MEET RIKKI-LEE
The founder of Bod Squad, Rikki-Lee Petrie, lives and breathes fitness, and understands exactly how to motivate and inspire other women to get the best out of their bodies. Rikki-Lee’s dream of creating a supportive fitness community all started with a childhood desire to make people feel good about themselves through her boot camp programs.
Rikki-Lee was feeling the fittest she ever had in her life when she had a horrific accident in the kitchen which left her in a moon boot with a steel rod for months. At the time, she was training with a close group of girlfriends, a girl gang who turned up for each other, rain or shine. She had always loved training, particularly group fitness and boot camp, and encouragement from her girlfriends gave her the confidence she needed to turn her favourite hobby into a thriving business.
Off to the Gold Coast’s famous Human Performance Centre for certification in personal training she went, and in June 2016, Bod Squad by Rikki-Lee was born! She hasn’t looked back, and now trains more than 300 women per week through in-person and online challenges.
Rikki lives by the belief that you should treat people the way you want to be treated. This integrity is what ensures her Bod Squad aren’t just workout buddies, but a sisterhood of supportive, positive women who are there to uplift each other and hold each other accountable… at the same time as kicking butt! Her Squad is what gets her out of bed every morning, and she loves that she has created a space for women to thrive together and live a happier, healthier life—inside and out.
MEET JOSIE
Josie Forrest is passionate about helping people succeed and reach their health and fitness goals to the best of their ability. Fitness is her passion and remains a top priority. Freshly graduated into the fitness industry she has completed Cert III and IV in Fitness, Cert I and II in nutrition, Advanced nutrition and female specific training at Human Performance Centre.
From a young age, Josie has been passionate about nurturing students total wellbeing, in both mind and body and with a goal to empower women and create a fit and healthy environment.
In her former role as a BJPhysie teacher, competitor and inspirational speaker, Josie had the opportunity to compete at the Sydney Opera House with the top 30 talented dancers in Australia securing 4th place in her category.
Josie has also held roles as a class instructor in gyms and as a sports specific netball coach and netball player. She’s a warm, bubbly and encouraging person to all and believes any goal can be reached. This one is a keeper!
MEET MAYA
Maya is passionate about helping people enhance mind, body and soul. Maya has recently graduated into the fitness industry having completed 3 and 4 in fitness, advance nutrition level 1, female specific training and boxing certificate in 2021 at Human Performance Centre. Maya is a qualified mental health first aider and has completed Reiki level 1, an energy healing modality. Maya has been into fitness since she was young and has done all sorts of physical activities including basketball, boxing beach bootcamp, karate, dancing, triathlon, yoga, surfing and running. Maya loves evolving in her fitness and trying out new things! Maya enjoys physical movement as she feels energized, clear minded and happier afterwards. Maya is also on a spiritual journey whereby she practices mindfulness, meditation, self-care and self-love every day. Fun fact about Maya! She has been vegetarian for almost 12 years now and is very passionate about eating clean and organic. It is Maya’s dream to one day to go to university to study Nutrition or Naturopathic medicine. Maya loves doing weighted glute bridges and booty band workouts. Love a good booty burn! She enjoys listening to Rufus Du Sol radio on Spotify when working out.
MEET CAZ
Caz loves living the health and fitness lifestyle, and sharing that with all around her! Whether it is coaching classes, or just chit-chatting about nutrition and finding balance in our lives. She is a little pocket rocket and a recent first-time Mum who loves what she does.
Caz was in the Australian and New Zealand Army for a combined 12 years, so brings a background of challenging sessions with strength, endurance, teamwork and of course fun.
Her experience has been in coaching Crossfit for over 7 years, with a Certificate III & IV in Fitness, Precision Nutrition, and is currently completing her Girls Gone Strong Pregnancy and Post Partum qualification after becoming a mum to little Evie. Caz has been a competitive Crossfitter having started CrossFit in 2011, as well as NZ Nationals for powerlifting, plus ticked the half Ironman and full marathon box too!
Caz loves the dumbbell snatch, and can’t beat the MINT playlist on Spotify. Yew.
MEET ANGEL
Angel was inspired to get into fitness after her mum was diagnosed with cancer at 56. Her father who was an amateur boxer had a valve put in his heart and just after that, Angel vowed to live a healthier life. She lived & breathed Martial arts, got her black singlet in Muay Thai, Black in Zen do Kai (mixed martial arts), did various weapon training, helped teach the lower belts and taught women’s self-defence courses. Angel moved to Sydney, dedicating herself to training her butt off to compete in a body shaping contest, in which she came 2nd. When she moved to the North Coast at the end of 1994, she started working at the original Byron Gym, teaching group fitness classes. She went on to manage the gym. After having her own battle with cancer in 2008, she was able to kick its butt and thrive. She also worked at Lennox Gym teaching various classes and at that time became a Zumba instructor, turned it into her own bootay shaking fun workout and that’s when she met Rikki-Lee. She has her Cert 3, Studying Cert 4 & Cert 4 in nutrition. Her passion for a healthy lifestyle, fitness, meditation, food & enjoying life and living in the moment, inspiring, and being inspired at 52 is bigger than ever.
MEET Renee
Renee’s Bod Squad journey started as many of yours do. After a fair bit of pestering from Rikki, Renee began training with Rikki and the Lennox crew in the early days of Bod Squad. She absolutely loved the training style and, of course, the accompanying girl gang. Prior to joining Bods Squad, Renee had trained for years in power lifting and body building and she hated cardio with a passion! All that’s changed now and she definitely knows the value of a good HIIT session.
Renee had completed a Cert III in Group Fitness out of interest in previous years so when Rikki began expanding she had to jump on board. Outside of Bod Squad, Renee is a High School English Teacher and has completed her Masters in Child and Adolescent Welfare.
Her dedication to fitness is all about wellbeing, both physical and mental. Renee focuses on living a balanced life herself and encourages her clients (and students) to do the same. If you ever go to Renee for advice, you can expect to hear: “always look after number one, only then can you serve anyone else”.
MEET ALEX
Alex joined the Bod Squad team in January 2020 and quickly made an impression with her fun, challenging sessions. Nicknamed ‘the terminator’ by a lovely client, her workouts will leave you sweating E.V.E.R.Y. Time!
Alex wanted a career change when she moved over to Australia from the UK three years ago and decided to pursue personal training. A lifelong love of sport started with challenging her brothers in rugby union and cricket (#yeahthegirls), to training competitively in swimming as a teenager. Dance and lacrosse came before the gym, and the team sport aspect has fuelled her workout style – its always more fun to train harder, together!
“My goal is to show women how far we can push ourselves, and how great it feels to work hard and often surprise ourselves when we go that extra rep, 10 seconds or hill. I’ll work you hard, but we will have an absolute laugh in the process!”
And you’ll never get bored with her variety of classes - ranging from the favourite ‘dance aerobics’ to ‘slam it like it’s hot’