People planning to work out at the Greater Burlington YMCA on Saturday morning had a good excuse not to: They were locked out. The gym’s lockdown switch had inadvertently been activated. The doors, which normally open automatically in the morning, stayed shut tight.
Wendy Ross-Atwood, 56, wasn’t going home. The longtime instructor, scheduled to teach Strength and Burn at 8:30 a.m., told the assembled members that she would hold class — without weights — on the sidewalk. Her husband pulled the couple’s black Tesla closer and opened the doors. Music was soon thumping from the car, and Ross-Atwood didn’t miss a beat.
The pint-size drill instructor led 17 people through push-ups, lunges, planks, crunches, curls and dips. A stickler for proper form, Ross-Atwood barked instructions and shouted encouragement: “You are the weight! Be the weight! … Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze!”
Teaching outside was no big deal. During the pandemic — that other lockdown — the instructor stacked milk crates in the corner of her basement, stuck a camera on top and streamed free workout classes.
What Ross-Atwood had found difficult was years ago, when she stepped into a gym for the first time. She weighed more than 200 pounds in college. “I frankly didn’t believe that gyms were for people like me,” she said. She began her weight-loss journey lifting soup cans in her living room while watching Denise Austin workouts on TV. A fitness class at the University of Vermont led to a gym in Colchester where, trimmed to a size 14, she began to teach.
Some students didn’t take her seriously. “I had people walk in and walk out,” she said. Doubters who stayed “wondered whether or not I could really bring it” and then got a surprise. “I’m pretty strong,” she said.
Ross-Atwood carries her size-20 photos with her. “When someone comes up to me after class and says, ‘There’s no way I could do what you do,’ I drag the photos out and say, ‘Indeed, you can.’”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Y Not?”
This article appears in September 30 • 2026.
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