Gin blossoms - Gin Miller

Ten years ago, Gin Miller suffered a knee injury that prompted her to invent step training. She spent several years traveling the globe to present her step program to consumers and fitness professionals and lecture at fitness conferences. Then, this guru of the step revolution surprised everyone by announcing her retirement last year. A letter from her 14-year-old son Ian changed her mind. "He told me that I didn't need to quit because I love what I do," says Miller. "He was right. I realized that I was being silly because teaching is my business."

Miller settled for a compromise. She's negotiated a new schedule that gives her time to do what she loves -- teach fitness. "I stopped teaching on a regular basis because I traveled so much," says 40-year-old Miller. She averaged five days a week away from home to tour over 40 countries with her step program.

Teaching is not only her business, but her source of motivation. "If you take time to motivate people, they'll give it back," says Miller. "I'm motivated by the person who loses 50 pounds and has a date for the first time, or someone who's been overweight and can finally get out of a chair without his or her knees aching."

One day, Miller was demonstrating a workout in a shopping mall with a fitness ball when a woman tapped her on the shoulder. "She said I saved her life," explains Miller. "She told me that a while ago, she'd been sitting in her den, holding a gun to her head, when she turned on the television and saw me on the `Step Reebok Show.' It happened to be one of the funnier shows, so she put the gun down and watched it. She didn't pull the trigger." The woman also bought a step and videos, and eventually exercised off more than 80 pounds. Miller adds, "She became a human being again."

Miller considers humor a vital part of teaching fitness. She believes it lightens the load. "Plus, when people are funny, you remember what they say," she says. However, teaching isn't only about making people laugh, according to Miller. "I received a letter one time from a student," she says. "He said that by the time he leaves my class, he feels like a million bucks."

Miller considers the ability to make people feel good her strongest quality in teaching. "It's not about about me, and it's not about the group," she says. "It's about individuals. I call them by name when I teach, and after class I say something about their performance."

Miller thinks of herself as an athletic trainer as opposed to a fitness instructor. "I'm a yeller," she confesses. "I step off the podium and get in people's faces. Veins pop out of my neck. It's an ugly sight, but my students like it."

But what type of exercise does Miller like to do? Truth be known, step training is no longer her favorite workout. "When you've been stepping for 10 years, you need a break," admits Miller. Her idea of a break constitutes a two-and-a-half hour outdoor circuit training class. Her students nicknamed her Killer Miller.

When the weather cooperates, Miller takes her class of athletes, including several players from the Atlanta Braves, outdoors. They start with a two-and-a-half-mile run. Then they head back in for interval slide work and jog-run drills around cones. That's followed by boxing. "Boxing has turned into one of my favorite workouts," says Miller. She then leads the class through lower-body strength drills with weights, isolated movements for agonist/antagonist muscle groups, abdominal exercises and -- finally -- stretching.

Miller envisions the great outdoors becoming the gym of the future. "Outdoor training and recreational fitness are on the upswing, and they're going to be hot trends in the upcoming years," she predicts. Another anticipated trend is that fitness will become specialized and individualized. "Instructors are going to have to start thinking about methods rather than movements," she says.

Perhaps that's why Miller has latched onto a new fitness product, a rubber fitness ball. "The ball is to trunk exercise what step training is to cardiovascular exercise," she says. In fact, she's guessing the fitness ball will become as popular as step training. "Everybody wants to use the ball at clubs, but they also want to take it home," say Miller. "Consumer appreciation of this product is much higher than it was with step training."

The fitness ball may be Miller's latest passion, but she says she won't let it consume her life like step training once did. In fact, Miller's enjoying her new freedom. "So this is what life is really like?" she jokes.

When she's not teaching at one of two clubs in Atlanta, Georgia, Miller's spending time with her family -- husband Mac, son Ian and running companions Sasha and Buddy (a Malamute and Australian Shepherd, respectively).

Miller's also thinking abut trying her hand at comedy, following in the footsteps of her favorite comic, Bob Hope. Twice she's been booked into clubs, but has chickened out both times. "I suppose someday I will try stand-up comedy," she says.