Health & Fitness Continuing Education Workshops and Certifications

We need our core muscles to stabilize us during seated and standing dynamic postures. It is helpful and effective to include seated and standing core work in our programming. These exercises are often excellent alternatives when your clients are unable to get on the floor due to various barriers. We often stick to floor crunches, planks, and bugs but there also are a number of efficient exercises that can be performed from a seated or standing position. These can effectively target the multifidus, transversus abdominus, and internal obliques without neck strain, crunching, or being stuck on your back. Whether your clients are physically unable to get on the floor or if you are looking for more functional upright core variations, this session will provide numerous examples. Join us and walk away with functional, purposeful, and effective core work that your clients and participants will benefit from.

Food serves many roles. Not only does food help keep us nourished and optimize physical performance, it also plays a crucial emotional and social role. With the overwhelming amount of nutrition information that floods our newsfeeds every day, it can be difficult to know just how to eat right and how to answer clients who ask for advice. This 3-hour course with anti-diet dietician Robin Glance will empower you with accurate, up-to-date information to help you understand the basic nutritional needs of the human body in order to best guide your clients. The aim of this course is to teach you that “healthy eating” should never compromise having a healthy relationship with food, but rather it will show that food should fuel the body adequately and encourage you to love what we eat.
Topics will include:

• Nutrition basics: understanding the roles of carbohydrates, fat and protein, meal timing, and balance.
• Exercise nutrition: what the body requires before, during and after movement.
• Our relationship with food: understanding the emotional connection with food and recognizing unhealthy food behaviours and when to refer to a professional.

One of the most common issues encountered by fitness professionals is training clients with knee pain and injuries. Knee pain can limit many movements and activities for clients, but appropriate exercise prescription can significantly improve functionality and ease of movement.   
This workshop will:

• Identify common knee problems/injuries
• Review contributing and risk factors 
• Cover baseline conditioning (mobilization, activation, and stability work)
• Cover specific strength and conditioning guidelines
• Discuss re-establishment of movement competence, and injury resilience.

Stay informed with the latest nutrition trends and learn practical strategies to make informed choices in a constantly evolving health landscape.

Should you be strength training if you run or cycle? This workshop focuses on explaining how strength-training can help endurance athletes improve their performance and reduce their risk of injury. Is it better to focus on power, strength, or endurance to improve performance? What specific exercises help reduce the risk of injury for runners? What does a strength-training session look like for an endurance athlete? We will answer all these questions and many others.

To perform the bench press properly, and to be successful in the medium and long term, it is essential to have certain motor skills, learned in early childhood. Certain key primitive movement patterns will be at the heart of our ability to push a load. We will study these motor skill patterns and work on certain exercises to master them.

With today’s more sedentary lifestyles, our joints and muscles can get stiff and dysfunctional from all the sitting.  When your clients have desk jobs, this can reduce circulation, tighten muscles around the hips, back and neck and make daily tasks more difficult. In this workshop, you will learn basic Pilates exercises using the elastic band to improve mobility and breathing and as a result improve quality of life. The elastic band helps support the limbs, it offers proprioceptive feedback and it helps increase and strengthen the range of motion at the joints. And it is easy to carry around so you can use it anywhere! Join us for this workshop to move better, breathe better, and feel better! 
Workshop objectives:

1. Learn about the Pilates philosophy 
2. Practise exercises using the elastic band
3. Learn how the band works and how it can assist in improving mobility and tissue flexibility
4. Add variety to your workouts to keep your clients motivated and healthy
5. Learn exercises they can do while sitting at their desk to bring more movement into their day.

In this workshop, we will dive into creating a truly inclusive fitness environment that empowers clients of all sizes. This session will provide you with the tools and knowledge to confidently select and modify exercises for individuals in larger bodies. We will explore how to prioritize comfort, safety, and success, ensuring that all clients feel welcome and capable in their fitness journey.

Learn how to design a fun, challenging full body (360!) barre-inspired class for all levels, blending a fusion of ballet, Pilates, yoga and strength training in every workout to keep participants wanting more. Growing in popularity due to its inclusive nature, guaranteed results for improved muscular tone, endurance and posture, barre offers an excellent way to train our bodies. Help your participants sculpt their bodies, improve core strength and posture, and build and strengthen their muscles while combining elegance and athleticism for a workout that is unparalleled by any other!

When the time comes to train pregnant women in the conditioning room or in a group fitness course, there are many questions to ask yourself. What impact will certain exercises have on the health of the mother and baby? How can you get them moving without increasing the risk for diastasis? Are there movements that could be harmful to the baby? What movements should be avoided? And what about the pelvic floor?The workshop will address the myths and physical activity behaviours of pregnant women. You will also learn about the risks and benefits of working out for healthy pregnant women, women with pathological conditions, and post-partum women. Last, you will explore the different exercise prescriptions for these clienteles.

Discover the basics of the most popular diets (Keto, intermittent fasting, etc.) and their effects on your health. This workshop will help you understand the benefits and limitations of each approach so you can choose the one that better meets your needs and goals. Whether you are looking to lose weight, improve your digestion, or simply adopt a more balanced diet, you will leave the workshop with a clear understanding and practical advice to make informed choices. Last, we will also discuss practical tips for eating a well-balanced diet in the long term.