What is SAD? SAD is a type of depression that usually begins in late autumn or early winter and subsides when spring arrives. Although experts believe that reduced sunlight plays a key role – disrupting our internal biological clock, sleep and mood regulation – SAD is much more than just a “winter blues”. It can have significant repercussions on daily life, relationships and general well-being. In Canada, where daylight hours drop considerably during the winter months, up to 15% of people suffer from a mild form of SAD, and 2-3% experience more severe symptoms. The Key Signs of SAD If you

Investing time and money to attend a live fitness event and participate the same way you would online is not worthwhile. You’re better off staying home and joining via the live stream or watch the recorded sessions. Why do I still go to live conferences? Not so long ago, I would go to 1 fitness event per month, often as a presenter but also to participate, network, and learn. I now carefully choose my time away from home and working IN my business. Last week’s canfitpro’s 30th-anniversary conference and tradeshow were one of these times when spending five days working ON

Fitness professionals owe it to themselves and their clients to not only understand how exercise impacts physical health, but also the direct effects on mental health including stress and resilience. We’ve felt it in ourselves, we hear it from our clients, we read about it in the news, and we share it as an outcome but understanding the “how” could have a huge impact on keeping clients beyond the 50% retention rate in our industry. It would also help us finally connect with and attract the 85% of the population that doesn’t use our services. Two ways to begin a meaningful

April 7th is World Health Day and a wonderful opportunity for fitness leaders to tackle health challenges by making our services even more accessible! Let’s celebrate the World Health Organization’s 75th birthday with this year’s theme, HEALTH FOR ALL!  What can you do as a health and fitness leader to make health more accessible? I’d love to hear your ideas! Here are a few to help get us started. Bring a friend for free Host a special event and have your clients bring their loves ones for free. Focus on accessibility by making the program/exercises SUPER simple. Make it about simply

Fitness professionals deserve to feel proud of our impact on the health of our communities. We also need to consider if changes in our programming could make our services so much more accessible.  The data now available is awe-inspiring: physical activity provided Canada $23.4 billion in health savings. We need to take a moment to acknowledge how our industry’s services directly impact preventative health care, in particular, non-communicable diseases in both physical and mental heath.  Feel free to geek out on the data compiled by the Fitness Industry Council of Canada (FIC) and share this document! FIC aims to work with

The labor crisis and inflation rates, combined with the fact that many fitness professionals are re-evaluating their worth, have created a chasm between the rates of pay offered by gyms and what you want to make. How can we get closer to a salary you and your employer can agree on?  It might be the gym you’ve worked at for a while or a new facility that’s looking for staff; if you feel connected to their brand, culture, and member experience, it might be worth discussing future earnings that get you closer to the rate of pay you deserve.  Fitness job

The World Health Organization released its inaugural Global status report on physical activity to chart the progress across the world in efforts to achieve their global target of a 15% relative reduction in the prevalence of physical inactivity by 2030. Unfortunately, the report shows that there is much more work to be done and that in some cases, countries have fallen behind.  As citizens we should all be concerned because “A consequence of this “inaction” is that already stretched health systems are burdened with preventable disease today and even more so in the future, and communities fail to benefit from the wider

We likely chose our fitness careers because we love connecting with people, helping them reach their health goals, creating fun experiences they crave coming back to. All the behind-the-scenes documenting, administration, and operations? Not so much.  What’s required to successfully manage our clients and classes has evolved over time and the requirements are now more entrepreneurial than ever. This means we’re likely tracking well beyond who simply showed up that day or the number of sessions a client has banked. Becoming the phenomenal health and fitness advocate our careers deserve we need to improve our skills beyond sets and reps and

The concept of “meeting our clients where they’re at” has expanded tenfold in its meaning since 2020.  The most successful fitness leaders are now providing opportunities to move using a combination of at home, either virtual or in-person, outdoors, and in a gym or studio.  What many of us have been wondering is if and when the majority of our former gym members and clients would be returning to the bricks and mortar facilities we loved. The answer so far: it depends. As frustrating as that can seem I’m happy to share insights on what we’re seeing in key markets.  Canada:

You’ve done the work to identify your “why”. You’ve read the books, been on the webinars, spent time reflecting. You’re now clear on you’re the reason you’ve dedicated your fitness career to serving others. Great! Now, what do you do with that information?  It becomes the filter you use to make decisions moving forward: the places you chose to work, the classes and clients you take on, the partners you collaborate with, the projects you invest your time and energy into.  Here are your next 2 steps:   Make a list of your non-negotiables. These should include: The types of company

We are only 10 days away from canfitpro’s Online Global Conference and Tradeshow and I am thrilled to have 2 FREE REGISTRATIONS to give away!! As your fitness industry coach and cupid I’m making this easy-peasy; let’s prepare ourselves for a phenomenal Fall career by dedicating some time on learning in August. Enter to win!! Name 1 thing you’re doing this summer to build your fitness career on any of my social posts (Facebook or Instagram) or below in the comments. I’ll draw 2 winners of the FREE REGISTRATION this Friday August 6th at 9am EDT. https://youtu.be/DnzUvW0GkCQhttps://youtu.be/CyuY-J-b348 I look forward to

“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” – Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn The biting quote that kicks off the article from my colleague Jessica Maurer; she explains how we were motivated to change our own program and shares her five steps to help you do the same: Maybe that quote is extreme for your business. Perhaps embarrassed is not the right word, but you can sense something is wrong. The offering isn’t selling, you don’t have people in your classes, or it’s attracting the wrong clients.  What can you do

Are you feeling like you’re now spending half of your free time deciding what, how, and when to post on social media to grow your fitness career success? I hear ya!  Remember the old days when we just prepared our classes and training sessions and just showed up?! Now it seems like the minute you get good at Facebook; Instagram launches a new feature that you “have” to start using. (Those of you who follow me on Instagram may remember me begging for a teenager to come help me with Reels a few weeks ago lol).  It’s exhausting. How do you

Do you use exercise to numb the feelings and emotions you find challenging? Plenty of fitness professionals do; I’ve even heard some call it their “drug of choice” as if stating that the healthy behavior of exercise is perfectly acceptable as a means of avoiding mental and emotional challenges.  As the coaches who support our client’s physical, mental, and immune health I invite us to reflect on this year’s theme for Mental Health Week: Name it, don’t numb it. The Canadian Mental Health Association is inviting us to express and deal with our emotions, even the uncomfortable ones with their hashtag

We’ve all been there! Feeling like a fraud when we’re trying to ask for a raise or increase our rates, or even post content on social media. We get stuck in “imposter syndrome” and it sucks.   It’s not only keeping you away from your dreams and goals, but also not getting you any closer to serving the people who need and deserve your help!  There are tons of fitness leaders, some with much less experience and fewer qualifications, posting oodles of content and making a lot of money.  How do YOU become confident and stay authentic?  You need to attract

An incredibly insightful article written by my friend and Certified Athletic Therapist Mai-Linh Dovan from Rehab-U, I just had to share! These days, everyone wants to sell you the latest, fanciest mobility tool.  It’s pretty cool to have the latest tools like vibrating foam rollers and balls, high tech massage guns, colorful cups and scraping tools. Many people still think mobility tools need to be purchased.  But tools aren’t necessarily objects.  A tool is anything used to carry out a particular function or provide a desired outcome.  So before spending money on an implement, best first make sure you are using

Fitness facilities are slowly reopening from coast to coast, and with everything in place to keep staff and clients safe we’re hopeful they will stay open. Are you ready to relaunch? Have you revised your products and services? Your pricing? We need to be incredibly well prepared to serve the clients who will be coming back, welcome new ones and, most importantly, have taken the time to create a brand new « post-crisis » strategy. Our industry will have undergone the greatest transformation since its inception because of the pandemic and the fitness pros who will enjoy lasting success are those who will

Maybe you should quit your job in the fitness industry. We are all being asked to come face to face with the TRUE reasons we became fitness leaders and for some of us the passion has shifted.  There are oodles of opportunities in fitness, but there are also industries that have flourished since March 2020 and are heavily recruiting to meet the demand. If what’s required of you to continue in fitness no longer motivates you it’s perfectly reasonable for you to do what’s best in order to provide for yourself and your family.  A little over two years ago I

Having had the honor of representing Fitness Industry Council of Canada’s Quebec Coalition of fitness clubs and studios through the COVID-19 crisis, here are a few remarkable insights gathered as we worked towards the reopening date of June 22nd. COALITION = COLLABORATION Close to 200 locations joined our Coalition to create a common voice to reassure both the government and public that fitness facilities were prepared to reopen safely. This included club chains, franchise studios, independent gyms, Yoga studios, etc. of all sizes and price ranges.  All of them have unique challenges and concerns, but they came together and contributed with

Last spring, I wrote a blog series as a tool to help differentiate between quick burning fads and trends that have staying power.  I didn’t want you to spend a moment of your precious time or a dollar of your hard-earned money before reading and reflecting on The Next Big Things: Top 3 Trends for 2020!  The fitness education companies have now begun to release their findings for the biggest trends for our industry this year and I  was curious to see if my predictions matched the ones of fitness professionals and experts. As you read the survey findings and reports

I created this blog series as a tool to help differentiate between quick burning fads and trends that have staying power. Don’t spend a moment of your precious time or a dollar of your hard-earned money before reading and reflecting on The Next Big Things: Top 3 Trends for 2020!  Over the past few weeks, I have shared with you my third and second place winners. Did you agree with my choices? If you haven’t had a chance to check them out yet, click here. Today, I am sharing the first place winner of the top trend of 2020! First Place:  Active Recovery

Rolling with the tide of trends is critical to our success in offering health and fitness as a service and we need to meet the wants of our customers. The trick is to identify how we can tweak our already established and available content, programs, and offers to connect with the consumer wants. This blog series is a tool to help differentiate between quick burning fads and trends that have staying power. Don’t spend a moment of your precious time or a dollar of your hard-earned money before reading and reflecting on The Next Big Things: Top 3 Trends for 2020!

Keeping up with trends is an integral part of remaining relevant as a fitness professional, and trends are moving into and out of our industry faster than ever before.  As we approach the end of 2019, we will soon be bombarded by opinions on the hottest fitness trends coming to us from certifying bodies, industry associations, celebrities, and social media influencers alike. As Vice President of canfitpro, I was responsible for disseminating one of these trends reports for the Canadian fitness industry in a manner that I hoped helped fitness professionals make wise decisions about their education and programming.  I created

Before spending a dollar of your club’s money and an hour of your employee’s time, finding out what truly matters to their growth will ensure you both benefit from the education you subsidize.