The beginning of my personal trainer journey

It was in 2005 that I decided to become a personal trainer. I was a university student studying criminology at the University of Ottawa. Back then, I had two things on my mind: playing soccer at the highest level possible and becoming an RCMP officer or teacher.

I decided to go the Orléans Recreation Complex after supper in order to get a quick workout before heading downtown with my friends. Halfway through my workout, I saw a local personal trainer teaching a few of his clients how to do deadlifts. I approached him and asked him if he could help me train so that I could make the top soccer team in the region. At that point in time in my soccer ‘career’ one of the top team was the Gloucester Hornets Men’s premier team. The trainer told me that for 500$ a month, he would train me a minimum of three times a week. I remember thinking to myself that for 500$ a month, I can become a certified personal trainer through Can Fit Pro, so why would I want to pay another trainer that type of money?

The following week, I went to my weekly coaching clinic with the Gloucester Hornets and I met a man there. This man was a local community soccer coach but he was also a PRO Trainer with Can Fit Pro. What a coincidence, just the other day I was thinking of taking my personal trainer specialist course and here I have in front of me the same man who teaches that class. Needless to say, I signed up for the next PTS[1] course with Can Fit Pro. I received the manual a couple of months prior to my first PTS class. I read the book in its entirety a couple of times before the course even started. I had never read the same book twice and here I am reading over and over again the PTS manual. I went to every class with enthusiasm (this rarely happened in my five years of studying at OttawaU). Afterwards, I passed the written and the practical test. I had found my first passion – personal training.

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[1] Personal Trainer Specialist

Jeanne-Sauvé Elementary School's Physical Education Program

I've been working at Jeanne-Sauvé for four years now and I don't see myself going anywhere else. I want to share with you our physical education program because I do think we have one of the better programs in Ontario.

We have over 20 teachers and 400 students. Of those 20 teachers, 7 are physical education specialists. Of those 7 specialists, one is a Crossfit Kids and gymnastics coach, one is a competitive volley-ball coach and one is a personal trainer via CanFitPro and Twist Conditioning, a children's fitness coach and a pre-b soccer coach. We also have a teacher who is owner, head coach and general manager of the Ottawa Jr. Senators. On top of that, our great principal used to be a physical education specialist.




Our physical education program:

My grade 5's this year had access to the gymnasium 5 times a week. They had it 4 times a week with me and worked on their physical litteracy (which I'm really comfortable with as a personal trainer with 10 years of experience) as it was integrated into Ophea's well-balanced quality physical education program. They also had it with another specialist and she really worked on their gymnastics skills (she's a gymnastic and Crossfit coach).

As any good group of leaders we also referred out to get Pierre Guénard's input. Pierre represents Sport for Life Society. He made our already good program into an excellent program as he advised us to further integrate the LTAD  and physical literacy in our programming. This happened because our principal allowed us to meet with Pierre for the day as we improved our annual plan.


Our intramurals program:

Jeanne-Sauvé’s intramural program started during the 2013-14 school year. It allows Grade 4, 5 and 6 students to participate in sports regardless of skill level. Before the intramural program, it was usually the best students who made the school’s competitive teams and they got to compete against other schools in our school board tournaments. That meant that only a handful of students got to play sports outside of physical education classes. Now, everybody gets a chance to play in a friendly and positive environment because Jeanne-Sauvé committed themselves to the True Sport Principles. Jeanne-Sauvé’s students get to play a variety of sports such as volleyball, skating, hockey and basketball. Our most popular sport was volleyball – over 100 students joined that program this year.



Our sports and physical activity culture*:

We also have many other yearly activities that promote a healthy lifestyle:
- Ski program
- Jump Rope For Heart
- Terry Fox Run
- Jungle Gym
- Water games
- Race across the hallway
- Tubing
- and many other activities

*These are all organized by teachers or admin that want to promote a healthy lifestyle.

Our Bike Across Canada program:

The Bike Across Canada program has been very successful. In fact, it won the 2016 Ken Spencer Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. Since November 2012, the students from l’école élémentaire publique Jeanne-Sauvé have biked across Canada. The school bought 2 to 3 stationary bikes for each class. The students begin in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador and end their trip in Victoria, B.C. This represents a distance of 8,316 km. If you click here, you will find all of my work and appearances in the media.

Other daily physical activity ideas:

For the students that don't want to use the bikes, they have the option to go to the yoga corner in order to self-regulate when they need to move. You can view a video on how the yoga corner is being used to help students control their emotions, thoughts and actions.

We've also created our own physical literacy and DPA videos using our mascott to get the students moving.

Our outdoor classroom:

At Jeanne-Sauvé School, we believe that students can learn outside. This outdoor classroom is also used to improve students' physical literacy (ABC of movements). We even have a teacher that teaches outdoor physical education (during winter as well!).

Our recesses:

Following last year's Participaction Report Card recommendations about risky play, we've had multiple meetings about letting our students play and limiting rules outside. I've noticed that my students were more focused in the classroom when allowed some freedom to play freely outside. If you want to create a positive outdoor environment for FREE, allow your students the freedom to play freely during recess.