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READ all the way through 1Do 15-20 sets of back extensions. The more it burns the better because let’s go!!!! No pain no gain!!! Make sure you keep targeting the pain area cos if it hurts there, it must be THE problem! 2When your alarm reminds you to stand up from your desk, ignore it and keep sitting for longer hours. Slouching is a bonus! 3When someone offers you a clean salad with grass-fed beef, politely ask for burger, fries and milkshake that fits all your main ...macros just right! 4Stock up on your coffee..you need the energy because your back pain kept you up last night and you were fidgeting in bed..if black coffee isn’t quite your thing, add some cream and sugar. Hmmm yum, make that a double double! 5If you don’t feel like it and you’re scared of moving cos it hurts, do it anyway AND harder! Fear is for the weak. You are STRONG. Deadlifts are your friend. Make them super heavy cos your joints will love the challenge! And your back will see who’s the boss! Did you cringe reading this? You should because that’s exactly what NOT to do!! Seems like traditional workouts and those same old techniques (see above 5) aren’t holding up on their promisesback pain continues to win? You don’t have to just live with it! Are you done with programs that really don’t understand you? That suggest exercises that are too hard to do and your body refuses to do (for a good reason i must add!) It doesn’t have to be complicated! When you have the right assessment and identify the actual problem, you can heal your back pain! AND target them with the right intensity. I’ve got proof, DM me for them! The 90day Back Reset was created exactly to teach you how to move and eat to reduce your reliance on meds..and stop living a life of back pain! DM for details!

How much money do you put away from your vacay? And how much are you investing to your ultimate retirement account? I’m talking about Your health & wellness retirement account because don’t know about you, but I’ve yet to meet an unhealthy fella who’s fully enjoying their hard earned moola. The consistent investments you make NOW by eating a healthy diet, working out regularly, taking care of your skin/eyes/teeth, not smoking, etc. pay off big-time deep into the future!... And the BEST part is, it’s NOT too late to start making those investments in your personal wellness account. 1Finding ways to manage stress keeps your brain and body happy. 2Working out creates a strong base of muscle (and bone!) that will keep you strong as you get older plus of course, it keeps your heart & body healthy! 3Getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night builds a healthier and more focused brain. (if you’re in your 20s reading this, stop the eye roll, you’ll really have to protect your sleep in 20-30 years and create a whole routine so you can stay asleep! If you’re that person who can’t stay asleep- message me SLEEP I’ve made a special training on it!) 4Eating healthy foods floods your body with the nutrients it needs to function optimally. Stop focusing on the What food do I have to give up? mentality to How much faster will I be able to run, jump and ski or Where can I donate all the clothes that are now too loose? 5Building a social network keeps you feeling connected, which has a direct link to your feelings of wellness and well-being. And so much more! This means the workout plan you are following TODAY has the potential to pay off decades from now, and your decision to choose an apple vs. a cookie for your afternoon snack will, too! This also means that the workout you’re NOT doing today, might affect you 10-20-30 years from now and you might end up making all your aging fears come true! Sorry, but someone had to say it.. Looking for a plan and accountability for your personal wellness savings? DM me!!

10 things I wish I knew when I started on my health and fitness journey years ago.. 1Motivation is just an orientation. You get to choose and decide what you want to focus to deliberately adjust your actions for a fantastic outcome. 2We will usually (most times) not think big enough. Shoot for the moon and you might land in the stars. 3Less is More- the hours of cardio I used to do is now spent doing things I love. It’s all about making things more efficient so it no lo...nger takes too long- but that comes with practice. 4Resting is just as important. Muscles are built during REST time. 5Your thinking mind is extinguished by love- Ram Dass. Don't believe the voices in your head that constantly tell you LIES! Don't believe your limitations- if you give in to them, you will keep them! 6Simple means boring and boring means it’s getting done. Complicated tasks kill motivation and results. 7You will have to reset and readjust constantly and many many times because shiny object syndrome!! Soooo EXPECT delays.. 8We underestimate what we can do in the long term and overestimate what we can do in the short term. Practice patience when you first get started in ANY project. The outcomes to come in the long term will be greater than we can imagine, but you gotta stick to it through the hardship of the beginning. 9There’s always a fine line between just enough and too much. You’ll need to keep practicing and finding for yourself where that line is and be ok with going over many times because that’s part of the process. It’s a process, not a program. So, Mindset is King. See more

The first time I thought I should start strength training was when I could barely rinse off the soap off my mom’s heavy pot in her kitchen. It was too heavy and I was too weak! BUT I thought gyms were so intimidating and I didn’t want to be the one reading the instructions and trying to look at the pic on the machines.. So I stuck to what I was comfortable with and became the aerobics girl! Step class, kickboxing, taebo, hi-lo..I even did my Mom’s Jane Fonda workout casse...tte!! Anyone else too?? I fearfully delayed weight training until 4 years after, when the gym at U of Toronto provided a free gym orientation and I jumped on it because I believed nothing more embarrassing that a buff guy coming over to tell me that I was sitting on the machine the WRONG way!!! And mind you, there was no instagram with so much free resources back then! Aerobics was really fun but it didn’t make me stronger! Strength training did! And that’s basically how I got started. I wasn’t born naturally gifted with fitness genes.. I got help, got started and still benefitting from a stronger body today. If I did it, and my clients did it, you can do it too! How did you get started? And if you haven’t yet, are you intimidated too?

Read on if you want to know why that mild ankle sprain you had years ago still matters! If you imagine the body as a long chain; when one link in the chain breaks or wears out, the next link compensates and takes on some of the stress until that one breaks down as wellEventually the damage spreads all the way down or up the chain until the whole thing becomes unstable or unusable. You can clean up the rust on the surface of the chain and make it all shiny but unless we inspe...ct every link and repair each damaged link, the problem will stay and will keep affecting your whole chain ie your body! So an old ankle sprain that seemed to go away on its own, can often become a hip or back pain issue. If you suspect you’ve got some broken links, Here’s a couple of things you can do to strengthen it: 1As soon as you get an injury (even the mildest) address it right away. For instance, if you’ve sprained your hips, check you range of motion around the hip to get a better idea of which muscles have potentially lost the ability to fire optimally. This happens when muscles have undergone stress, trauma, overuse or injuries like your sprained hips.. 2Once you’ve identified the plane of motion that is most limited, think of all the muscles that work in that plane and use exercises to specifically target those muscles 3Often in those cases, less is MORE. So try to match your intensity and range in the exercise to what those now weaker muscles can tolerate so they get a better chance of participating in the exercise and actually get stronger. If the exercise is too hard for those muscles, the body will find a way to compensate. The stronger muscles will then be strengthened further and those weaker ones will stay weak and thereby creating an even bigger muscular imbalance which causes the injury to spread further into the chain. 4This sounds too complicated- get some help! Go see your fav Physio, Chiro or MAT specialist (moi) and if you’ve done all the above and got sent to the gym, but have no idea what you’re doing- I can help! DM me your questions and we can chat about your plan to get you started and stronger!

Do you think oh it’s too late and get intimidated by fitness? We can keep ignoring the signs but I’m here to tell you: When it’s TIGHT, it’s not RIGHT!! There’s only some things that get better with time, like wineor your burned pot that needs to soak for a while before you can wash it without scrubbing the whole pot offBUT when it comes to our tight muscles, the sooner we address them, the better!... And I know what you’re thinking, if you’re stiff you can barely move let alone exercise right? But think about this: if we don’t use it, we lose it. Tightness happens from not moving and muscles being weak. So here’s how this would look in ACTION: How to sit in a chair without feeling 30 years older? 1Start practicing sitting down on a chair by doing just a quarter of the range of motion a couple of times 2Increasing the range to half way down to the seat for a couple more reps and then 3finally going for the full sit, it will tend to feel easier to sit down. Right?! If you don’t believe me give it a try!! When done properly and with the right intension and focus, exercise can and will make your body feel more flexible and young againTightness happens from not moving and muscles being weak and will only get better if we get past the discomfort and doing just enough to wake up the appropriate muscles before feeling fluid and movement becoming easier and more natural. Then, it’s much easier to even contemplate an exercise program. So to end, remember this: AGING can be curbed by leading a healthy lifestyle. p.s: Need an exercise program that will help you feel less old? DM me young again and I might have something for ya!!

What if your Back was NOT the bad guy? If you've tried different exercises and modalities to save your back pain but has yet to see any progress, it might be that you're not addressing the right muscles. Check out the 3 step to find out how to pick the right exercises to decrease your back pain, move with confidence and claim your life back! Comment below if you're giving this a try and let's get you moving in the right direction! https://youtu.be/9Ji01yO6prs

How the wrong assessment and misdiagnosis cost him 3.5 years of pain. Bed ridden, almost dysfunctional: too painful to sit, walk and bending was horrifying, I was very active and all of the sudden from a world of that to my bedroom and I couldn't do anything and I couldn't help myself. It felt like my life was taken away from me. Fred had seen over 20 different people to try to fix his pain including doctors, surgeons, physios and chiros without progress or long term relie...f. But he wasn't about to give up and just accept living with the pain! FOUR Lessons from Fred: 1Don’t believe everything they say. Don’t accept that you’re going to live with the pain, even when the doctors are telling you to. You CAN get better if you do the right thing- With a proper assessment, and understanding how to work the muscles efficiently, you’ll be able to find an exercise routine that works FOR you. 2Understand that muscles can turn off and cause havoc in your body!! If it’s not an acute sharp pain, it could be a muscular weakness (dysfunction). 3When you’re strong and balanced in your muscles and joints, you can feel better than you did at 30years old and you’ll look forward to your life again! If it worked for me at 67years young, it can work for you cos I’m not a superhuman! 4Doing more cos I wanted to get better didn’t necessarily help until I found the right balance between doing just enough exercise and not overdoing cos muscles can shut off.

Doing it solely for weight loss often involves unhealthy choices. Hear me out. Back track almost 12 years ago, in the staff room of the large box gym we worked at, I saw my friend dripping zero calorie chocolate sauce on her bland broccoli. Yea, you read that right. She was prepping for a bikini show and was on the same boring meal 7 days a week. More shocking that the broccoli + chocolate combo was the fact that I could NOT recognize any of the ingredient at the back of that... syrup. But health wasn’t the goal for her, dropping fat was. So she just needed something that would make her broccoli more eat-able After that, we went upstairs for some aspartame loaded coffee. We didn’t know much about health then. We knew about working out hard, lifting heavy and eating low calorie foods. And we were on the constant pursuit of the trainer worthy body. Let’s just say we learned A LOT from then! My point is, often when we’re on the fitness journey solely for weight loss, our choices aren’t necessarily healthy. Fast forward to today, I rarely recommend anyone to aim for weight loss. While it’d be nice to drop a dress size or two, making health a goal in and of itself is not only more achievable but sustainable. So choose to pursue the following instead of weight loss: more energy better mood more endurance + stamina better focus feeling good becoming PAIN FREE. And know that if you really need weight loss, it will come faster when you don’t focus on it. Seems counterproductive but ask any person who’s been on the yo-yo body and they’ll confirm this. Drop a if you’ve also chosen unhealthy foods for the sake of losing weight!! See more

Happy happy holiday!

The one thing we’re doing a lot in this pandemic marathon is sitting...the new smoking as they call it is not only causing more weight gain but also more back pain..how you ask? The more we sit, the more our glutes become inflamed leading to what you may have heard as the dead butt syndrome or butt amnesia and it’s essentially just that. Now you may be thinking well I can still squat and go up the stairs so my butt must be working...and you’re correct however it might b...e that the connection is just a little low like if you’re in the elevator and the wifi bar is down to one bar.. So here’s why I’m squeezing my butt right now and why you should too ;) Squeezing (flexing) your muscles light enough is what we call muscle activation to slowly but surely amplify the mind-body connection. When the glutes are firing optimally (read full wifi bars), the other surrounding muscles, especially the low back don’t have to do extra work and cover for the glutes. So my tip for you if you’re already feeling the consequences of decreased activity during the current lockdown, activate your glutes before your walk and exercises to make sure they’re not getting glute amnesia and be the cause of your stiff back! Here’s your glute activation series: Squeezing anywhere, anytime- when you’re sitting, standing, brushing your teeth..you get the jist. Get more glute activation standing by squeezing your glute to move the working leg at a diagonal angle. You’ll also feel your glute on the stabilizing leg here:) Happy Activation! Comment below if you tried it out and your glutes are on fire! See more

Drop a if you agree!!

Have you assumed that you will just have to accept the fact that you’ll continue to live your life with chronic back pain? You’ve tried all the core exercises that you’ve been shown but you’re still suffering from low back pain? Before you give up, know that there might be something else to try before you give in to surgery. Most often we focus on performing the movements of the exercise without paying attention to making sure we’re contracting the muscle that we’re trying to... target. And lots of time, these movements are too hard for the core muscles to tolerate and we end up having to recruit other muscles to help do a sit up for instance. And that’s usually the back. The pain doesn’t always show up in the area where the problem is. In your case, it might be that your core muscles eg your abs, psoas and glutes aren’t firing as optimally as they should and your body needs to compensate to be able to perform those popular core exercises. So how can you strengthen your core without your low back needing to compensate? 1.Check if you can connect to your muscles. The Mind- Body connection is key to be able to even do a core exercise. If you can’t find your muscles- you’ll need to activate. 2.Decrease the range of motion of the exercise ie go for a smaller ab crunch. 3.Go slow so you can focus on flexing the muscle to take you through the motion. No more mindless motion. See more

There isn’t a magic pill that cuts corners or hacks your ideal body. My successful clients often spend the early morning hours, kid nap time, lunch breaks at work etc prepping and making it work. Why? Because what looks like something you have to put sooo much time and effort in actually gives you soooo much back and more. It’s like what Maharishi says about meditation (which I think is true to anything that will improve your health): You put money in the bank first (by med...itating or I’m adding exercise) so you can go shopping all day Wouldn’t you want to reap the rewards and shop all day?;) It’s something I wish for you. For everyone in fact. One of the ways I’ve been getting my time back is going to bed earlier so I can wake up before anyone else and get some quiet time to do work. And it makes the world difference and I know that cos let’s just say when I don’t, I’m not in the best mood if you know what I mean! Like they say, if it’s important to you, you’ll make time for it. If not, you’ll make excuses. I’ve done both and for some things it’s easier to justify but I think if you’re thinking about it a lot and you’re feeling progressively guilty for not taking care of your health and getting a stronger, fitter body, then it’s costing you mental exhaustion and inability to focus on other important things. If that’s you, it might be time to do something about it. With many years doing this with clients, I can help you find time and energy to build a routine that won’t fail you if things get even busier. So if you're ready, I’m here for you to strategize and plan! I'll help you give your health a spot in your current schedule. Message me making time and we’ll build your blueprint for what you need with actionable steps you can do right away to make it work.

The art and science of Personal TrainingWhat goes on in a Personal Training session and what your Personal Trainer is responsible for? The trainer (a good one) is not only responsible for the choice of exercise, the program plan, or the techniques, all that is very important but what also makes it really PERSONAL is knowing how your mind body connection works, your personality, your preferences, how you get motivated- do you like to see the structure of what we’re doing, whe...re we’re going or are you more of the let’s just get started and moving and the rest will follow type, how your body likes to warm up, your common weaknesses or underused muscles, your history of imbalances or injuries and allll of that is taken into consideration to create your workout experience and that’s what gives you results different than what you would get on your own. When hiring someone to help you take your workouts and health to the next level, make sure you communicate your needs and wants and see if the trainer can accommodate. If not, talk to a different one;) See more

Have you been feeling stuck and heavy? And no matter what you’re trying, things just aren’t falling into place? I did for a while as I was trying to navigate this crazy time. Key word here: trying. Shows that I was still doing it from the stuck place...and then I got a huge Aha Moment when i read Gregg Braden words We’re grieving as a society our lost way of life. He talks about the 5 stages of grief. How fast do we want to move to acceptance? And what can we now do about i...t? We’re already living a new world, in a new way that’s forcing us to remember and focus on what’s important. When we’re not in tune with ourselves, ignoring the stresses that’s around us since March, refusing to take action to make the necessary changes that we’ve been called to- it may show up as body pains, a feeling of stuck-ness, and an overall lost of optimal health. When the old ways just aren’t enough anymore, we need new avenues to heal, to improve and progress. And not just an intellectual but an actual EXPERIENCE. That’s why we’re bringing to you the Sound + Movement online workshop for women. A healing Sound Bath uses the power or energetic sound vibrations to relieve stress, gain insight and experience to release emotional and physical tension. Join Joanna (my sound energy healer gal) and I as we help you shift with sound healing energy and movement! It’s an experience like no other to help you activate your resilience. Link in Bio to sign up. See more

Our workshops are back!! Joanna and I are inviting you to enjoy a healing sound bath + movement to activate your resilience. Cos this year, you know?! Will you be able to join us?

Can you fix your Bunions, Hammer toes or collapsed arches? While we may not necessarily erase a bunion (except if you choose surgery!), we can certainly stop it from getting worse (and decrease pain) with proper exercises! But before we talk exercises, here’s the ONE thing you can do right now to have happier feet: >Increase your barefoot time! Put away your heels or rigid shoes and shoes with pointy toesas they force your feet into one specific position that may not be id...eal for your feet and decreases the flexibility to move and adapt to the floor as we walk.. Instead give your feet muscles a chance to work and barefoot is best at that, or at the most keep your shoes flat (or Opt for zero drop shoes)! --> If you’re thinking but Jen my bony feet hurts more when I stay barefoot for too long, what can I do? Use Progression. Because your feet are used to relying on shoes for support they’ll need some time to wake up and need to strengthen before they can tolerate longer hours barefoot. Try an hour a day barefoot and progress to spending more time as your feet starts to get stronger. Message me for shoes recommendations! See more

I told my little one as she was about to draw a sea turtle (her current fav animal), that she needs a pencil and to not use my pen cos she can’t erase it. And she looked at me wide eyed and stated rather confidently No, I don’t and I thought who am I to tell her to erase her mistakes? And first of all, what is a mistake? If you did exercise for 5 mins instead of the 20 mins suggested, is that a mistake? If you didn’t drop you a*s to grass (to squat) like they said, is t...hat a mistake? We’ve been told many many things about what exercise should be.Is dancing in your kitchen not exercise because you didn’t have someone telling you what to do? Is it not exercise because you didn’t go to the dance studio? Not only did we get a limited definition of exercise but we’re also told what we should be wearing from shoes to brasto make your experience better On that note, we now wear bracelets or watches that tell us whether we did enough or not, whether our effort was worthy or not based on some numbers. Maybe in the attempt to make exercise more productive and measurable, we made it too complicated and that translates to more chances to NOT do it. Thoughts for you to ponder on today if you haven’t been able to prioritize exercise in your day. What beliefs do you have about exercise that is keeping you away from doing it? What could you do (now that you know what they are!) to change those? Could you leave your mat out to remind you to do what your physio told you to keep the pain away? Could you reward yourself if you did even just one rep? Could you say to yourself: I did more today than I did yesterday, and that’s enough. Remember, less is More. See more