniently accessible for those residing in Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Westwood, West Los Angeles, Venice, Mar Vista, Marina del Rey, Century City, Bel Air and Beverly Hills.

Samples of Before and After Clients

Social Climbing for Your Health

For a fresh, free, seriously butt-kicking workout, take advantage of LA’s plain air stairmasters
 

Jibril Raymo hates stair-climbing machines. “They’re boring. They feel like you’re not going anywhere,” says Raymo, a former UCLA football player. But to stay in top physical condition, he needs the abdominal and lower-body workout that stair climbing provides.

So instead of trudging to nowhere in a stale, sweaty gym, Raymo runs up and down real stairs—170 of them to be precise. “It’s not like standing in one place,” says Raymo, as he catches his breath after his twelfth summit of the Santa Monica Canyon stairway.

He takes a pull from one of the myriad water bottles tucked like so many mushrooms in the flowerbeds. “You get to the top and see the view of the ocean and the mountains. You feel like you’ve accomplished something.” And he has—those 12 roundtrips are a tougher workout than climbing up and down the Empire State Building.

Raymo is just one of thousands of locals who’ve discovered that LA’s public stairways aren’t just a way to get up a hill; they’re also an excellent workout opportunity.

Stair climbing can effectively strengthen all the major muscle groups in the lower body: the gluteals, the hamstrings, the calf muscles and the quadriceps. Stair climbing improves cardio-vascular fitness and can be an effective way to burn calories.

In many respects, real stairs provide better exercise than climbing machines. “Doing actual stairs encompasses a wider range of motion than stair climbers,” says Jason Kozma, a personal trainer in Santa Monica. “You burn more calories because you’re working the hamstrings and the gluteus maximus,” two areas only minimally affected by the short range of motion on stair machines. And on real stairs, you can’t cheat by leaning on the machine.

Stair climbing is especially beneficial for women who want to prevent osteoporosis. Bearing your weight against gravity and climbing stairs provides a very effective stimulus for bone formation.  And it’s terrific for elderly people “because it prevents their lower-body muscles from atrophying,” says Kozma.

In fact, just about anybody (except those afflicted with knee problems) can benefit from stair climbing. People of all ages and abilities adhere to the same basic etiquette: stay to the right, pass to the left.

“For me, jogging it is dogging it,” says Rick Valdez, a 17-year-old senior at St. Monica High who sprints all the way up the stairway between Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica. Meanwhile, a 70-something couple keeps a slow and steady walking pace.

Real stair climbing is environmentally friendly, too. No electricity is needed to power a machine. Sunny skies supply the lighting. And ocean breezes, not fossil-fueled air conditioners, do the cooling.

Stair climbing requires no sophisticated equipment or expensive health club membership. The City of Los Angeles has nearly 200 stairways open to the public, according to the Department of Public Works. And they’re all free.

“This is my gym,” says Marie-Claire Edouarzin, a chiseled make-up artist from Hollywood. Once a week, she drives to Pacific Palisades and climbs up and down 15 times. “I don’t like doing it, but it works fast,” says Edouarzin.

For first-time stair climbers, sore quadriceps are literally a “down” side to working out on real stairs. Going down stairs as well as up them builds the thigh strength needed to brake yourself from falling—a benefit you just can’t get from a machine that only goes up.

For them, Bryant recommends quad stretches like bending the knee back so that your foot touches your rear end. He also suggests stretching your hamstrings (stand on one leg and raise the other to a higher step) and calves (put the balls of both feet on one step and drop your heels below your toes) before any stair-climbing workout.

by John Rosenthal

John Rosenthal, a fitness writer in Santa Monica, takes the stairs instead of the elevator whenever possible. His work has appeared in Self, Shape, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.

 Services available

gym private training

gym group training

nutritional / fitness consultation (in-gym)

nutritional / fitness consultation (in-home)

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To schedule training call (310) 772-5105 or contact us

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Santa Monica Workout | Santa Monica Exercise | Santa Monica Stairs