YouTube Fitness icon Sydney Cummings Houdyshell sits down with HerPWR to talk about resilience, the importance of having a holistic approach to fitness and why you should pursue progress over perfection.

The moment she woke up from her emergency surgery, a flood of what ifs filled her head.

What if they think I’m a fraud? What if they think I took their money and I won’t hold up my end of the deal as a trainer?

Anxiety washed over her like a waterfall.

A personal trainer on YouTube, Sydney Cummings Houdyshell was getting ready to launch an end of summer workout challenge for her Facebook community that following week. It was a big deal not just for Sydney, but also for her followers, who were pumped to get their fitness in check as fall ushered in.

The only problem was, Sydney got shot in the foot the night before.

The incident happened after Sydney and Dustin Houdyshell, her then fiancé, were leaving from their studio in the swanky commercial neighborhood of South End in Charlotte, N.C. While South End was generally safe, car theft had already been an ongoing problem around the area.

Sydney and Dustin left their studio at 9:30 p.m.—earlier than they would normally wrap up for the night. As Dustin locked up, Sydney glimpsed some men walking down the street. She paid it no mind. After securing their studio, Sydney and Dustin started walking to the parking lot.

“Don’t move,” someone said behind them, the voice barely above a whisper.

Sydney barely heard the voice. Dustin, who was walking ahead of her, did not. Both continued walking towards their car.

“Don’t move!” the speaker said again.

This time, Sydney looked back and found herself staring down the barrel of a gun. Holding it was a man clad in a black hoodie obscuring his face. His three companions were also dressed the same, making it impossible to identify any of them.

“Dustin, get in the car, get in the car!” Sydney said frantically. “They have a gun!”

Powered by adrenalin, Dustin and Sydney sprinted to their car, prompting the gunman to start firing at them. Dustin made it to the driver seat unscathed. Sydney scrambled to the passenger side and, as she did, stole another quick glance at their attackers. She saw that another man in the group had also started shooting at them. 

Sydney yanked open the passenger side door and jumped in. But before she could pull her right leg into the car, she felt a powerful force, something like a hammer, hit her foot. She pulled car door closed and hunkered down onto the floorboards as Dustin hurtled the car out of the parking lot.

It wasn’t until Sydney reached down her leg and touched something wet when she realized what happened.

“Dustin, I’ve been shot,” Sydney said. She didn’t feel any pain, probably because adrenaline still pumped wildly in her veins.

Dustin called 911 and he was instructed to pull up to a McDonald’s parking lot, which was about a mile away from their studio. An ambulance would meet them there shortly, the operator said.

After the medics arrived and started tending to her gunshot wound, Sydney learned that the bullet—which hit the undercarriage of the car before bouncing into the pavement and tearing into her right foot—went through the spot between her ankle bone and her Achilles tendon. It also fractured her heel bone and damaged a lot of nerves.

The medics couldn’t stop her foot from bleeding, so they rushed Sydney to the hospital for an emergency surgery to extract the bullet.

Injured and emotionally rattled, Sydney tried processing the gravity of almost having her and Dustin’s lives taken from them while also contending with being out of commission for up to six weeks.

Sydney did not want to let her community down. But with her foot damaged, how would she move forward?

How it started

I first discovered Sydney on YouTube in late 2018. After signing the dotted line to serve in the Army for four years, I was on the hunt for a workout program that could help me prepare for basic training.

I was searching YouTube for a beginner-friendly workout video when I stumbled upon Sydney’s 30-minute glute band exercise. The title of the video promised a good burnout. I can say that for a fitness amateur like me, it more than delivered.

I was super sore the next day, but Sydney’s infectious energy and coaching throughout the workout left me wanting to do more workouts with her. I felt like I had an actual personal trainer going through the motions with me, and when I struggled, she knew exactly what to say and how to say it to keep me going.

When I started to feel the muscle burn, I watched her on the screen feel it, too.

“Wooo!” she exclaimed at some point during the workout. “There’s the burn!” 

It made me feel validated, that I wasn’t a weakling. It helped me stay motivated.

What I love about Sydney is that she’s not afraid to show that even if she is a trainer, she is also human like the rest of us. That even she gets worn out from the exercises she plans for her own programs. Because at the end of the day, what matters is she always pushes on.

When I work out with Sydney, I don’t feel intimidated by the challenge, even when the exercise calls for heavy weights or complex moves. It doesn’t matter how many times she has already explained the proper form for a certain exercise in the past. Sydney would always go over it in every workout video, like it’s the first time for everyone to perform the move. One of my favorite reminders from Sydney is to not let ego get in the way of getting quality reps in—just drop down in weight as needed. 

Sydney’s YouTube channel touts an impressive 1.6 million subscribers, a testament to how effective she is as a personal trainer. When she founded her fitness company Royal Change in 2015, her goal was to bring quality workout programs from an accredited trainer to people in their homes.

“I think everyone deserves that,” Sydney said, knowing that having access to fitness can be difficult, especially for younger people who have no money to spare for personal trainers, or for parents who can’t make it to the gym every day. 

Sydney’s mission stems back to her younger days in Sissonville, a small town in West Virginia—home to a population of 2,680 according to the 2022 census. Growing up, her family didn’t have a lot of disposable income, so as a student athlete in high school, she had to find creative ways to train for track and high jump.

The broken concrete in the end zone of their high school football field served as a makeshift high jump pit for Sydney and her teammates. Every day after school, Sydney’s dad also drove her to the university in the city to use their track.

But what Sydney lacked in resources, she made up for in grit and determination. Soon, she was bagging national high jump championships and setting records in West Virginia.

Answering the call

Sydney’s journey from being a star athlete in a small town to becoming the fitness powerhouse she is today was laden with unpredictable bends and speed bumps. However, the sudden detour she had to take early on was the catalyst for the rest of her future in fitness.

The chapter of Sydney’s track career had closed after she graduated from college in 2013. With job security in mind, she decided to go back to nursing school that same year. She also took a job at a non-profit to help pay for her schooling. 

It was the summer before Sydney was due to come back to her second year in nursing school when the metaphorical detour, in the form of a phone call from Dustin, materialized in her path. Dustin called Sydney to tell her about the conversation he had with the manager of the gym he worked out at.

“If she’s everything you say she is, get her down here and I will give her a job as a personal trainer, the gym manager told Dustin.

“Here,” was four hours away in Charlotte, N.C., where Dustin was working as a CPA.

In a curious turn of events, Sydney was let go from her job at the non-profit the following day. It was due to budget constraints, they told her.

In her mind, there was nothing else left to do but to pack her bags and make her way to Charlotte, N.C. despite objections from her family.

Besides, Sydney thought at the time, it was only for the summer. She just wanted to scrape enough money from personal training so she could continue nursing school. 

But Sydney had no idea that there was no going back to West Virginia anymore… and definitely not to nursing school.

Helping people feel like royalty

Sydney had always wanted to make fitness accessible to more people. After all, that was one of the biggest reasons why she founded Royal Change. But she also had another goal, which was to compensate personal trainers for what they deserve.

“Because I was a personal trainer for years, I know how little personal trainers get paid,” she said.

Sydney herself got paid as little as $200 at some point, especially when she first started personal training. But despite the low compensation, the job made her feel so alive like no other.

So, I began to ask, what was the inspiration behind Royal Change?

Well, she didn’t want to call her brand, “Sydney Shred,” or “Ultimate Fitness,” or anything like that. Sydney started conceptualizing her brand with the word, “Change” because she wanted to connect it to what fitness did for people.

“Fitness helps you change to feel like royalty. And royalty was a nod to Charlotte being known as the Queen City. We felt like Charlotte gave us that place to grow and figure out what we loved and gave us the community to support that.”

From there, Royal Change was born.

Dustin had a knack for photography and videography, so during his spare time, he helped Sydney produce marketing materials for her brand. Meanwhile, Sydney hustled to grow her clientele. She worked at three gyms. She trained clients online. She held free bootcamps on the weekend.

But it was the sudden passing of Sydney’s younger brother Zac in 2017 that propelled her and Dustin to bring Royal Change to new heights. When Zac was still alive, he made sure to live his life to the fullest every day. Sydney and Dustin vowed to do the same moving forward. 

Dustin quit his CPA job to focus on Royal Change’s marketing needs. He also did freelance photography for clients, including Nike, Reebok and the NBA.

On Zac’s first birthday in heaven, Sydney and Dustin went all in and signed the lease on their studio in South End. The original plan was to create a small personal training space to train advanced clients and where trainers were paid well.

“I told Dustin I would like to build a little film set in the corner just to have, you know, social media posts or anything that we wanted to record—little workouts that we could post on social media,” Sydney said.

She also thought of sharing workout videos on YouTube, since there weren’t a lot of creators crowding into that niche during that time. 

Building the stage helped Sydney and Dustin channel the pain from losing Zac into creating something meaningful for their venture. It helped them heal. But as they kept working on the stage, they realized that it was getting a little too big, leaving barely any space for face-to-face personal training.

Again, a detour had to be taken.

“We were like, ‘Okay, well, we we’re gonna have to run with this, then!’”

When adversity forges character

Sydney’s YouTube channel picked up momentum in 2018 when she started putting out workout programs, which meant churning out videos daily. Meanwhile behind the scenes, the grind never stopped for Sydney and Dustin.

“We both had to keep working, you know, 80 hours a week with personal training, accounting, and Dustin was doing freelance videography, drone work and photography to try to make ends meet,” Sydney said.

In July that same year, their hard work started paying off. Their reach had spread worldwide, and they were recognized as a YouTube partner. At last, they could finally monetize their content.

Two months later, Sydney was getting ready to launch an end of summer challenge for her community on Facebook when the shooting took place. Worried about what their community would think, Sydney decided it would be best to be transparent with them. Three days after the shooting, she and Dustin uploaded a video sharing everything that had happened.

“All the emotions that went with that injury… it was tough to swing it,” Sydney shared.

The video was met with an overwhelming amount of support from the community.

“You are so strong and will overcome this!” a follower wrote in the comments. “You are an inspiration to me. I’ll be keeping you in my prayers for a speedy recovery.”

“Sydney, do not rush,” wrote another. “Take your time. Be strong. We love you.”

Despite the setback, Sydney and Dustin still pushed through with the end of summer community challenge by repurposing old workout videos. In the end, the challenge was a huge success and from there, Royal Change’s growth kept trending upward.

Happy, healthy, strong

I fell off Sydney’s fitness train the whole time I was in service, from 2019 to the end of 2022. Between dealing with Army demands and tending to my family, I didn’t have the time to nourish myself. But the closer I got to the end of my contract, the more my schedule started to calm down, too.

It was time to love myself again and to do that, I had to make big changes in my life. 

So, in January 2023, I started following Sydney’s daily workout videos. For the first time ever, I participated in her yearly “Summertime Fine” exercise program, which has helped thousands of people across the globe achieve their fitness goals. A 90-day program, it is composed of three tiers, with exercises focusing on strength and conditioning.

Because I wanted to learn more about nutrition and how to set my macro goals, I availed a membership to the  Sydney Squad. It’s Sydney’s online coaching and accountability group that you can pay into monthly ($9.99 the first month, then $29.99 the succeeding months) or yearly ($179.94).

Through the Sydney Squad, people all over the world can gather to help each other out in their respective fitness journey. It’s also where Sydney connects with the members to provide coaching, conduct question and answer sessions and so much more. However, you don’t have to be a member of the squad to have access to all of Sydney’s workout videos on her channel.

I have been a member of the squad for over a year, and I can say it has helped me a lot, especially when it comes to executing the proper form when working out and having access to protein-rich recipes. I also appreciate the teamwork environment that Sydney has fostered within the group. 

“I know how important a team is in any pursuit of any goal,” Sydney said. “And I think who I am as a person, as the leader of that group—we’re going to support each other. We’re not going to allow people to talk down about themselves or others. There’s too much of that already in our world.”

After I completed “Summertime Fine 2023,” my weight went down from 145 pounds to 130 pounds. I had finally shed the last 15 pounds of baby weight that stubbornly clung on before I started the program. On top of that, my body was noticeably a lot more toned. My biceps were bulging. My quads felt like they were made of rocks when flexed. I saw a lot of growth in my shoulders muscles.

The cherry on top was the positive effects working out had on my mental health and in return, what it did for my self-esteem. The American Psychological Association attests that “many experts believe routine is as powerful in treating anxiety and mood disorders as antidepressants.”

I believe Sydney’s holistic approach to fitness plays a huge role in why she still stands out in the saturated space of YouTube Fitness. Her mantra, “Happy, healthy, strong,” perfectly encapsulates her approach. It is often etched in her different merch offerings—a simple yet powerful reminder to her supporters.

I asked how she came up with it.

“Yeah, I don’t know where that came from!” Sydney told me, laughing. Then she added, “I just talk about the things that I see people talk about. You know, what we do is determined by how we think about the world.”

This “talk” is what I always look forward to during the workout. It always comes after Sydney cheerily announces, “You have made it to your cooldown!”

In my humble opinion, it’s the best part of the workout. Imagine going to brunch with a girlfriend and talking about life—but instead of clinking glasses of mimosas over plates of French toast, you follow Sydney’s cooldown stretches while you listen to her peptalk. 

Some days she encourages people to fight for their happiness. Other days, she reminds people that being healthy goes beyond the workout because it also calls for proper nutrition, good sleep hygiene and hydration. Sydney also talks about how strength plays into things that go on outside of fitness, like getting through heartbreak, healing from an injury or taking risks. 

Her cooldown talks just have a way of centering me, especially when I’m having a bad day and her words just hit so right, as if she’s reading my mind. Sometimes it makes me wonder if she has psychic abilities because how on earth does she do that?

“I tap into reading people as often as I can,” Sydney said. “On a grand scheme, I think we all are looking for fulfillment and passion and joy out of life, and sometimes that gets a little bit tougher. So, I tend to see what people are saying about their workouts or their life, and I relate to that in some way. And I think people must know that someone is proud of them because a lot of people don’t hear that every day.”

The business side of things

Royal Change is more than just uploading workout videos and Sydney doing Facebook lives or Instagram stories with her community. For one, a lot of meticulous planning goes on behind every workout program she rolls out. 

“Having done this for six years, I have seasons with people, and I know when everyone’s hot and heavy from June through March,” Sydney explained. “Then we take a little breather, and we ramp it back up from May through July. My mission is to keep people consistent.”

In addition to content creation, there is the business side of things, like the Sydney Squad membership and their shop where they sell the monthly workout calendar for non-squad members, exercise equipment and activewear. I had bought glute bands and clothes from them a couple of years ago they are still in great condition. 

Having graduated from West Virginia University’s John Chambers College of Business and Economics, Dustin’s skills and his experience as a CPA have been invaluable to the growth of their company. On the flip side, Sydney admitted that being a manager just wasn’t in her nature, but she has been learning to have the confidence in her leadership.

Sydney acknowledged that holding people to a standard you know they’re capable of can get tough because not everyone is on their A game every day. But this is why communication is so important.

“It’s communication to the teammates that are helping you make it work,” Sydney said. “It’s communicating your expectations clearly, communicating consistently with progress, communicating with accountability.”

Filling her own cup

Sydney is many things—a family woman, a fitness personality, a business owner. 

Like many of us, she starts her day around 7:00 a.m. She gets her 2-year-old son Ari up and ready for the day, packs his lunch, gets herself ready and takes him to school.

When Sydney gets to the studio, she does her hair and makeup, and she makes sure the set is ready to film the workout. 

Yoga mat? Check. Dumbbells and other exercise equipment? Check. Set lights? Check.

Then they shoot the picture for the video thumbnail. After that, the camera rolls—Sydney gives her spiel for the intro and proceeds to do the workout. 

With the filming tasks accomplished, Sydney dives into her Instagram page to talk about the workout they just filmed so her followers have an idea on what to expect the next day. She also goes into the Sydney Squad Facebook group to answer questions the members may have.

After that, Sydney handles the operations side of things with Dustin. They approve apparel designs, hire employees, strategize for growth. Sydney calls this, “Jazzing the business.”

She ends her day by picking up her son from school, maybe doing another Sydney Squad Facebook live in the evening and working on the description of the new YouTube workout video they filmed that day. Then she goes to bed. 

With Sydney’s every day chock-full of to-do lists, she is not immune to feelings of burnout.

How does she get past it?

“I don’t want to sound cheesy,” Sydney said, “but working out. I know that at the end of a workout, it will be worth it. I think you also must tap into what else is on your plate that maybe could be sacrificed for a little while.”

Sydney is a big believer of filling one’s cup. She does this by unplugging and spending time with her family, going outside to take a walk and listening to music.

Sydney also does her best to take all the challenges that come with the job in stride.

“I think the toughest part about being a personal trainer on YouTube is wishing that I could get access to everyone in the world and just show them how fitness can be,” Sydney mused. “You know, I wish there was a way to just tap into everyone and say, like, look, fitness doesn’t have to be so scary. It doesn’t have to be so intense or intimidating.”

No digital creator in any given online space is safe from criticism and the ever rising audience expectations. It wasn’t easy for Sydney in the beginning, but she has learned to be more understanding of people and where they are coming from when they are not happy with a workout.

“Every single workout that I put out… someone’s gonna love it and someone’s gonna hate it,” Sydney said. “It’s not that I’ve done anything wrong to people. It’s just, you know, people have bad days, and sometimes a great workout on a bad day is just a bad workout for someone.”

And that is why she takes the time to sit down and stretch with her audience during cooldown, because as a real person, she wants to know how she can help.

“Fitness is not a mechanism for punishment. I think if we boil it down, everyone has access to the very basic principles of fitness, which is just moving your body. It starts there. It doesn’t need to be something where you commit five days a week after coming from zero. It’s all about progression, no matter what person you’re looking at, whether it’s someone who’s fit or someone who has never worked out in their life. Progress has to be the goal, not perfection.”

Never stop moving

If you’re someone who’s new to Sydney and you watch one of her latest cardio workout videos for the first time, you will never guess she has ever been shot in the foot. You would never guess that she suffered nerve damage, or that she even has limited range of motion in her ankle, especially when you see her jumping high over her workout bench—back and forth, back and forth—for 30 seconds straight during a circuit.

But that’s just how her tenacity breaks through in everything she does.

“Resilience, I feel like, has become a part of my identity. It doesn’t mean that you get everything perfect. It just means that you’re not willing to give up… you will keep trying despite how tough it is, and not quitting because it is tough.”

When Sydney was going through the heartbreak of losing her brother and then became a victim of gun violence shortly after, she shared she also had feelings of resentment, like any other person would.

Why me?

I don’t deserve this.

This is really hard.

But in the end, Sydney didn’t surrender.

“I knew somewhere deeper that I had the strength to get through it. I’d just never had to tap into it yet.”

And perhaps it is the same resilience that Sydney had tapped into when the gunman told her to not move, when she defied her and Dustin’s attacker, so she can still keep moving to this day.