Catholic trainer merges faith and fitness in theology of the body-inspired program
CNA Staff, Jun 28, 2025 / 07:00 am
In 2019, Chase Crouse was working two jobs — in ministry at the Archdiocese of New York and as a personal trainer. He quickly realized that while he loved working with people at the gym, he hated not being able to talk about Jesus with them. So he decided to combine both of his passions and create a Catholic fitness and personal training apostolate called Hypuro Fit.
Hypuro Fit’s programing is rooted in St. John Paul II’s theology of the body, encouraging its members to trade the mentality of needing to achieve the perfect “beach body” for the goal of living as a gift for others through self-discipline, self-mastery, and honoring the bodies God gave them.
After Crouse, a graduate of John Paul the Great Catholic University in San Diego who holds a master’s degree in biblical theology, began working with people as a trainer, he began to notice that anytime he asked people why they wanted to work out, their answers would always be along the lines of wanting to look a certain way and have others find them attractive. Crouse began to reflect on this and turned to John Paul II’s theology of the body.
“I read it with this question in mind and sure enough, really early on, he talks about this law of gift, from Gaudium et Spes, that man finds himself through a gift of himself, but what he adds in audience 15, which is kind of my lightbulb moment, is this idea that self-donation is impossible without self-mastery,” he explained.
In addition to being the founder of Hypuro Fit, Crouse is one of 10 coaches who work with individuals who join their programs.
The fitness apostolate offers two different options for users: one-on-one training or following a workout program through the app.
One-on-one training is done remotely through the use of Zoom and phone calls and allows the individual to work with a coach to build a custom workout plan, nutrition goals, and helps provide accountability.
The app is filled with a variety of different programs that include a library of workouts for people in every walk of life and with differing time constraints. The programs in the app also include educational content, technique tutorials, recipes, and articles for spiritual formation.
Hypuro Fit also has specialty programs such as “Breaking the Chains” for those experiencing an addiction to lust as well as a postpartum program for moms.
“What we like to say with both approaches [we offer] is that we’re authentically Catholic but we’re technically excellent, meaning that we are going to base all of our exercise routines, our nutrition protocols, based on the latest science and studies we have at our disposal,” Crouse explained. “But at the same time, we’re also authentically Catholic, meaning that for our one-on-one clients, we’re going to pray with them and for them. But then even for our subscribers in our app, we’re bringing them back to our why, which is this idea of self-mastery for self-gift.”
Crouse said the majority of the apostolate’s clients are between the ages of 30 and 60, so “they’re people in their vocation and they’re really busy.”
Additionally, about one-third of clients are priests and religious, who receive access to the programming for free. Due to this, Hypuro Fit is aiming to show them that you don’t have to work out like you did in high school, you don’t even have to work out every day, you just need to show up and do something that is reasonable for your lifestyle.
“Ultimately we’re doing this to better give of ourselves and find that why and put everything in light of Christ and his resurrection,” he said.
Crouse added that the main goal of the ministry’s work is to help individuals “be more present and to live out their vocation to the best of their ability.”
“If we can help priests to be better priests, have more energy, give better, religious to be better brothers and sisters, husbands and wives to conquer themselves in order to give themselves to be more present — that’s the goal, that’s the dream.”
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