About Fitness Proaction

Fitness Proaction IS Jan Verhagen. Jan Verhagen IS Fitness Proaction!

Here is the story of how the two became one (written by Jan Verhagen).

I stubbornly got into physiotherapy school right out of high school. How did I even know what physiotherapy was at the tender age of eighteen? The answer is exposure. I was exposed to physiotherapy for myself in my teen years. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and it was physiotherapy that got me back on my feet again! …literally!

My mother, sister, maternal aunt, and maternal cousin were/are all registered nurses. My maternal grandmother had four close relatives that were all nurses. Then I came along, staying in health care, but otherwise changing it all up! (And the saga continues, but that is a whole other book!)

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I have always identified myself as a care giver. I’ve also enjoyed teaching others and watching the lightbulb go off for others when they “get it” on my fourth or fifth variation of explaining the same thing.

As I mentioned, I’m also very stubborn. So when I decide I want something, I’m going to make every effort known, and yet to be known, to get it!

I quickly figured out that a lot of people apply to physiotherapy school. The year I applied, there were around 750 applicants for the 21 spots. Well, I graduated high school, so I should be accepted, right? Ignorance is really bliss! I wish I knew half of what I thought I knew then! Ha!

After calling the registration office at least one to two times per week all that spring and summer to see if I was accepted, I think the poor lady got sick of my calls and I got a spot!

Physiotherapy kept me in the family health care business, and allowed me to give care to patients, and later fellow employees, and also provided that teaching part that I so enjoyed.

While the women in the family were in health care, my father and his father were entrepreneurs, always working for themselves.

I now embrace my inheritance in providing very personal fitness care from my very own business, Fitness Proaction.

I had the name of the business in my mind, long before the business was born. I want to help people take control of their lives by being proactive! Don’t wait for the disease to afflict you! Head it off at the pass by living healthy and avoid disease as much as one can! That’s how I chose the tag line: Self Care over Health Care! Physiotherapy was all about helping people get back what disease took from them. Now I want to build on that and keep people fit!

Physiotherapy (the Canadian in me) or physical therapy (the American in me), (yes, I am both) provides the physiological and pathophysiological understanding to teach people how their body is supposed to work. Personal fitness training is providing the means to make that body work. It is putting the action into the theory. I want you to succeed! I want you to live the best version of yourself!

Choose Self Care

This aging process is not for the young! Heck, if you are able to maintain your health, then that’s progress, the older we get! I know, I see myself work on this day after day after day! The good news is that there is tons of experience in this multiple decade process! Much more than some of the age of the trainers in the industry!

Let Fitness Proaction guide you to start living the best version of yourself!

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