My name is Selena Neily and I am a Certified Clinical Exercise Physiologist and Kinesiologist as well as a Registered Yoga Instructor.

I started my journey into fitness and training as a young athlete competing into my varsity years and I continue to seek athletic competitions and opportunities to further develop as a runner, yoga instructor, and all-around weekend warrior. Strength and conditioning for combat athletes was a focus for me for nearly a decade while training the Canadian Armed Forces. My role as the Exercise Specialist on an infantry base was to recondition troops to be deployed to Afghanistan and to support those that returned ill and injured. Knowing the trauma that ensued, it was a natural fit for me to further explore the therapeutic modalities of yoga and meditation, and gently started to flavour my classes/training with those elements until I completed my RYT 350 training in 2014 and I continue my studies to reach my 500hrs.

From 2009 to 2015 I specialized further in areas of pre and post-natal reconditioning and implemented one of the only national pre and post-natal group training programs within our CAF at the time, as it was important to me as a mother of 2 little ones under the age of 2, to provide that support not only for the reconditioning benefits but also the community. This is where I dove deeper into my yoga training and pelvic floor rehab, to focus on safety and therapeutic aspects.

In 2015 I was posted to Edmonton and continued to work within recreational facilities with the City of Edmonton and Straight Blast Jujitsu. I also took on a role at the Winnifred Stewart Society and used my yoga training within the Recreation Therapy programming, to offer to adult participants in the day program safe movement options, who had exceptional needs in both physiological and cognitive areas.

I have continued my training and education in psychological rehabilitative measures, yoga trauma therapies, and functional movement and mobility aspects to augment my own training and practices. I have three very active daughters who are also athletes in various realms such as soccer, biathlon, and running and we participate and compete as a family in various events. I appreciate the need to have realistic and attainable training goals that fit into ‘real-life’ and I appreciate that it is important to have a community and support people who can lift you up and hold you accountable on the ‘tough’ training days. I am a nutrition and fueling focused and I can offer feedback on a balanced approach to nutrition for healing and performance if needed. I have a vast profile of resources for various nutritional needs and I have even hosted cooking and nutrition workshops for athletes struggling to understand how to best fuel for performance.

Overall, I love to move and I want to inspire others to find joy in movement, as the benefits far exceed that of what we see in the aesthetic.  My fitness has afforded me opportunities that I could not have had otherwise and I hope that others will feel that inspiration when we train together and truly embrace the rewards of the journey that health and fitness have to offer.