Updated on April 9, 2022

Functional Fitness & Strength

Personal Trainer Toronto offers customized one-on-one physical training programs.

Our philosophy is to have you able to lead a good quality of life without aches and pain.

Exercise boosts immune system

We all exercise regularly to build our immune system so that we can ward off illnesses. Studies have shown that exercise helps the body to produce more white blood cells. The millions of white blood cells are part of our body's immune system that kills bacteria, viruses, and fungi. With a stronger immune system, we are less likely to get sick.

Exercise helps regulate stress

Physical activity which challenges the body is one good way to regulate stress. The idea of exercise, which is an act of placing physical stress on the body, to help us better deal with stress can be perplexing.

Stress can be positive however; we often look at stress from a negative lens. Positive stress is called eustress while negative stress is known as distress.

What is eustress?

Eustress is a type of stress that is positive. Eustress has positive psychological, physical, biological effects to our emotional, mental and physical health.

If we perceive stress as eustress, our task at hand is motivating, achieving goals in face of challenges, and performance-improving. Eustress will lead to focused attention, balanced emotion, and rational thoughts.

Some examples of eustress are starting a new job, starting a new business venture, starting a new hobby, embarking on a meaningful project or cause, marrying, going on holiday, having a baby, exercising, learning something new, riding a roller-coaster, play a challenging game, playing sports, etc.

Typically, eustress activities are within coping capabilities, short-term, motivating, positive end goals, and exciting.

What is distress?

Distress is the negative stress response. Emotionally, a person who is in distress will feel sorrow, very upset, anguish, anxiety, desperate in need of relieving factor(s).

Physiologically, the emotional distress will cause tensions, aches in muscles, chest pain, rapid heartbeat, clenched jaw and grinding teeth, nervousness shaking, upset stomach diarrhea, nausea, headaches, insomnia, and appetite loss.

Some examples or sources of distress are the death of a loved one, bankruptcy or difficult financial situations, overburdened workload, unemployment, conflicts with family members or team members, physical injury, etc.

Distressing situations typically cause anxiety, uncontrollable outcomes, the unforeseeable outcome most likely, unfavourable result, and discouraging, maybe long-term.

Exercise is a eustress activity

When we participate in any physical training program, we are participating in a eustress activity.

Although exercise causes stress the stress appears in short bursts. Our body systems are naturally hard-wired to deal with short bursts of cortisol (stress hormones). The stress hormone, cortisol, is responsible for prioritizing the body systems to repair damaged tissues and return the body’s biochemical functions back to balance, especially after each challenging circumstance.

In fact, exercise naturally triggers the release of multiple feel-good or positive feeling hormones: dopamine (pleasurable feeling), endorphins (opiates-like for pain relief, relaxation), serotonin (feeling of wellbeing, happiness) and oxytocin (regulates social interaction behaviours, empathy, love, trust).

What is more damaging to our health is the constantly elevated distress (or stress) levels, which cause long-term overloading of cortisol. Therefore, maintaining optimal cortisol levels and feel-good hormones are crucial to the body’s health, physically, emotionally and mentally. Long durations of continuous distress (negative stress) cause tension in muscles, negatively affect mood and weaken the immune system while short, meaningful eustress (positive activities) boosts mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. Indirectly, eustress behaviours improve performance, social interactions and relationships and the overall well-being and health of every individual.

Exercise reduces risks of injury

While exercising, we challenge our bodies physically so that our bodies will adapt and get stronger and be more flexible. When we are stronger and more flexible, we can minimize the risk of injury.

Weight bearing exercises slows down progress of osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a bone loss disorder common among elderly population. The especially anyone who are at ages 50 years and up.

What is osteoporosis?

• As living tissue, bone is constantly broken down and replaced with new tissue. Osteoporosis occurs when the rate of bone loss exceeds the rate of new bone creation.
  The rate of bone loss increases as we age.
  Osteoporosis fractures usually occur in the hips, spine, wrist, and shoulders. These are the locations of the skeletal structure that support the weight of the body.

According to Osteoporosis Canada, 1 in 3 women and 1 in 5 men will suffer a fracture in their lifetime. Menopausal women account for 80% of the bone fractures in women.

When we place our bone structures under mechanical loading, our body systems adapt by increasing the rate of bone regeneration. We may not be able to reverse the rate of bone loss as we age further but we can delay the progress of osteoporosis. Some examples of weight-bearing exercises are walking, running, climbing stairs, resistance training, and martial arts can help in delaying the progress of osteoporosis.

Weight-bearing exercises like walking, running, climbing stairs, resistance training, and martial arts can help in delaying the progress of osteoporosis.

Functional training

The exercise selection is more geared to functional movements of daily activities e.g., climbing stairs, turning your body and reaching, carrying backs, lifting, pushing, pulling and more.

Training for Weight Loss

For weight loss program, our philosophy is to change lifestyle, resolve issues which contribute to the weight gain.

Exercise and physical training is a very effective ways to relieve stress, at the same time burn off calories.

Nutrition habit weighs heavily in weight loss goals. A small positive change in nutritional habits can result in a highly encouraging result. So, if you want to lose weight successfully, make positive nutritional habit changes and resolve the causes of eating disorders.

Some of the reasons for weight gain are:

• • Overeating
• • Genetics predisposed sensitivity to certain foods or juices i.e., carbs, sugar
• • Stress
• • Alcohol
• • Lack of physical activity

Please read more about Our Philosophy

Our personal training team

Our team of personal trainers are:

• Certified fitness professional
  • Our personal trainers have more than 10 years of personal training experience. Our team are able to provide training in various training modalities: high intensity interval training, functional weight training, kettlebell, stretching and mobility training, kickboxing, martial arts, therapeutic exercise programs
• Essentrics certified instructor
  • One of our team of trainers is a licensed Essentrics™ instructor. The program is a dynamic stretching and strengthening through eccentric muscle contractions. The Essentric™ program will help slenderize and tone muscles.
• Former dancer
  • Our team member is a former dancer with specialized dancing skills in ballet, hip-hop, modern.
• A martial artist and veteran martial arts instructor
  • Our lead trainer is a veteran martial artists coach with specialized skills in traditional kung fu martial arts, kickboxing. He was a former national level martial arts combat athlete.
• Registered Massage Therapist - RMT
  • Our lead trainer is also a practising Registered Massage Therapist, RMT, and with his specialized skills and experience, he is able to provide assessments, therapeutic exercises to address physical issues that you may have.

So, our team is well equipped with the knowledge to provide prehab and rehab exercise programs.

Check out our personal trainers' profile