Katelyn Darkangelo (MVS ’17) had been working out her whole life. She’d spent six years coaching fitness clients and had graduated from the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology. But when she became pregnant with her first child in 2021, she felt nervous and confused about how to properly train during this season of life.

“A lot of workout programs or guidance were around walking and yoga and swimming and stationary biking. That’s not what I liked to do. I liked to lift barbells and go fast and do high-intensity workouts,” Darkangelo says. “All the guidance around pregnancy workouts was very cautionary. I knew there had to be more.”

She also reasoned that if someone with her background felt lost, then lots of other moms-to-be must be confused, too. So she set out on a mission to change that: Throughout her pregnancy, and into postpartum, Darkangelo worked toward completing two certifications in pregnancy and postpartum training. She started hosting workshops and education sessions at gyms and with mom-and-baby groups. And at her own gym, FIGR, in South Lyon, Mich., she launched full pregnancy and postpartum programs, both in person and via an app.

Instead of limiting pregnant women and telling them all the things they could no longer do, Darkangelo wanted to expand their options and provide science-backed guidance, not vague rules.

“I try to make it a more accessible, less fearful time,” she says. “It’s really rewarding to help moms feel like themselves when their bodies are changing.”

A family history

Darkangelo, now 29, always knew she would end up at U-M: Both of her parents are alums (they met at the school), and she grew up 20 minutes outside of Ann Arbor.

“I was a little toddler running around wearing the block M,” she recalls.

She initially enrolled in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts but switched to the School of Kinesiology her sophomore year after realizing it might better fit her interests.

Fitness was a family passion. Darkangelo was a talented softball player. Her sister was a state-level Olympic lifter. Her mom had been part of U-M Kinesiology’s first graduating class.

She quickly realized she’d made a good decision. Darkangelo enjoyed learning the science behind the movements. That same year, she saw an Instagram post about starting a fitness business with Beachbody (now BODi); she began online fitness coaching and fell in love not just with the health aspect but the business side of the job.

At U-M, she took a class through the U-M Center for Entrepreneurship taught by Brian Hayden, who had launched his own fitness startup.

“That’s where my business love flourished,” Darkangelo says.

She recalls that one assignment was to develop a business idea, pitch it, and see if someone would pay for it. That creative, hands-on thinking set the foundation for her future career. 

“I always had the entrepreneur mindset without knowing it,” says Darkangelo, who also has a master’s of management studies from Duke University. “I knew I wanted to start a business; it was a matter of what fitness realm I would start a business in.”

Coaching wasn’t part of the long-term plan, but friends kept asking her to write workouts for them, so Darkangelo decided to start her own program. In 2018, she launched FIGR, which stands for “Fit Is Getting Real.” She initially created hard copy fitness programs. Two years later, in 2020, the company shifted to an app offering monthly subscriptions and, eventually, a full-scale gym where she and her husband, Anthony, offer personal and small group training.

She applies everything she’d learned at Kines, from the movement science and fitness basics, to build a successful brand.

Darkangelo also credits Kines with expanding her view of what a career in fitness could be. She didn’t have to follow many of her peers and become a physical therapist or athletic trainer; for example, her biomechanics professor, Scott McLean, was doing a study with Nike.

“When I found these teachers who were using fitness in a different realm, I really liked that,” she says. “It was more unconventional. That always stuck with me.”

And baby makes three

Darkangelo’s mom would tell her daughter stories of being the only woman in the weight room while she was at U-M. Just a few decades ago, it was uncommon for women to lift. 

But Darkangelo felt at home around heavy weights. They were in her family house growing up, and she watched both of her parents work out regularly. She wanted other women to feel the same, particularly while pregnant.

Last year, Darkangelo launched a quarterly, six-week-long postpartum return to fitness program that starts with breathwork and basic mobility movements and gets moms back to lifting barbells and doing higher-impact movements. The two focus areas are the deep core and the pelvic floor.

“These systems are impacted during pregnancy,” Darkangelo explains. “When these muscle groups aren't recovered [before returning to normal exercise], women can experience a range of symptoms like pain, incontinence, weakness, etc.”

New moms can also benefit from reevaluating their expectations, she says, and considering how the changes in their energy levels, sleep, nutrition and other factors may impact their fitness capacity, too.

Once a month, Darkangelo hosts a BYOB (Bring Your Own Baby) workout where moms use their babies as weights. During her daily women’s fitness classes, she has a childcare assistant come to hang out with the kids in a separate play area so the women can focus on themselves. The FIGR app includes pregnancy and postpartum workout programs alongside three other functional strength offerings. Pregnant and postpartum moms can jump into the programs wherever makes sense in their journey.

Darkangelo says her Kines degree lends credibility when she’s working with clients — especially at a time when fitness influencers are a primary source of information for many people.

“I have education in the realm…Having that professional background in it has been really helpful for the growth that we’ve seen,” she says.

Her 3-year-old daughter, who is a “class regular,” is also proof that moms can work out and work out hard.

“I'm definitely trying to set an example for her, and I love that she loves the gym environment already,” Darkangelo says. “She's always wanting to practice handstands or play with the equipment, and it's really cool to see how this is her ‘normal.’ That's why I love working with the new moms, too — knowing that we're impacting the next generation.”