About
A boutique studio built around one philosophy.
Strong On Center is a boutique fitness studio in Fairfield, CT built around one belief: that real change happens when you're coached, not just counted. We offer strength training, barre, Pilates, yoga, and Ground Control — a mobility-based movement practice rooted in martial arts — each class designed as part of a bigger progression: Train the body, Flow with intention, Evolve without a finish line.
Gary Smith and Kristen McGovern own this studio and teach in it. Every coach we bring in shares the same philosophy — intentional, alignment-focused, and genuinely invested in your evolution. You'll always feel the difference that intentional coaching makes.
Before your first class, please review our Waiver & Release of Liability.
Co-founder, Trainer
Gary Smith
Jiu-jitsu is my true passion. The discipline, the patience, the respect for technique over ego, and it's the heart of Ground Control, the class I built around it. Fitness has always been part of my life, and I've come to believe one thing above all: you have to move well before you can train hard, and you have to train hard to keep evolving. That's the philosophy behind every class I teach at Strong On Center. I bring Flow through mobility and flexibility work that keeps the body resilient. I bring Train through strength and conditioning that builds real, lasting capacity, and through Ground Control, the martial arts discipline that sharpens both body and mind. And I coach people of all ages — adults, kids, and young athletes in and off-season toward their evolution: getting better, on the mat and off it, with no finish line in sight. I teach private and group classes, and I love it because I get to watch people become stronger, more capable versions of themselves, and feel great doing it. That's why I show up every day.
Credentials. Southern Connecticut — B.S. Exercise Science. EMT trained
Co-founder, Trainer & Health Coach
Kristen McGovern
Since early on, I've dedicated my life to health and wellness — always trying to understand the root cause of injuries and how to prevent them. As a hypermobile individual who's collected my share of small injuries along the way, I've always been drawn to the same questions: How do I move with proper alignment? How do I build mobility without losing stability? How do I get stronger exactly where I'm weak? Yoga and meditation are my true passion, and in each class I bring aspects of those practices in by focusing on breathwork and intention. I also believe nutrition is integral to feeling good — what you put into your body matters just as much as how you move it, which is why I work as a certified health coach alongside my teaching. Strength training, yoga, barre, and Pilates became the antidote to my own injuries. I build real strength through Train, exactly where you need it most. I find alignment, breath, and mobility through Flow, which keeps the body resilient. And I believe in Evolve — not chasing a finish line, but continually getting stronger and more in tune with your own body, the way I've had to learn to do with mine. That process of self-discovery is what I now share with my clients — helping them find their own weak spots and build strength there, so they can keep coming back stronger, again and again, no matter what injuries or limitations they're working around. Today, I bring all of it together — group classes, private sessions, and working with young athletes — to help people move better, feel stronger, and keep evolving.
Credentials. RYT-200Barre CertifiedBarre/Pilates CertifiedY12SR (12-Step Recovery Yoga)ISSA Personal TrainerIIN Health Coach
Nutrition Coaching
Kristen McGovern is a certified health coach through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, certified in 2011. She believes in meeting clients exactly where they are, with no quick fixes. Her approach blends practical nutrition guidance with a deep, intuitive look at eating habits, including the emotional ties and patterns behind them. Together, you'll work with what you're already doing and gently shift what needs tweaking, building steady, sustainable change rather than a crash diet.
See nutrition coaching pricing
Trainer
Mason Leavitt
Mason's passion for fitness and wellness took root at an early age. Over the past five years, he's built his coaching experience at Strong On Center, starting with kids programs and growing into the coach he is today. Mason shares SOC's core philosophy: alignment, form, and a strong foundation before adding intensity. He teaches Strength and Conditioning classes structured like a traditional strength training program, so you can track your weights and measure your progress week to week. Outside the studio, Mason's interests include football and martial arts, which bring an added edge and discipline to his coaching style. Whatever your goal, Mason's classes will push you to keep evolving.
Credentials. Trained by NASM
Inside the studio
Two sides of the same studio. One complete approach to the body.
On one side, raw and rugged — barbells, resistance, and the kind of strength training that builds a body that lasts. On the other, fluid and intentional — Pilates, barre, yoga, and Ground Control, where mobility, breath, and precision take over. Most studios choose one or the other. We built both, because your body needs both.
SOC Philosophy
Ground up. Barefoot.
Why we train the way nature intended — and why it's the cleaner way to train, too.
At Strong on Center, we train barefoot. Not as a gimmick, and not because it looks good on Instagram, but because the floor is the first piece of equipment your body ever learns to use, and shoes have been getting in the way of that conversation for decades.
Every rep starts with the ground. When your feet are free, your body gets the real information it needs: where the floor is, how much force you're putting into it, and how to adjust in real time. That's proprioception, and it's the foundation everything else is built on — strength, balance, posture, power.
Strength starts at the floor.
Shoes cushion, stabilize, and elevate the heel, which sounds helpful, until you realize it's doing the work your foot and ankle muscles should be doing themselves. Over time, that support becomes a crutch. The small stabilizing muscles in your feet go quiet, and the chain reaction moves up: weaker arches, shifting knees, compromised hips, strain in the lower back.
Barefoot training reverses that. It rebuilds the foundation from the ground up, literally.
↑ Force
Greater force production in barefoot lifts.
↑ Balance
Stronger stability in single-leg and loaded movement.
↓ Injury
Better mechanics, less compensation.
This isn't a trend. It's how the body was designed to move, and it's why we build every SOC class around that principle, from Strength to Ground Control to Barre Mix.
Cleaner, too.
There's a practical side to this philosophy that doesn't get talked about enough: barefoot training is simply more hygienic.
Think about what walks through a gym door in a single day — dozens of pairs of sneakers that have been on sidewalks, gas station floors, public restrooms, parking lots, and everywhere in between. Every one of those shoes gets pressed into the same mats, the same floors, the same shared spaces your hands and body come into contact with. Bare, clean feet on a floor we control and maintain ourselves is a far more contained, sanitary environment than a room full of outside footwear tracking in the entire city.
At SOC, that's part of the standard. Clean floors. Clean feet. No outside grime crossing our threshold.
Training in sneakers
- Outside debris on every mat
- Support masks weak mechanics
- Reduced ground feedback
- Heel elevation limits ankle range
Training at SOC
- Controlled, maintained floor
- Real mechanics, real feedback
- Full range of motion, foot to hip
- Stronger feet, stronger foundation
Train · Flow · Evolve
Booking
Please call to reserve your spot.
We schedule by phone right now. Tell us what you'd like to try — we'll match you to the right class and trainer.