“You got this.”
Chances are, if you’re around Aubry Alldredge for any appreciable length of time, you have heard her say this, usually accompanied by a high-five and, more often than not, a world-class hug.
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Aubry is Claron and Cindy Alldredge’s daughter and she has Down syndrome, the genetic neurological disorder that inhibits muscle and intellectual growth.
But if you think having Down syndrome means a life of grumpiness, depression and whining about all the things you can’t do, well, you haven’t met Aubry.
She’s in the news — again — this week because she’s the newest certified fitness instructor at VASA Fitness in Kaysville. That’s her, leading several dozen students through their paces in a choreographed workout from the UpBeat Barre system.
As was the case when she gave her commencement address a few years ago at Farmington High School, this video’s also gone viral, picked up and forwarded by Aubry’s 40,000 Instagram followers.
“Fitness instructor” is yet another in a long line of things she isn’t supposed to be able to do but she is.
Life is tough? Yeah, so is Aubry.
There was no warning when Aubry came into the world on April 1, 2004, that she would arrive with what her mom Cindy calls “the extra surprise.”
Cindy’s not going to say it was easy absorbing the news, because it wasn’t.
“From the minute you find out you’re pregnant, you’re thinking about all the things this kid’s going to do, they’re going to get married, they’re going to go to college, and all that goes away and you build a new dream,” she says. “It takes a while to process that.”
But that didn’t mean anyone took any days off.
Michigan, where the Alldredges lived when Aubry was born, had “amazing services” that the family immediately began taking advantage of. “This kid can do everything your regular kids can do,” the social workers promised, “you just have to work her harder.”
“One of the biggest challenges is low muscle tone,” says Cindy, “and when you think about it, your whole body’s made up of muscles, your mouth, your face. So right from the start, they had me massage inside her mouth and her face. This is just one thing we did. For three years, I did not miss a day.
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“We had three or four therapists coming to our house every week from the time she was 2 weeks old. We did physical therapy, occupational therapy, music therapy, horseback riding therapy, speech therapy. Aubry worked harder than anyone else. I’ve never heard her say ‘I’m giving up,’ not once.”
Life became a series of breakthroughs, like, for instance, the day Aubry skied the 2½ miles from the top of the Strawberry Express gondola at Snowbasin to the bottom. The fact it had taken her five years to build up to it only made it sweeter.
She learned to wake surf, she rode roller coasters as her mom hid her eyes, she wrote a children’s book (she titled it “I Have a Six Pack!” It’s about six dogs she rescued). She graduated from Farmington High School in 2022, then from Vista High School, Davis County’s furthering education program, in 2026.
The fitness instructor idea came from Jane Johnson, a longtime trainer/instructor at VASA in Kaysville and founder of UpBeat Barre, a low-impact fitness format that combines elements of Pilates, yoga and strength training, all choreographed to popular music.
Aubry, a regular at VASA Kaysville, impressed Jane with the enthusiasm and energy she put into her workouts. One day she approached Aubry and Cindy about the possibility of Aubry certifying to become an UpBeat Barre instructor. Out of about 2,000 certified instructors nationally and internationally, she would be the first with Down syndrome.
That was in January. By June, she passed her test. Ever since, Aubry’s been honing her skills in preparation for a regular training slot at the fitness center.
In her first dress rehearsal a few weeks ago, “there were people out there crying through the whole class because they were just so proud of her,” says Jane. “It’s so fun to see all of the friends Aubry makes.”
To which Aubry adds, “I love teaching and I love people.”
Loving and encouraging people, it would seem, is her superpower.
“I have to tell you one of our favorite Aubry stories,” says her mom. “This was when she was in speech therapy, quite a few years ago. The new speech therapist was getting to know Aubry, and my husband and I were sitting behind a glass wall. She couldn’t see us, but we could watch the lesson. The teacher asked Aubry, ‘Do you collect anything?’ My husband and I looked at each other and we went, no, she doesn’t collect things. This is a girl who never asks for presents for Christmas or birthdays. It’s so hard to come up with gift ideas because she really doesn’t ask for anything. Then after thinking about it, Aubry said to the teacher, ‘I collect friends.’ We went ‘Wow!’ when we heard that. That’s a pretty good thing to collect. And she truly does. People are her favorite thing in the whole world. That’s why this thing at the gym works great, because she walks in and says hi to all these people who are her friends.”
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And she can assure them all, with authority: “You got this.”