5 Things You Didn’t Know About YouTube Blogilates Fitness Star Cassey Ho

YouTube fitness star Cassey Ho makes a stop in Honolulu.

April 29, 2016

Brittney Nitta-Lee,

Photos: Brittney Nitta-Lee

You can get off the elliptical now. There’s a fun new workout in town and it’s called POP Pilates (a fusion of Pilates and dance music). Cassey Ho, 29, is the creator of the fun but intense workout. Every week, she delivers a new workout on her popular YouTube channel that you can follow at home. Lucky fans (250 people!) got the chance to meet Ho and take her popular fitness class at 24 Hour Fitness Kapi‘olani on Saturday, April 23.

A photo posted by Cassey Ho (@blogilates) on Apr 26, 2016 at 8:48pm PDT

Ho’s visit to O‘ahu included a hike at Waimano Falls and Pools.

Ho’s program is designed to strengthen muscles, burn calories and improve body awareness. POP Pilates targets all of your muscles, so be prepared to sweat. Now that she has a partnership with 24 Hour Fitness, Ho travels to different 24 Hour Fitness clubs to promote and teach fitness instructors her new program. If you’re not familiar with the popular YouTube fitness star, here are five things you should know about her.

1. Her First Youtube Video Was Posted in 2009.

Before she moved to Boston from Los Angeles for a job, Ho wanted to post a farewell video for her Pilates students. “Little did I know I would get thousands of views, and that is what eventually sparked my YouTube career,” says Ho. She left her job in Boston and moved back to L.A. to pursue her fitness career.

2. She Started Doing Pilates at the Age of 16.

Pilates is a form of exercise that strengthens your core and flexibility through various body movements. Ho was about to enter a pageant and wanted a fun way to tone up. She saw an infomercial on TV of Mary Winsor doing Pilates, then begged her parents for a Pilates DVD set. Once she got the DVD, she started doing Pilates every day. She found her love for Pilates and became a certified fitness instructor, but wanted to incorporate upbeat music to her Pilates workout. “I started adding my favorite music to it, Top 40 hits, and doing the moves to the beat,” says Ho. With her love for fitness and dancing on the mat, she created POP Pilates.

3. She recently released her newest collection of activewear.

Ho is an entrepreneur. During her senior year in college she launched a line of yoga bags called Ogorgeous. Even though she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology and minored in business from Whittier College, she wanted to pursue other interests. “My heart was always in the more creative side, and so I always wanted to be a fashion,” says Ho. Through her successful website she was able to launch her first performance activewear line. You can purchase her colorful fitnesswear collection at popflexactive.com.

4. She will never diet again.

A photo posted by Cassey Ho (@blogilates) on Apr 27, 2016 at 3:52pm PDT

Four years ago, Ho entered a bikini competition and hired a personal trainer to help her. She was on a strict diet (1,000 calories per day) and trained four hours a day for eight weeks. Even though she liked the way her body transformed, she became unhappy. A year after the competition, she developed an eating disorder where she became obsessed with eating healthy food. It took her two years to recover from the disorder, but she embraced a different outlook on dieting. “I decided to eat for energy and work out because I love it,” says Ho. She even tried to eat an entire plate of Mac 24/7 pancakes while she was on O‘ahu.

5. She has been honored as one of youtube’s Next Trainers.

Aside from her YouTube channel Blogilates, she also has a fitness fashion lookbook channel. Her two YouTube channels have more than 13 million views and continues to grow. In 2012, she was named Best Healthy Living Blogger by Fitness Magazine and won a Shorty Award in 2013 for most influential producer of content in social media for health and fitness. She has also been featured in Cosmopolitan magazine.