Lonna Mosow has devoted the majority of her life to her children. For decades, she has spent 12-plus hours a day focusing solely on their health and happiness. She’s so committed to her brood, in fact, that she has precious little time left over for herself.

But Mosow is no Mother of the Year; in fact, she’s not a mother at all. Her “children,” as she lovingly calls them, are her clients. She is their personal trainer.

Mosow, owner of the Lonna Mosow Workout Studio and Lonna Mosow Center for Mind Body Fitness in Eden Prairie, has been called the Mother of Twin Cities Fitness. Back in the 1970s, she developed the first group fitness classes in the metro area and is widely credited as being the first to bring aerobics, yoga and Pilates to the Minneapolis region. Now she’s at the cutting edge again, bringing Gyrotonics into her workout regimes.

Being an exercise innovator is not easy work; her extended workdays are a testament to how much of her heart and soul she infuses into others’ workouts. For Mosow, knowing she’s changing peoples’ lives is all the motivation she needs.

Changing Minds, Shaping Lives

As a “movement oriented” child, Mosow says she intended to be a professional dancer. She studied dance locally, in Canada and in New York, but eventually developed a distaste for the backstage politics. After reading Kenneth Cooper’s ground-breaking book, Aerobics, in the late 1960s, she became interested in all-over fitness.

“It satisfied my appetite, and I became very passionate about getting people in shape,” she says.

In 1972, she hit the airwaves with Figure Fitness, one of the nation’s first exercise television shows, which would air in the Twin Cities for 12 years. In 1974, she started her first workout studio in Edina as the antithesis to the majority of exercise clubs at the time, which had a reputation for selling lifetime memberships and suddenly closing up shop. Though she had faith in her idea, Mosow encountered unexpected resistance.

“I quit every day because I met a new obstacle,” she says. “I couldn’t get money from the bank, being a woman. I had landlords who wouldn’t rent to me because they didn’t understand what a workout studio was.”

Her intended audience was skeptical, too. “People would say, ‘What is this acrobatics? Do I have to be in good shape?’ It was new territory. I offered yoga, but I couldn’t sell it because people thought it was a religion.”

Mosow kept her chin up and soldiered on, her spirits buoyed by her clients’ enthusiasm.

“I got back what I gave,” she says. “When I saw people following me with leg-lifts and boot camp exercises, it was them giving back to me. It’s like them saying, ‘We really enjoy exercise, thank you,’ and when they give that to me, I am totally inspired to continue to give back to them.”

Ironically, “inspiring” is a word many of Mosow’s clients use to describe her, including Bobbi Mrkonich, who has worked out with Mosow for more than 20 years. “She’s creative and motivational,” Mrkonich says. “She more than meets my expectations because it’s always new, always varied, always challenging. She’s just a much higher caliber.”

As word spread of Mosow’s approach to fitness, her client list grew. To accommodate her expanding business, she eventually opened workout facilities in Ridgedale Center and downtown. However, in 1989, wanting to have a more constant presence at any business with her name on the building, she consolidated to a new studio on City West Parkway in Eden Prairie, where she has operated ever since.

Most of her clients followed her to Eden Prairie (some, like Mrkonich, are still with her today) and many more have joined since then. Bill Schilling of Shorewood began twice-weekly Pilates sessions with Mosow in late 2007 at the urging of his wife, who works out with another trainer at Mosow’s studio.

“[Mosow] is very engaged during the whole session; she’ll point to something, I’ll try it, and bam; there’s an immediate benefit,” Schilling says. “She clearly has a passion for what she’s doing.”

And beyond Mosow’s exercise expertise, Schilling enjoys her friendship.

“She’s very motherly,” he says. “It’s the attention to detail she applies throughout each session that demonstrates her concern, her interest. We’re able to talk about other things besides Pilates and working out—there’s a broader interest.”