Shawnee Harkins
strips down for our feature on the beauty and blemish of
the human body.
Shawnee Harkins,
26
Dallas
Likes: arms, shoulders,
triceps, rear
Dislikes: abs
Personal trainer
Shawnee Harkins has a goal to “help people come to
love their bodies.” And to that end
she’s started her own business, offering
fitness training and nutrition counseling. While Harkins
says, “The body has always been important to
me,” once upon a time, she worked hers
differently.
Growing up in
Dallas, Harkins was always an athlete; basketball and track
were her favorite sports. But when she decided to become a
firefighter—to use her athleticism to help
people—she had to confront the limits of own
strength. “I was this 18-year-old string bean
competing against big, buff 25-year-old guys,”
she says of training to become a firefighter-EMT in
Ventura County, Calif. “I had to bring it.” So
she took on a second full-time job to pay for a
personal trainer to get herself into shape. The
experience stayed with her throughout her two-year
firefighting career. When Harkins decided it was time
to do something else, she remembered how her trainer
“helped me reach my goals.”
Now Harkins
spends her days improving the bodies of others, but she
considers her own to be a work in process. “My goal
has been to lean down, and through personal training
I’m able to do that,” she says.
“I’m still working on a six-pack, so
I’m not perfect by any means.”
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Profiles by Neal
Broverman, Kyle Buchanan, Japhy Grant