Your Goals. Your Body. Your Workout.

Your goals are unique; your workout should be too. And that's exactly what you get at Custom Strength. Come train with us and let us help you workout to your ability, and with your goals and health in mind.

Select your Goal for Details

Get Started with a Free Fitness Strategy Session

Your fitness strategy session is your chance to share your goals, health history, and any injuries you may have that could affect how you should train. We'll also use this time to take you through the Functional Movement Screen so that we can see how you move (please don't be nervous about this. It's not a strength contest, it's a way for us to find out whether and where you have differences left to right and whether or how much we should focus on flexibility in addition to strength and fitness).

This fitness strategy session allows us to put together a fitness plan for you based on your strengths and weaknesses (we all have both!), your current fitness level, your goals, your schedule, and your budget.

Ready to schedule your free fitness strategy session? Click here to email us or call us at 613-809-8873.

Our Training Approach

While we personalize semi-private training sessions for each client to their goals and their body, there is a training philosophy at the foundation of all our training. Your session will start with a warm-up that includes some combination of foam rolling, stretching, muscle activation, and dynamic movement.

Then, depending on the needs and goals of the individual, you will do some combination of the following:

Power & agility featuring plyo boxes, Olympic lifts, medicine balls, hurdles, and agility ladders;
Movement-based strength circuits featuring free weights, TRX, kettlebells, bands, and cable columns;
Conditioning or energy system development will be done with our airdyne bike, slideboard, battling ropes, climbing rope, ladder, medicine balls, and kettlebells, either as high intensity interval training (HIIT), metabolic resistance training circuits, or steady-state aerobic training.

Because you will adapt to the exercise you do (translation: you'll get stronger, fitter, faster...), we re-evaluate and adjust all programs every three to six weeks to ensure you get the most out of your hard work.

Semi-private training

Most of our clients take advantage of our semi-private training, which is a cost-effective and fun way to train. Our semi-private training provides you with:

Workouts created specifically for you, based on your needs, and progressed based on your ability and goals
The best trainers in Ottawa checking and coaching your form to ensure you are doing the exercises safely and effectively
Motivation from your trainer and those working out with you
A fun and social group atmosphere (we still make you work!)

(Another way to put it: Great training. More Fun. Less expensive.)

Getting Strong and Fit

If getting strong and fit is your goal, then you'll fit right in at Custom Strength. We have A LOT of clients for whom this is the answer when we ask why they're here.

We'll make specific recommendations during your assessment that will be based on how well you move and how fit you and any specific goals you have. Typically we recommend one to three training sessions per week.

Now if you're someone who wants to get a bit stronger and healthier but has never liked the gym, then you will really fit in. We seem to have developed an environment and approach that really speaks to (former) gym-haters. I'm not saying we convert people into fitness freaks; I'm just saying we've got a place where people who don't love exercise enjoy spendin an hour or two each week.

Ready to get strong and more fit? Click here to email us or call us at 613-809-8873.

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Seniors Training

Our clients vary in age from teens to late seventies. The majority are over 40 and we've got a great contingent of clients in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. Our approach to training "mature" clients follows a similar approach to training younger clients, with a few key differences.

The most important thing we've noticed with training older clients is that the differences between two people of the same age gets greater and greater with age. There are 80 year olds who still ski, and there are 60 year olds who notice it's difficult to get up the stairs. We get that you're different, and so we don't try to presume to know what you need (and what you want) without meeting you first.

We'll make specific recommendations during your assessment that will be based on how well you move, how fit you are, and any specific goals you have. We'll also get you to share any injury issues that may have crept up over the years. All of this allows us to put together the most appropriate program for you. We also take all of this into account as we coach you through your workouts. You will see noticeable improvements in your physical ability from training with us, but we make sure that you progress at the right pace for you. We view getting stronger and more fit as a long game, not a quick fix.

Ready to start getting stronger and more fit with an appropriate workout for you? Click here to email us or call us at 613-809-8873.

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Training for Weight Loss

Contrary to popular belief, if your goal is weight loss, strength training is more effective than cardio. For three primary reasons:

Strength training builds lean muscle, and lean muscle burns calories. So the stronger you are, the more calories you burn and thus the easier it is to lose fat.
Muscle takes less space than fat, so if you build muscle while you lose fat, you can shrink your waistline without even losing weight.
Strength training or intense interval training cause a neat effect where you continue to burn more weight after you finish your workout, where cardio burns calories while you workout but then stops. For the geeks out there, this effect is called Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption or EPOC.

Our approach to training for fat loss follows similar principles to all of our other training: Progress according to each persons ability and needs. Your assessment and each training session will help us determine both. On top of that, we also recommend that clients interested in fat loss follow a nutrition program. While exercise can help with fat loss, the reality is that nutrition will have a much bigger impact on fat loss than exercise will. "Abs are made in the kitchen" is a popular expression among trainers. For that reason, we encourage our fat loss clients to follow our Get Healthier 8 Week Challenge in addition to training with us.

What we recommend if weight loss is your goal

We'll make specific recommendations during your assessment that will be based on how well you move, how fit you are, and any specific goals you have. But odds are we will recommend two to three workouts per week as well as participation in our Get Healthier 8 Week Challenge.

Ready to be healthier? Click here to email us or call us at 613-809-8873.

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