Monica McCormick
As a certified fitness instructor since 2016 and a graphic designer turned fitness coach, Leanne Thomas built Movement with Leanne around a gap she felt in her own body: postpartum fitness advice that expected her to get back to her old routine when nothing about her life or body worked that way anymore.
After the birth of her son, Leanne was hit with postpartum depression, sciatica, and hip misalignment all at once. Five-minute core-focused breathing sessions on the nursery floor, mobility work while her coffee reheated, mental health walks along Kailua Beach—those bite-size sessions stitched her body and her outlook back together, and became the foundation for how she now coaches moms through realistic, sustainable strength training.
"No mom should have to choose between her well-being and her family's needs."
But running that kind of coaching business on Arketa wasn't working. Constant platform glitches disrupted her workflow and her clients' experience, and getting timely support to fix them was its own fight. Movement gave her the platform to rebuild on her own terms: higher-value programs, repeatable group coaching structures, and a backend that no longer eats into the time she spends actually coaching.
Can you tell us about your business and who you help?
Movement with Leanne is a fitness and movement business designed to help moms rebuild strength, confidence, and consistency in a way that actually fits into motherhood. I primarily work with women from early postpartum through the first several years of motherhood who know they want to feel stronger and more like themselves again, but struggle to make traditional fitness routines work with unpredictable schedules, limited time, changing bodies, and the mental load of caring for everyone else. My approach is built around realistic strength training, mobility, recovery, and helping women create routines they can sustain, not chasing perfection or expecting life to suddenly become less busy.
I'm passionate because I've lived this frustration myself. Becoming a mom completely changed the way I had to approach fitness. I realized that the answer wasn't trying harder to fit my old routine into my new life; it was learning how to build a new system around the season I was actually in, and now I get to help other moms do the same.
"The most rewarding part is watching a mom go from feeling like exercise is one more thing she is failing at to realizing she can become strong, consistent, and confident again without sacrificing the rest of her life to do it."
What problem were you facing before using Movement?
Before using Movement, I was using Arketa and constantly running into platform glitches that disrupted both my workflow and my clients' experience. When something went wrong, it was also incredibly difficult to get timely support or connect with someone who could actually help solve the problem.
As a small business owner, I need my platform to make running my business easier, not create another layer of troubleshooting and follow-up. I wanted something more reliable, intuitive, and backed by responsive customer support so I could spend less time fixing technology and more time serving my clients.
"Before using Movement, I was using Arketa and constantly running into platform glitches that disrupted both my workflow and my clients' experience … I wanted something more reliable, intuitive, and backed by responsive customer support so I could spend less time fixing technology and more time serving my clients."
What made you choose Movement over other platforms? Did you try any others?
I've tried and tested several different fitness platforms over the years, and Movement has been the most flexible and helpful by far.
What stood out to me was how easily I could customize the experience around what my clients actually need, rather than having to force my programs into a rigid platform structure. I also love being able to duplicate programs I've already built, make updates, and run them again for a new group without starting from scratch.
As a business owner, that saves me a huge amount of time while still allowing each program to feel intentional and tailored to the clients I'm serving.
"I love being able to duplicate programs I've already built, make updates, and run them again for a new group without starting from scratch.
What stood out to me was how easily I could customize the experience around what my clients actually need, rather than having to force my programs into a rigid platform structure."
How has Movement helped you grow, simplify, or scale?
Movement has allowed me to scale beyond the typical low-ticket membership model that so many fitness apps are built around.
I was able to create a more intentional program structure with higher-value offers, group coaching, and repeatable programs that could serve clients at a deeper level without requiring me to rebuild everything each time.
That ultimately simplified my business because I could consolidate my offers, reuse and adapt the programs I had already created, and focus on the parts of coaching that actually needed my personal attention.
"Movement has allowed me to scale beyond the typical low-ticket membership model that so many fitness apps are built around."
What features or aspects of Movement have been most useful for your work?
The calendar feature, push notification reminders, and customizable chat groups have been the most useful for my business. Together, they help my clients feel consistently engaged, supported, and up to date without requiring me to manually communicate every reminder or update in real time. I can plan much of the client experience in advance, schedule it out, and trust that the right information will reach them when they need it.
"The calendar feature, push notification reminders, and customizable chat groups have been the most useful for my business. Together, they help my clients feel consistently engaged, supported, and up to date without requiring me to manually communicate."
What would you tell another coach or creator considering Movement?
I would recommend using the chatbot (Mai) from the beginning to ask very specific questions about what you're trying to build and the best way to structure it. I asked a lot of questions like, "I'm trying to create X, what's the best way to set this up?" That was incredibly helpful because Movement has so many features, and I didn't want to build everything first only to realize later that my backend was messy or unnecessarily complicated.
"My biggest advice would be: know what you want the client experience to look like, then use the support tools inside Movement to figure out the cleanest way to build it."
Since switching to Movement, Leanne has moved her business away from the low-ticket membership model most fitness apps default to. In its place: higher-value coaching offers and group programs built around real transformation, not just access to a video library, and a backend that no longer eats into the time she spends actually coaching.
Leanne didn't just leave a glitchy platform behind, she used the shift to rebuild her business on her own terms. Movement with Leanne now runs the way she actually coaches: sustainable, structured, and built around the season her clients are in, not a one-size-fits-all program.
Check out Movement with Leanne or find Leanne on Instagram.
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Ready to stop working around your platform and start building on your own terms?
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What is Movement?
Movement is an all-in-one platform that helps coaches, creators, and community builders launch beautifully branded apps and memberships—without needing to be technical or piece together multiple tools.
Whether you're offering courses, events or programs, selling digital products, or hosting a private community, Movement gives you everything you need in one place: content and video hosting, chats, events, directories, and more.
It’s designed to be intuitive for you and seamless for your audience—so you can focus on delivering value, not managing tech.
For coaches who are tired of stitching together tools like Kajabi, Squarespace, and Facebook Groups, Movement offers a simpler, more scalable way to grow your business and deepen client connection—all under your own brand.
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