By Francesca Pollio Fenton
In 2019, Chase Crouse was working two jobs – in ministry at the Archdiocese of New York and as a personal trainer. He quickly realized that while he loved working with people at the gym, he hated not being able to talk about Jesus with his clients.
So he decided to combine both of his passions and create an online Catholic fitness and personal training apostolate called Hypuro Fit.
Hypuro Fit’s programing is rooted in Saint John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body,” encouraging its members to trade the mentality of needing to achieve the perfect “beach body” for the goal of living as a gift for others through self-discipline, self-mastery and honoring the bodies God gave them.
“Ultimately we’re doing this to better give of ourselves and … put everything in light of Christ and His Resurrection,” said Crouse, a graduate of John Paul the Great Catholic University in San Diego. He holds a master’s degree in biblical theology.
“It’s an invitation to you to strive for self-mastery for [the sake of] self-gift,” he says in one of his videos posted on the company’s website, hypurofit.org.
In addition to being the founder of Hypuro Fit, Crouse is one of its 10 coaches. The fitness apostolate offers two different options for users: one-on-one training or following a workout program through the app. Hypuro Fit also offers workshops for parishes, schools and more.
One-on-one training is done remotely through the use of Zoom and phone calls; it allows the individual to work with a coach to build a custom workout plan, determine nutrition goals and help with accountability.
The app is filled with a variety of different programs that include a library of workouts for people in every walk of life and with differing time constraints. The programs in the app also include educational content, technique tutorials, recipes and articles for spiritual formation.
Hypuro Fit also has specialty programs such as “Breaking the Chains” for those experiencing an addiction to lust as well as a postpartum program for moms.
“What we like to say with both approaches [we offer] is that we’re authentically Catholic but we’re technically excellent, meaning that we are going to base all of our exercise routines, our nutrition protocols, based on the latest science and studies we have at our disposal,” Crouse explained. “But at the same time, we’re also authentically Catholic, meaning that for our one-on-one clients, we’re going to pray with them and for them. But then even for our subscribers in our app, we’re bringing them back to our why, which is this idea of self-mastery for self-gift.”
Crouse said the majority of the apostolate’s clients are from ages 30 to 60. “They’re people in their vocations, and they’re really busy.” Hypuro Fit is aiming to show them that they don’t have to work out like they did in high school – just something that is reasonable for their lifestyle.
Additionally, about one-third of clients are priests and religious; they receive access to the programming for free.
“If we can help priests to be better priests – have more energy, give better – religious to be better brothers and sisters, husbands and wives to conquer themselves in order to give themselves to be more present – that’s the goal, that’s the dream,” Crouse said.
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