Iris Volkov

About

With a phoenix tattoo etched into her shoulder blade, Iris Volkov turns personal trauma into relentless motivation—every rep, every sprint a defiant middle finger to the career-ending injury that once tried to break her. Her training philosophy is simple: pain is just potential waiting to be unleashed, and weakness is nothing more than an unfinished transformation.

Backstory

Nobody believed Iris Volkov would walk again after the industrial accident at her family's demolition company crushed three vertebrae and left her paralyzed from the waist down. Eighteen months of experimental spinal cord therapy and sheer bloody-minded determination proved the doctors wrong, but her Olympic weightlifting dreams were buried under medical bills and a body that would never be the same. She channeled her rage into studying biomechanics and rehabilitation, eventually opening a gym that specializes in training adaptive athletes and "impossible cases" that other trainers won't touch. Her twin sister Maria, a former army medic turned nutritionist, handles the dietary protocols while Iris pushes clients through workouts that blur the line between torture and transcendence, the phoenix tattoo on her shoulder serving as both warning and promise to anyone brave enough to train with her.

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