(Grossman (center) runs with girls from her summer clinic. Photo by David Grossman.)

Katie Grossman believes fitness can empower young girls. This summer, she turned her vision into action and created a clinic for girls in grades four through nine to help teach them how to become confident young women by taking control of their health.

The idea all started when Grossman, a private trainer, witnessed firsthand the change among her clients.

“I’ve been training for two years now,” said Grossman, 21, who graduated from St. Mark’s School in 2009. “I would witness girls go through this transformation through the training and gain self-esteem and confidence. I wanted to make a clinic to reach more girls who wouldn’t normally do one-on-one training.”

Thus, Katie and Brian Grossman’s Summer Fitness Program for Girls began. Working with her twin brother Brian, a 2010 Duxbury graduate, Katie strives to teach girls aspects of fitness that will empower them and give them a sense of mental and emotional strength along with their physical strength.

“I’m an athlete myself in Division 1 sports and even at that level, I witnessed girls with eating disorders and insecurities,” Grossman said. “The way we were trained was negative and we were taught to beat up our bodies. I want to empower women instead and give positive training and feedback.”

Grossman, a nutrition major at University of Michigan, advocates for a healthy lifestyle, and nutrition is a big part of her clinic. She works with the girls to teach them how to make simple meals and snack bars, as well as performance nutrition, such as what foods to eat before a work-out or playing sports.

“I want them to be self-sufficient,” Grossman said. “It’s all about planting a seed in their head that they can be powerful women, transforming ideas of what it means to be a strong girl.”

Grossman’s clinic is specific to the female body and its weaknesses and strengths. She said a lot of work-outs aren’t catered to women’s bodies and can be harmful to their knees and other body parts. The girls do their training at the Percy Walker Pool Field where the clinic focuses on functional dynamics, like core strength, agility, speed, power and flexibility.

“We have some great athletes in our group now,” Grossman said. “There’s a wide range of talents. The girls connect through sports they play and then build a deeper connection.”

One of the girls in Grossman’s clinic, Molly Norton, 11, would recommend the clinic to girls of any age.

“It’s really fun and it’s hard, it’s a good work-out,” Norton said. “I think everyone should do it and all ages could do it too.”

Grossman is not only running a clinic for girls self-esteem this summer, she is also continuing her private training lessons and has similar clinics for Camp Wing and in Dorchester and Roxbury so she can reach even more girls. Grossman also has a women’s clinic that she runs with her mother. The clinic for girls will run up until Aug. 10.

“I think this age group is the most vulnerable,” said Grossman. “I want to bring women together, and create positivity through sports and fitness.”

Grossman will continue training and expects to build on her girls’ clinics so that the girls she’s training now can help train and empower girls in future clinics. She’s shaping her clinics to be more of a mentoring program so girls will have positive role models and can learn to help one another and come together as women.