Col-lect-tive

Adjective: done by people acting as a group.

Noun: a cooperative enterprise.

When we really think about it, this has been a long time coming. The plan for something like this has been tossed around the house and gym for, literally, years; whether it was continuing as personal trainers, opening an actual brick and mortar gym, or just running around giving people tips on how to live better by being healthy.

Originally, there was this idea that we would open a gym. It would be a place where personal trainers would be able to bring their clients because, let’s face it, that’s a big obstacle for all independent fitness professionals.

We discussed ideas around nutritional support, well, because…the gym is the easy part. Nutrition is hard, and there are so many conflicting ideas, that can leave you feeling overwhelmed and burdened before you even get started! We want to be able to provide people with information to help you reach your goals, and feel in control of your nutrition, not having nutrition control your life!

Then we thought that we would build a space station that had enough power to destroy an entire planet. Clearly, our vision was much bigger than anything.

If you know us, then you know that our lives are almost constantly in motion. Two kids, three dogs, four gardens, 5 acres, running a business, full time jobs, training for fitness competitions, training for soccer, helping others and baking bread. There are days where making it past 9:30pm is nothing short of a miracle. Where the heck would we find time to build an intergalactic space station? Or open a gym for that matter?

Now Gillian has, for a long while, been helping people get active and runs a morning workout crew and Facebook workouts and all kinds of things. It is safe to say that she has continued to jump back into this idea far more often than I. There are hundreds of times that I can recall her saying, “Let’s train together!” or “Want to join our HIIT this morning?”

100% of the time I say, “I’ll think about it...” Our kids know that means “... but thanks for the offer.” I mean, I’ve helped her put some of those HIIT routines together and there’s no way I’d suffer myself through that first thing in the morning!

I digress.

Health and Fitness is a BILLION (with a ‘B’) dollar industry and, in our opinion, it is largely because no one tends to really want to work together on what has become a massive detriment to everyone’s well-being. A sedentary lifestyle is a deadly thing; that, we can all agree on. How you fix that lifestyle however is where the wheels tend to fall off.

Enter the Winnipeg Health and Fitness Collective. Our goal and mission is to bring together ideas, opinions and methods to help give you a better, more active lifestyle through not only exercise and healthy eating, but also connecting the mental side of things, too. Physical and mental health form a symbiotic relationship.

And don’t just take it from us. This is a collective. It holds true to our original idea for a brick and mortar gym where trainers could come and work. Bringing to life, our idea of working together as a group to make people’s lives better. And it holds true to the idea of a Supporting and encouraging others through a cooperative enterprise.

Here, you’ll be able to read about our thoughts and share your own; interact with us on exercise ideas and workout programming; share a recipe for your favourite dinner; actually workout with us; meet like-minded people; and maybe even find the droids that you were looking for.

This will forever be a work-in-progress because, I suppose, so are we.