NANAIMO · ADULTS 50+
Strength training for Nanaimo, from your own front room
Live one-to-one coaching for adults 50+ in Nanaimo, built around the hills, the lake loop and the ferry ramps you actually use every week.
What sets Katie apart
The same hour, with me, wherever in the world you happen to be sitting.
- Private one-to-one coaching — never a group, never a video you follow along to
- Two live sessions a week, at times chosen around your week rather than a class timetable
- A plan built for your body, your history and what you actually want to be able to do
- Strength, mobility, balance, Pilates, yoga and restorative movement, in whatever mix the week calls for
- Nutrition and wellness guidance woven through the coaching, included rather than added on
- Someone who notices when something changes, and adjusts before it becomes a problem
Nanaimo asks more of your legs than most cities
Nanaimo is built on a slope and you already know it. The climb back up from the Harbourfront Walkway into the Old City Quarter is a hill whether you feel like one or not. Chase River tilts. So do half the streets running off Hammond Bay Road. Most towns let you route around the gradient. This one really doesn’t.
That is good news for your legs and mildly irritating for your knees, and it is why so many people here open a first call with the same sentence. I’m fine on the flat. That tells me something useful. It usually means the strength is still there and the capacity underneath it has quietly thinned out.
What people in this city are training for
Nobody has ever booked a call with me wanting a stronger glute. They book because of the Westwood Lake loop and how it used to feel compared with how it feels now. Because of Mount Benson, and whether this is the year. Because there are grandchildren on the mainland, and the ramp at Departure Bay is a good deal longer with a bag in each hand.
Most of the people I speak to here landed in Nanaimo from Calgary, Edmonton or the Lower Mainland, and landed on purpose — for the water, the trails, a quieter version of the life they already had. Training here is really about protecting that decision. It is a far better reason to pick up something heavy than any number on a scale.
Being 110 kilometres up-Island used to decide this for you
Here is the honest part. If the coach you wanted was in Victoria, you were never going to see her. Two hours down the highway, an hour of actual work, two hours back. Nobody keeps that up, and nobody should have to try.
So the realistic choice up here was whichever gym had a slot free, at whatever hour they had it, with whoever was on shift. Coaching over video removes the travel from the equation entirely. Your session happens in North Nanaimo or in the spare room out in Cedar, and the half hour you used to hand over to a parking lot comes back to you. Across a twelve-week block that adds up to most of a working day.
Coaching through a screen, and why it does work
I am watching and I am talking, the whole hour. That is the job. I can see your ribs, your knees, where your weight is sitting in your foot, whether your left side is doing quietly less than your right. I will cue you before a rep goes sideways rather than after.
I coach one person at a time. No class, no group, nobody else’s plan. My background is a kinesiology degree from McMaster, where I was the lead volunteer running the cardiac rehabilitation centre with adults roughly 50 to 80, and 25 years of coaching since, 18 of those in my own practice. Some of those client relationships are now ten and fifteen years long. That length is the whole point. Bodies change. So do winters, holidays, sore shoulders and moods, and the plan has to change with them.
The wet stretch is what actually breaks consistency
Dark by four thirty, rain coming in off the harbour sideways, and the lake loop suddenly feels like a chore rather than a treat. That is when walking quietly stops. Then March arrives, the trail is still there, and it feels harder than it did in September — which people read as a verdict on their body when it is really just a verdict on four missed months.
Training that happens in your own front room does not care what the weather is doing outside it. That is not a small advantage on this coast. It is most of the reason consistency becomes possible at all.
Food, energy and the rest of the picture
I am also a Certified Holistic Nutritionist, so what you eat, how you sleep and where your energy goes are part of the same conversation, included in your coaching rather than sold beside it. No detoxes, no cutting out food groups for the sake of it. Usually it is protein, timing and being honest about the wine.
What your next ten years look like
Book a discovery call. Fifteen minutes, no pressure, and I will ask you what you want your next ten years in this town to look like. Start where you are.
Training in Nanaimo — questions
Do I need to leave the house for any of this?
No. Every session runs live over video, so you train in whatever room you have. Nanaimo people tell me the walk back up from the harbour in January is the reason they stopped going anywhere at 7am, and I think that is a fair reason. Nothing here asks you to drive.
How much space and equipment do I actually need?
A patch of floor a bit bigger than a yoga mat, something solid to hold onto, and a phone or laptop you can prop up so I can see you side on. We start there. If it turns out you want a couple of dumbbells or a band later, I will tell you exactly which ones and nothing more.
I want to get up Mount Benson again. Is that a reasonable goal?
It is a goal I can build training around, which is not the same as me promising you a summit. We would work backwards from what the climb asks of you, mostly single-leg strength and the ability to control your descent without your knees complaining, and we build that gradually.
What does a week of training look like?
Two live sessions, one to one, usually about an hour. Most people begin with 24 sessions across roughly twelve weeks and then carry on into an ongoing coaching relationship. Between sessions you get simple things to do that fit your week, not homework that takes over it.
Training from Nanaimo, wherever you are in it
Tell me what you would like to be able to do, and we will find out on a call whether I am the right person to help you get there.
Fifteen minutes, no cost and no pressure. If it sounds like a fit, your first session is free too — so you find out what the coaching is actually like before you commit to anything.