The Body You Have is the Only One That Matters

What if fitness was designed to meet you exactly where you are, instead of demanding that you change to fit into someone else's idea of exercise? That's the revolutionary concept behind Second Skin Society, and founder Lee-Anne Reuber is making it a reality.

Drawing from her 22 years of experience in disability support and her background as a yoga teacher, Leanne recognized a critical gap in the wellness industry. When the pandemic forced her yoga studio online, members kept highlighting how much they appreciated having both standing and seated class options. This feedback sparked a revelation: rather than adding accessibility as an afterthought, what if an entire fitness platform was built with inclusion as its foundation?

Second Skin Society's mobile app features classes taught by a diverse instructor team where 75% have lived experience with disabilities. These instructors—who are blind, deaf, wheelchair users, autistic, have ADHD, alongside non-disabled teachers—collaborate to create content that addresses a spectrum of needs and preferences. The approach rejects the traditional fitness industry's focus on changing our bodies for aesthetic purposes, instead embracing movement as a way to appreciate and respect what our bodies can do. As Lee-Anne explains, "We do squats so we can pick up our kids. We do bicep curls so we can carry groceries more easily."

The platform offers varied class formats including full standing options, seated classes with lower body movement, and seated classes without lower body movement. Technical innovations like the ability to adjust instructor volume separately from music—inspired by Lee-Anne's own hearing challenges—demonstrate their commitment to thoughtful design. Beyond just accessible content, they're developing an accessible fitness certification process to empower more people with disabilities to become instructors, addressing decades of industry exclusion.

Whether you're dealing with disability, aging, or simply want a more inclusive approach to movement, Second Skin Society creates space for everyone to experience the joy of fitness on their own terms. Download their app from Apple or Google stores today and join a community that celebrates all bodies and abilities.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Second Skin Society
• 3:19 Leanne's Journey to Inclusive Fitness
• 8:12 Benefits of Accessible On-Demand Fitness
• 15:28 Shifting Mindsets About Movement
• 20:45 Building Community in Adaptive Fitness
• 23:59 Instructor Diversity and Representation
• 26:15 Democratizing Fitness for All Bodies

Transcript

Newil Milliken: 0:00

Hello and welcome to AXSChat. I'm delighted that we're joined today by Lee-Anne Reuber, who is the founder and CEO of Second Skin Society. Leanne, we have chatted before but for the benefit of our audience, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what Second Skin Society is?

Lee-Anne Reuber: 0:18

Yes, thank you for having me. So I am the founder and CEO of Second Skin Society, and it is a fitness community where we are bringing people with and without disabilities together through movement. So we've launched an app that has been really intentionally designed for accessibility and really thoughtfully put together to include as many people as we possibly can. Of course, there's so much room for continued involvement, but super excited to be here today and share a little bit more about it.

Newil Milliken: 0:48

Excellent and we're glad to have you here. So what first prompted you to go down this route and set up your own organization? Were there particular things that motivated you? Did you see that there was a hole in the market? Did you see that there was a hole in the market?

Lee-Anne Reuber: 1:04

Yeah, definitely so. My experience with disability inclusion actually started when I was 13 years old. I had a really incredible opportunity to support one individual specifically in a very social aspect, but it ended up turning into a 22-year career, the bulk of which I was spending developing and managing employment support programs and also developing and managing rec and therapeutic programs. I took a little bit of a left turn at that point in my own life, my personal life. I had become a new yoga teacher and I was kind of presented this opportunity to open a yoga studio. So I decided, okay, I'm young enough to do this, I'm going to try it out. I opened a yoga studio, I ran it for a year and then the pandemic came.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 1:50

I immediately started creating virtual content and was really working on developing a membership in the virtual space and came to realize that the feedback that we were getting from members over and over was that they loved that we had both standing and seated class options.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 2:05

And for me, when we were getting this feedback, I was like, okay, we could do so much better.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 2:12

We could really really lean into accessibility and thinking very intentionally in how we were designing and building something to include as many people as possible, and not just to include people with disabilities, but truly to create a space where people with and without disabilities are coming together and we're focusing on all the things that we have in common, like love for fitness, love for yoga.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 2:36

So it started there, but also, as I started to have many, many conversations hundreds of conversations with people in my network who had disabilities and were sharing about their access needs and also the barriers that they had come up against with respect to movement, I myself was recognizing I was starting to lose some of my hearing. So some of the features that we've integrated into the app include the ability to adjust the volume of the instructor, separate from volume of the music. That is a personal need for me to have a better user experience so that I know that I can hear the instructor very clearly, and so the intention and the design and what we've started with and where we expect to go is both for all of the people who have access needs today, but also for the future me that I know is going to continue to need more and more different options and customizations based on my body's needs, as it continues to change as well.

Newil Milliken: 3:36

And this is something that's quite close to home for me as well, because my father has very much reduced mobility and hearing and a whole host of other things that he's acquired over the years, and he still needs to exercise and get out of the chair.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 3:55

Yeah.

Newil Milliken: 3:57

Or at least exercise, sometimes from the chair. But I think that quite often, what happens is that people will acquire an injury or acquire a disability, and not only does it have an impact on the immediacy of that particular condition, but then it impacts on you know the things that they used to do in terms of fitness and health, because if you lose your fitness, then it starts to have, you know, other amplification, impacts on on people's health. So I know, this is something that you know we, within my own family, we, we have people that are coming and supporting doing these adaptive exercises. So how you know, but that's in person and it's expensive, and you know, to reach a mass market, you need to think about scale. So, so how you know, but that's in person and it's expensive, and you know, to reach a mass market, you need to think about scale. So so how are you scaling?

Lee-Anne Reuber: 4:50

Yeah, so we built it as a mobile app. So, because that was one of the the asks that we were hearing from people that we were we were speaking to. Also because it it creates the opportunity to scale globally. Also, because it creates the opportunity to scale globally, anyone can access our app. We currently have members in Canada, in the US, the UK, australia, india, italy, so, you know, anyone can access the app.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 5:23

That makes it, you know, for many of the people that we want to create impact with and for you might decide that, hey, 6 pm on a Monday is when I'm going to take this class, but at 5 pm on Monday your body says no, it's not today, I don't have that capacity today. And so the convenience of having availability on demand when your body has the capacity to show up for us that was a real consideration as well. Also, because our instructor community is 75% made up of people with lived experience with disabilities. So we have instructors who are blind, who are deaf, who use wheelchairs, who are autistic, who have ADHD, and also instructors who are non-disabled. We're all working together to co-create different class options to reach a broad range of needs and preferences, and so, in thinking about how we're creating content and protecting the capacity of our instructor community as well. We also knew that having this on-demand option was both for benefit of our members and also for benefit of our instructors, who may benefit from flexibility in being able to create and deliver the content.

Debra Ruh: 6:36

Leanne, thank you so much for being on the show. I know that I've been trucking your work for many years and it's very exciting because, as we'd said before we came on air, others have tried to do this and we've actually featured some people, you know, trying to do things like this. But it does feel to me like the times have changed. I'm a woman over a certain age now and a lot of people are aging, you know, and over. I know a lot of the population in the United States, for example, are over 65. But these people are still. A lot of us are still healthy and fit and want to remain healthy and fit.

Debra Ruh: 7:12

So another thing that I'm seeing is that it appears to me, especially in my peers, people are looking at health in different ways now. They're like how can I, how can I have a better mind-body connection? How can I be more focused on healthy eating?

Debra Ruh: 7:27

I had heard something, even something silly, like a lot as you get into your later years, a lot of people cannot raise their hands over their head all the way over their head, because you sort of stop doing that.

Debra Ruh: 7:40

You sort of stop doing the movements that your body actually still needs, and so, just based on some of the walk I'm taking and watching my friends the walks they're taking, it feels like what you're doing is more important than ever because you're allowing the human inclusion You're allowing us to join no matter where. We are experiencing that humanness and I think that we keep forgetting to do that and I find that extremely distracting. But also, as somebody that is always exercised, always done, I love group exercises, yoga and Zumba and things like that but I get more out of the class when I'm given more information. Like you said, if there are people up there signing, that would add enjoyment to me in the class. I was just wondering if you're seeing other people looking at it almost a little differently now than in the past, because I think what you're doing is just so important right now to society.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 8:39

Thank you. I definitely am seeing and hearing from a lot of people who have shifted their thinking about movement just recently. So one of our newest members we've been working together. She has cerebral palsy and we've been talking about different exercises that she is really working on and goals that she has and how we can integrate, you know, different types of movement that are really going to meet her exactly where she's at. And that's kind of the point.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 9:06

The thinking is we're used to the fitness industry or the yoga industry being established as a very you know kind of this is the box that it fits within, and then we as individuals have to fit within that box and especially when it comes to people with disabilities, they're not going to fit into that box and so we are flipping it. We want to create the experience where we're meeting you, where you are, instead of asking you to change, and so there's a lot of aspects to it. You know, speaking about this specific individual who we've been working on different exercises we were talking about, you know, doing tricep extensions and tricep dips to build the muscles on her arms so that she can push herself up out of her wheelchair and transfer more easily. That mentality is so much different than the way that the fitness industry has taught us to exercise because we hate our bodies, exercise because we want a six pack, exercise because we want our bodies to be, you know, fitting the mold of what's valued by society, and instead our mentality is very much, you know, as an instructor team, we talk about if the fitness industry or the yoga industry or the dance industry didn't exist, how would we want to create it for ourselves?

Lee-Anne Reuber: 10:19

And because we have so many diverse perspectives that are included in that conversation, it's one of the coolest aspects of the way that we get to work. We get to kind of cast aside that feeling of we hate ourselves and so we exercise, and instead it's we exercise because we value our bodies, we respect our bodies, we appreciate our bodies. We don't need to be focused on a certain aesthetic or a certain look. We need to be focused on we do squats so we can pick up our kids. We do bicep curls so we can carry groceries more easily. We want to keep mobility, we want to keep strength, we want to really appreciate the vessels that we have, regardless of what they can and cannot do. We want to love and appreciate them, and so we move our bodies as a way to respect our bodies, instead of you know the way that the kind of entire health, beauty, wellness industry has been established. We're rejecting that way of thinking or the reason behind why we should move our bodies.

Antonio Santos: 11:23

I'm interested to understand how do you foster a sense of community amongst your users? And why is that important for you?

Lee-Anne Reuber: 11:33

Yeah, so there are many things that we have kind of coming up on our roadmap that are intended to continue to bring our community together. Right Right now, because it's our first version, we're really focused on making sure that the concept has been well-received and that we're moving in the right direction. And so right now, the way in which we're really fostering community is truly through many, many, many conversations Small group, one-on-one, you know, everyone invited into a call, into a conversation with myself, with my team members, so that we can connect with each other and truly learn about each other and learn from each other. And we've started this internally with our own team been we've established with the way we built the team has really been about focusing on, yes, filling the gaps that we have so that we can do the things that we want to do with a specific skill set, but also understanding who we're bringing into the team and why it's important for them to be here, whether that's they have their own lived experience with disability, they have family members with disabilities. You know there's a personal connection kind of to the mission itself. And so we've started this sense of community internally first, and it's reflected in our instructor community, of course.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 12:52

I mentioned. You know the different people that are included in our instructor teams and we're still continuing to bring other people in who can bring more diverse perspectives in. To me, that's the most important piece is ensuring that internally we've built and developed our own community and we've created a safe space for people to really show up and express themselves fully. And I expect and we're starting to see that and hear that feedback that we'll see that in our membership community reflected, because we've started that community aspect internally first. So on the roadmap, as far as you know, more community integration is an entire community forum where members can connect with each other. Members can connect to myself and our team and we can continue to learn about and from each other.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 13:44

And again, you know this underlying intention of really bringing people together to focus on all the things that we have in common. I'm excited about that space that will hopefully really flourish and we can shed assumptions through those connections and through those conversations. To me it is such a powerful experience where non-disabled people are so just, very specifically, a non-disabled person taking a fitness class that's taught by somebody with a visible disability or invisible disability and they're aware that this person has expressed their disability throughout their teaching. There's an assumption that can change in that moment where that non-disabled person can think, hey, I never expected that I would take a yoga class taught by somebody with a disability, and what other assumptions might I be holding about disability that need to be questioned and potentially or probably changed? So those are the things that I'm excited to dig into when we get to more of those community pieces. Lots more on the way.

Antonio Santos: 14:53

You mentioned about learning together. Traditionally, personal coaches and trainers are somehow on one side and on the other side we have physiotherapy and nurses. How do you somehow bring the two together, because I'm sure some of them have that deep technical knowledge in a kind of a medical approach. The others bring a different type of energy sometimes more fun into the table. Bring a different type of energy sometimes more fun into the table. How you make the most out of these two while creating a, foster an element of trust so that the students and the people go into the class they feel safe? Yes, I can do this. This is safe for me today.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 15:37

Yeah, absolutely Great question. So one of the things that I often think about, and kind of compare it to, is that we all have our own responsibility when we're engaging in any type of physical activity. So if you were to take a Peloton class, you are responsible for, you know, following the instructions and also knowing your own body, awareness of what doesn't feel good and when you should stop that movement. So there is an aspect of personal responsibility. But all of our instructors are certified.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 16:08

Some also do have that medical background, but we really do focus on this certification, the instructor, that fun element, because, again, a lot of the feedback that I was getting when I was first developing the idea was that people were used to the medical model and they hated it.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 16:27

They didn't want to just show up and do these three exercises. It's so boring, it's so monotonous and where other people do have access to Apple and Peloton and other, you know, those types of more fun, engaging, motivating, you know, type of opportunities that's what people were really looking for. So we really do focus on the group fitness style of teaching classes and, you know, offering full body standing class versions, seated class versions that do include some lower body movement, seated class versions that don't include any lower body movement. These are kind of, you know, the different ways that we're creating opportunities to really meet people where they're at, and also, you know, trusting that they're going to listen to their bodies and know when they need to stop, and hopefully the goal is that they're also going to communicate those things with us so that we as an instructor community can continue to learn from our members as well.

Debra Ruh: 17:25

Leanne, when you were talking about knowing your body, something I was doing before the pandemic. I love Zumba, I love to dance and I found that I was going to my three or four classes a week in person but I kept hurting myself, I kept hurting my legs and my instructors were like scolding me. Even when there would be this one dance that I could do, but I shouldn't. My instructor would say, deborah, don't try it. But it's funny trying to learn to what's important to you, deborah, walking. Anyway, I had to learn that during you know it being taken away from me at COVID, but I wanted to sort of go in a different direction.

Debra Ruh: 18:05

I love everything you're talking about and you've talked about this already a little bit but one thing that I've heard from different people that have disabilities but it's not just for people with disabilities, but it's so important and also you gave the wonderful examples of how we can learn from an instructor that's different from us oh wow, look at me learning here. But at the same time, it's so important to have somebody that has lived experiences similar to yours. At the same time, could I, as a person with cerebral palsy or any let me do this one Down syndrome? Can I, as a person with Down syndrome, get up there and teach the Zumba classes? Could I be? Well, yes, actually you could. We know there's a Zumba instructor in Latin America. That's amazing. I totally want to take one of her classes. I'm sure there's more than one. But why is the lived experiences of the instructor? What value do the lived experiences the instructors have add to the class and the participants? Oh gosh, I know it's a big one, but I know you're on this too.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 19:10

Yeah, it's so much value it's hard for me to articulate. Because there's so much value in it? Obviously because they can really teach to specific needs, having those needs themselves. Really, you know, we're many people, and especially people with disabilities are consistently used to adapting to the world that's not accessible, and so in movement it's the same. They're consistently used to adapting to fit into whatever the instructor is teaching. And, exactly as I mentioned before, we want to create a space where you're not having to adapt to us, but we are really thinking thoughtfully about meeting you where you are, and so having that lived experience in our instructor community allows for that to happen much more easily.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 19:56

There is also just, you know so much that people with disabilities have been told about movement and there's a lot of rhetoric around. You know needing to be protected and being fragile and maybe not exercising because you could hurt yourself. There's a lot of that, you know, mentality that still exists as well, and so by having that representation, it's also helping to eliminate some of those thoughts that really don't need to exist. And just speaking on this, I mean for me, I think, when we started thinking about how do we really want to create the most impact? It's obviously through access, but it is also through that representation. That piece is so, so important.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 20:40

People with disabilities have been excluded from this entire industry for so long, and that sends such a message to our society. When you think about the fitness industry, the wellness industry, the beauty industry, there is such an emphasis on the value that is placed on bodies. So if you're then actively excluding people with disabilities, what does that say about how people with disabilities are valued? So, ensuring that there is access and not just access, but leadership is so, so important and so part of what we're working on.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 21:15

Next and this is very, very early stage, but I'll give you some inside information we also want to create an accessible fitness certification process and an accessible yoga certification process, so more people with disabilities can go through that certification process and have a much easier, supportive and representative experience to become certified, rather than being faced with more and more barriers. People get to experience what we've created. They start to think, hey, maybe I see myself as a yoga teacher, maybe I see myself as a fitness instructor, maybe this is a career for me that I didn't even recognize was on the table, and now that I can recognize that it is, how can I go through that process? Well, we want to support people to go through that process and obviously we'd love to welcome more people onto our team, but also would love to support people in establishing a career in which they've been excluded for decades and decades.

Newil Milliken: 22:20

I think that's excellent. I think that also you're changing the image of the instructors as well, because often I think that when we think about disability sport, when people do think about it, they think about the Paralympics and that's elite sport. And Paralympians actually are quite often and I don't want this to come across the wrong way quite detached from the rest of the disability community. You know, in terms of their attitudes to physicality and elitism. It's elite sport, even if it's his disability sport, and so it's not necessarily inclusive sport.

Newil Milliken: 22:58

We did have Sophia Warner on, who is an ex-Paralympian and has created something that's fully inclusive mass participation event, but that was born out of the same realization. Was that that actually, a lot of the time, these things were exclusive rather than inclusive. So I think it's really important that you're creating the ability for people to become role models that aren't elite athletes and and you know, that has a much more positive impact on people's health, because I think you know, even if you were taking the, the paralympians and that has been the case before on some of these attempts of fitness, that says, actually these people are too fit, frankly right, they're too good, um, and and so they become, it becomes intimidating. So you're? You're creating a psychological barrier to participation because the people are at a different level of physicality.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 23:57

Yeah.

Newil Milliken: 23:58

So I'm really glad that you're sort of democratizing this.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 24:03

Yeah, there needs to be room for everybody, right. There needs to be room for the people that do want to really focus on, you know, challenging themselves, bodybuilding if that's your thing, if that's you know, if you want to work towards becoming an elite athlete wonderful. If you want to just show up and move your body in a way that feels really fun, where it feels easy for you to do so, to help maintain your mobility, to build strength, whatever it is that your own personal goal is, you need the space to do that. To help maintain your mobility, to build strength, whatever it is that your own personal goal is. You need the space to do that too. It doesn't have to be that it's so rigid, you know, on the elite athlete side of things. It doesn't have to be that it is so boring in the medical model type of things. There should be things that are in between that are really just focused on you know a space for fun and a space for anyone to be included.

Newil Milliken: 24:55

I don't think we should be just concentrating on rehab. You know, for the stuff that I'm doing, I think it's prehab Right, so as preventative fitness, I'm 52. So I'm some 30 years older than Deborah Right and I'm really caring about my long-term mobility and so I know that I'm not going to be some kind of elite athlete anymore Anytime soon, going to be regaining a six pack, or maybe ever. But I do exercise, I do do strength training, and it's really thinking about having seen what's happened with my own close family not wanting that to happen to me.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 25:36

Yeah.

Newil Milliken: 25:37

Not wanting to lose my mobility because I haven't maintained it and haven't maintained my strength.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 25:44

Yep, yep, everything else. If you can be aware and make small, dedicated commitments, instead of having this all or nothing mentality where I have to work at 60 minutes six days a week. It's got to be high intensity, it's got to be really pushing myself, you know all of those things. If you can start wherever you are right now and just decide to have the consistency of I'm going to do something, I'm going to commit to something, in small habits, in very, you know, specific increments, and then just stick with that, that compounding effect for your mobility, for your strength, you know, for your balance, all of those different things that you will really rely on when you get older. It will just be part of part of your body.

Newil Milliken: 26:34

your body will be used to those things, which is, yeah, which is so important I mean I I mean I think most of us have got some kind of smart watch on and we are tracking and we are quantifying ourselves and all the rest of it. And I maybe have been doing the six days a week high intensity, but I don't have to, but that's partly because I enjoy it, but the intent's not to be lining up at the athletic championships.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 26:58

Yeah.

Newil Milliken: 26:59

You know it's pushing against my own personal goals and enjoying it and feeling healthy as a result of that, so I think that we really need to applaud the work you're doing to try and make that available to more people. Surprisingly, we're at the end of our allotted half hour already, so it just really remains for me to thank those that support us, so Amazon and MyClearText for helping keep us on air, keep us captioned, and thank you, leanne, for being our guest and for supporting our community. Thank you.

Newil Milliken: 27:35

It's been great to have you on.

Debra Ruh: 27:36

And also Leanne before we leave, can you let the audience know how to find your program, your website, your app name? I'm sorry, I just want to make sure we got that in before we got on.

Newil Milliken: 27:47

Absolutely yes, please, yes, yes, yes, check before we got on.

Lee-Anne Reuber: 27:48

Absolutely yes, please, yes, yes, yes, check out our website. It is wwwSecondSkinSocietycom Second is spelled with a K S-E-K, and you can find us in both the Apple Store and the Google Store looking at Second Skin Society. Would love to welcome any new members. Highly recommend it.