PRACTITIONER

Lejla Musaefendic

I was born in the Netherlands and lived there until late 2024. Originally, I’m Bosnian, which means I speak Dutch, Bosnian, and English. I moved to Austin, Texas, in 2024 after the great opportunity presented itself to work at Functional Patterns Texas.

Growing up, I’ve always been interested in sports and movement. As a kid, I played tennis and badminton. Eventually, as a teenager, I traded sports for dancing. This switch was mainly triggered by my love for music, which has been present my entire life. I started with Hip-Hop, which covered multiple styles like locking, popping, breakdance, house, and more.

After about six years of Hip-Hop, in 2014, I started developing an interest in fitness and strength training. My initial goal was to lose fat and gain muscle. I started creating my workouts and learning about the human body. Very soon, the gym was my second home.

I desired to become a personal trainer a few years into my fitness journey. After graduating college with a human resource management degree, I decided to get a certification in personal training. Two years before getting my certification in personal training, I started dancing again. I did salsa, bachata, and urban kizomba this time. After six years of strength training and two years of dancing again, I started noticing discomfort in my back and chest. I could only walk for 10 minutes without feeling a very uncomfortable burning sensation and tightness on the right side of my back. Since I was only 23 years old, I figured this wasn’t normal, and I needed to change something to solve this problem. Since I was experiencing discomfort and pain in different areas of my body, I stopped working out and only focused on dancing because this brought me joy. Within these dance styles, it is very common to wear high heels, which puts the body in a very uncomfortable position, where it’s easy to compensate. Wearing heels while dancing caused my body to feel even more discomfort. I tried physical therapy and osteopathy. After doing this for a while, I didn’t notice any improvements. It was getting worse.

In 2021, I encountered Functional Patterns. I immediately quit traditional fitness training and dancing when I invested in the Functional Patterns online courses. I knew that to solve my problems, I had to change my behaviors. Six weeks in, I started noticing progress. I could now walk longer than 10 minutes without feeling the discomfort I experienced before. The transition to being pain-free was smooth and fast. Since I was already working as a personal trainer, I decided to become a certified Functional Patterns Practitioner. My passion for movement grew more when I started practicing Functional Patterns because I could change how the human body moves. My goal shifted from wanting to lose fat and gain muscle to moving well, which builds functional muscle in my body and allows me to live in a comfortable and resilient body without pain. After working with clients in The Netherlands, I wanted to be a part of a big team with the same goal. That’s precisely what brought me to Functional Patterns Texas.