... ONE YEAR LATER OKK so life has been wild.. an update on all of that later. Right now, I just want to get into gyms across Nova Scotia and tell you all about them :) First up... PUSH Fitness. PUSH has been on my radar for a while (like most gyms hehe) but I truly did not know one person who went there. I got lucky and was invited to tag along to a semi-private session with badass Kelly Cousens. Whenever Kelly asks to train, and I am free, I'm there! PUSH's semi-private tra

I have an undergraduate degree in Kinesiology from Acadia. Acadia is #blessed, because we actually learned how to train multiple different ways/people and actually had real life experiences. I am now a clinical exercise physiologist where I consult with physicians and am currently doing my masters in exercise oncology. What I’m trying to say is, I know my stuff. Although, just because I know my stuff on paper and have had success with my own training and programming for other

*fanfare plays* I, Joy Chiekwe tried SPINCOOOOOO This review has been a long time coming. I am literally smiling while writing this because I’m excited for you readers to learn about my experience. If you don’t live under a rock, you know that SpinCo has taking over. From #SpinCoHalifax, to #SpinCoBedford and now #SpinCoDartmouth… there is not one woman or man between the ages of 19 and 38 who has not been affected by SpinCo INC. To an outsider, their community may give off c

I asked Instagram what they want to read about, and a good chunk of the responses asked about my motivation. I get this question a lot and have made a blog post about how I believe motivation is a lie and how you just have to do it; but that was a young and naïve Joy. So, what motivates me, really? I will attempt to answer… Answering this question is hard for me because the answer isn’t a person, place or thing. Having all the money in the world doesn’t move me, I don’t aspir

About 6 weeks ago I handed in my weeks’ notice to World Gym Dartmouth. I was so scared, so nervous and, so unsure while my fingers typed that letter of resignation. I had only been here for a year and couldn’t help but wonder why I was quitting yet another gym… Am I selfish? Am I being unrealistic? Am I not making the most of out of this job? Am I being ungrateful? These are the thoughts that I had struggled with when making this final decision. Just like when I was at Blende

I actually don’t know how to start this review; I tried a few times to get the right words and none do this place justice. I guess to start, Move East is a locally owned studio and prides itself in being a place where friends and strangers find joy in all kinds of movement, together. A complete forewarning, prior to trying the gym I did have coffee with the owner, Hannah Kovacs. I am only putting that in here, because it’s not the first time I met with a gym owner/manager but

In my experience, too many people are going through life moving without intention. They wake up each morning, do their morning routine, go to work, come home and that’s that. They aimlessly walk through the world living for the weekend or just getting by. This also occurs in the gym. They walk in, do their thing and walk out. No plan, no guidance, just doing. By now, you understand how much of a planner I am and how I do things to ultimately to bring me closer to my goals. In

Hot Take: It's hard! The summer has always been a tough time for me to stay dedicated to the gym. The gym has always been a fun hobby I had, or a way of self-care; but in the summer that goes out the window. During this time, I typically do not follow a workout program as I give myself room to be inconsistent due to travel, social plans and events. This takes the pressure off me to perform a certain way helping me to look forward to going to the gym. But with no travel or big

What is the value of your quality of life? My job revolves around doing my best to improve someone’s quality of life, whether they know it or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s my patients at the hospital or your average Joe at the gym, I am in this profession to make someone’s life easier through fitness. If you know me, or have read any of my blogs before, you know that I use exercise as a form of medicine. Similar to a doctor who may prescribe a pill to ultimately mask your i

When I first got into exercising, it was pretty much just to look a certain way. Quickly that shifted into performing better in sports but when sports ending, I slowly shifted back to exercising to look a certain way. Luckily, I had mental growth and found a certain amount self-confidence that let that go and reverted back to my goals of performing better rather than looking a particular way. Over the last couple of years, I tried many different kinds of physical activity. Fr

Yo, If you read my last blog, you’d know I said there really isn’t an excuse for me taking a two-month hiatus from writing for this blog. I stand by that, but now it’s time to talk about the last couple of months because a lot has happened. The last two months have been challenging for a few reasons. First, working from home is dumb. I somehow became busier as research grants, proposals, ethics submission and zoom meetings and workouts consumed my life. After an 8+-hour day o

It’s been two months since I posted on this blog and I don’t really have a valid excuse (work got busy, blah blah blah). But I am back baby! My first post back obviously has to be about the MoreThanGenetics Series I started a few months ago. So, like I promised I will be updating you on the great conversations I have had! So far, I have completed Season 1 with 7 amazing conversations. To kick it off, I want to talk about Chernise and Melanie… Chernise Clayton https://www.inst

Okay, I know most people in the fitness industry right now are jobless and probably just applied for EI but hear me out. When you’re a personal trainer, even for a company, you are self-employed. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid, you don’t eat. Many of these trainers need to live a humble life, just in case something happens; and something did #corona. And at the point when personal trainers should be hustling even harder by selling at-home programs for new and old clien

To be honest, I’m writing this while eating Doritos and drinking a bottle of wine – yes, a bottle, but Nova Scotia is in a state of emergency and I’m not really allowed to work out so why not? Anyway, a little backstory… I had surgery a couple of weeks ago on my right flank. Dr. Morris cut something out and even got a good chunk of my oblique muscle too. He let me watch the whole thing, it was pretty rad. I was then told I had to take 4-6weeks off lifting instead of the initi

When people ask about my job, I usually get the ‘awe, that must be hard’ or ‘wow, that is so rewarding’; which are correct. But I also get the ‘so, you think exercise can cure cancer?’ OBVIOUSLY, I do not think that, Carol. I am not dumb. In short, I prescribe exercise to this population to minimize the adverse effects of treatment and to maintain or regain independence. But here is why I really love my job… Example 1: Chocolate chip cookies This participant is special. He ha

Last October I ran one mile every day for the whole month. I originally got the idea when I saw @MegSquats post about how she was going to incorporate running more into her training. Meg is one of my favorite Youtubers/IG “influencers”, so I was all for it. At this time, I was also paying attention to David Goggins a bit more and came to terms that I’m not as mentally tough as I’d like to be AKA I was living in the comfort zone (which may be worse than the friendzone??? IDK)

Unilateral training (training one side at a time), is my favorite thing to do. Depending on my training block I would almost always pick split squats or reverse lunges over bilateral squatting any day. I would even dumbbell bench press before I would barbell press. I wasn’t always like this. I fell in love with bilateral training when I hurt my knee. Bilateral squatting hurt, split squatting didn’t. Easy. There is something refreshing about seeing how much you can do on one l

Welcome back! In this one I want to give a bit more of a background of #MoveWithJoy, what this blog means to me and why I think it’s needed. In 2019, I stepped out of my comfort zone in ways I never thought I would. (I want to thank Jason Davis from Blended for the push!!) During, this stop-over to the unknown I realized many things. One included teaching and writing. I really enjoyed the process of educating others on exercise science in lay-terms. For the longest time I to

Back in the day I played varsity basketball for a whole year in university (I’m only 23, but that one year seemed like an eternity I wont lie, happy it’s over), and up until then I only worked out in a specific way – for performance. Shout out to Elliott Richardson; he taught me a lot about strength and conditioning and was a vital part in preparing me for the career paths I have chosen. BUT he did NOT prepare me for commercial gyms. Let me tell you, the first few visits to a