Women In Wellness: Shari Zisk of Radiance Wellness On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Ground yourself. Humans are electrical beings, the earth is a battery, and when we stand on the planet with bare feet, we recharge. It is a simple concept yet so foreign to us in our modern world. In my wellness-oriented community, it is not uncommon to see like-minded people walking their kids to school or simply strolling on nature trails barefoot. I encourage my clients to recharge daily with a grounding mat under their workstations, an outdoor barefoot walk or sitting. Let’s normalize naked feet everywhere!

As a part of my series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Shari Zisk.

Shari Zisk is a holistic personal trainer and wellness writer who spent the last 25 years creating fitness and wellness experiences for people of all ages and abilities. In addition to thousands of hours on the training room floor, Shari has been an ambassador for active lifestyles from many different positions. Shari completed hundreds of one-on-one personal training sessions by the time she finished University, where she majored in Human Kinetics. Fresh from completing her degree, she worked outfitting homes, condos, schools, and hotels with fitness equipment. Shari then went on to work with an international organization on large-scale initiatives to promote active lifestyles to older adults. She worked behind the scenes publishing a wellness trade publication, managed a boutique personal training studio, and ran the fitness department at a vibrant community center. Shari wrote fitness and wellness articles for various magazines. She started one of the first fitness blogs, where she still writes about the latest trends in fitness and wellness.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to say, “for every disease that we know; God allows a herb to grow.” I believe that phrase planted a seed that shaped my thinking about health and inspired my wellness-seeking adventures over the last 25 years.

Simply knowing that I could fix, heal or reverse my ailments set a strategic way of thinking in motion. I assumed that all I had to do was seek a solution to what ailed me, to reveal a remedy or healing strategy that already existed for it.

For example, I started wearing glasses in the 5th grade. I recall asking my optometrist if there were any exercises that could help restore my weak myopic vision. I believed that if something was weak, then we ought to strengthen it. My optometrist didn’t have any solutions other than glasses.

Also, when my dentist announced that I had an overbite that needed an orthodontic device, I tried to convince my parents that I could do it myself. I believed that I could train my jaw muscles to restore my bite.

I think that this mentality attracted me to fitness. Through fitness, I could take charge and change my body. I could make it more robust and flexible and alter its shape. I could make it run faster and bend further. I could change its performance by the way that I fueled it. This knowledge was very empowering to me.

I signed up for my first gym membership at age 16 and showed up there to pump iron most days after school until I graduated. After that, fitness became ‘my thing’.

During my first year at University, I intended to study business. However, I spent a lot of time designing workouts for my friends and training them in the gym. I switched from a business focus to the human kinetics department and continued to spend five years studying human movement. I then spent almost 25 exciting years working in the fitness industry. I hosted large-scale wellness events and initiatives across North America, and I managed teams of personal trainers at a boutique training studio and a vibrant community center. I sold commercial and retail fitness equipment, outfitting gyms, hotels, schools, and even the military with fitness equipment. As a freelance writer, I wrote fitness and wellness articles for publications across North America.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?

The most interesting thing that has happened since I started in the Fitness industry is the massive shift I am experiencing right now. First, for years I studied the origins and insertions of the muscles. Next, I mastered how to train them for strength, shape them, and feed them. I then explored their link to posture and spent over a decade studying alignment and corrective exercise.

I currently see the direction of my fitness career dominated by two somewhat unrelated yet powerful elements: fascia and community.

We now know that our fascial system has more sensory nerves than our muscles. Recent science shows us that disturbances in our fascia can impair our muscular system (and many other systems). This new scientific information is game-changing regarding how we assess fitness, prepare for it, and train for it. I have been spending a lot of time upgrading my business to accommodate the new fascia science.

As for community, people bond when they move together, sweat together, overcome challenges together, share successes, and find unknown strengths. When people find ‘their’ people,’ it creates new human social groups or mini-communities.

As discussed in the Joy of Movement, the enlightening book by Health Psychologist Dr. Kelly McGonigal, group fitness experiences are potent ways to create supportive communities within communities. So now, instead of building muscles, I am focused on building community through unique fitness experiences (including fascia care).

Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

By the time I was 20 years old, I was a busy personal trainer. While still a University student, I worked in a women-only fitness club, and I would see up to 8 women a day and consult with them on their fitness program. Yes, I was a certified personal trainer and a University student studying Human kinetics. Still, WOW, I had no business guiding women on their fitness and health with the bit of wisdom I had at the time.

My clients wanted to strengthen their core after having a baby. Yet, I knew nothing of Diastasis Rectii, the abdominal separation that can occur after a pregnancy. I worked with many women who experienced pelvic incontinence, not knowing how problematic jumping and twisting movements were. I pushed my clients through tough workouts on the low-energy days of their Moon cycle when I should have guided them into more restorative activities. I had my senior clients get down on the floor to stretch, causing them horrible embarrassment when they could not get back up from the ground without assistance.

Today, there are courses so personal trainers can learn how to safely work with pre-and post-natal women, seniors, and with most medical concerns. However, I strongly recommend that new personal trainers align with an experienced mentor in the industry. Find a trainer who is open to being shadowed and contacted regularly for ongoing guidance. I also encourage anyone new in the industry to get very comfortable saying, “I need to do further research and preparation before we work together.”

Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?

My biggest audience is the 40+ Mama, the woman who is busy with kids and possibly her career. A woman whose fortitude is necessary to provide balance, stability, and nutrition for her family. A woman whose strength, health, and robustness are pillars for her family and her entire community.

I am working on creating unique fitness and wellness experiences that fortify families and communities by strengthening the bodies and minds of essential members of the community: the women.

I have a passion for exercise physiology, a flair for marketing, and a deep love of nature. With this, I am creating fun, innovative fitness and wellness experiences that bring Mama’s together, in nature, to sweat together, to strengthen their muscles and hearts.

I am combining intelligent program design, a connection to the biophilia innate in all of us (love of nature), pure fun elements, camaraderie, adherence, and motivation. I am building programs that strengthen and create robust communities.

Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.

How I design fitness programs has changed drastically over the last 25 years. I now take a holistic approach to helping my clients live active, vibrant, and robust lives. As a result, every program I design includes whole-person wellness that provides for functional movement, time in nature, regeneration, and mind-body activities. Here are my five lifestyle tweaks that will move the needle for everyone.

1. Tend to your fascia. Beneath our ‘skin suit’ is a fluid layer with many critical functions. This fascia layer also envelopes every structure in the body, including all muscles and all organs. It is the superhighway for communication throughout the body and vitally essential for movement. Unfortunately, fascia can dry out, rendering it much like a dry sponge; hard and stiff. This state disables many of its functions. We are now learning that many aches and pains, are directly related to dehydrated fascia and stuck stress.
   A little bit of daily fascia care can work wonders for so many things; however, the study of our fascial system is relatively new. Therefore, you will be hard-pressed to find a fascia-care class in your neighborhood. However, we are not far away from massive amounts of programming for fascia.
   Shortly we will see fascia care programs built into all fitness programs. All personal trainers will be well-trained in assessing fascia health and restoring hydration to the stuck spots. In the meantime, I encourage people to get a foam roller and learn to roll their fascia, perform fascial fitness movements with guidance from an online or in-person class, or receive manual fascia work with a trained therapist.
2. Spend Time in Nature. When I design programs for my in-person and virtual clients, I program their cardio, strength, flexibility, and I include time in nature. For the city-dwelling, commuting, hectic person, at least 10 minutes in nature is an effective intervention. I work with my clients to find suitable nature inclusions for their lifestyles, and we write them into their weekly programs. Examples include:
   - Eat lunch in a flower garden.
   - Walk a tree-lined pathway.
   - Do a lap around a small lake or pond.
   If you can commit to ten minutes twice a week, don’t be surprised when you start to long for your time in nature and extend your stay.
3. Ground yourself. Humans are electrical beings, the earth is a battery, and when we stand on the planet with bare feet, we recharge. It is a simple concept yet so foreign to us in our modern world. In my wellness-oriented community, it is not uncommon to see like-minded people walking their kids to school or simply strolling on nature trails barefoot. I encourage my clients to recharge daily with a grounding mat under their workstations, an outdoor barefoot walk or sitting. Let’s normalize naked feet everywhere!
4. Indulge in a fistful of greens every day. Fresh, organic, water-filled food daily is essential for robust health. I consumed so many powder meals and energy bars during my 20s. How did we ever expect to have moist, glowing skin back in the early 90s while consuming all those dehydrating powder shakes and bars?When I think about how dry all that food was, I am convinced that it caused dehydration, leading to many of my digestive and health issues. I encourage my clients to start with a minimum of a fistful of organic greens like spinach, kale, and arugula, blended into a smoothie. The vitality from it is unmatched by any other food.
5. Movement in all directions. We see minimal movement variation if we analyze the average person’s daily movement patterns. We find that most people spend a disproportionate amount of time repeating the same small movements, all in the same plane (the saggital, or front-to-back plane). Some people go months (or forever) without performing any deep bends, overhead reaches, or spine twists. Those who exercise often move like robots and may miss out on the bending, extension, and rotation needed for optimal strength and function. The ‘use-it-or-lose it’ cliche still holds very accurately. In older age, we see these functions disappear from inactive bodies. For my clients, I program at least two weekly strength-training sessions, including multi-plane movements. In addition, each holistic program also includes weekly mind-body activities (yoga, meditation) and at least one regenerative activity (massage, fascia work, sauna).

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I am passionate about cultivating the mighty women of the future by instilling strong health and fitness values in young girls. However, many may not have the opportunity to get started on the right foot. For this reason, I created TrainerGirl, the award-winning fitness intervention designed especially for at-risk youth. This program recognizes that a shift in utilizing personal training resources can alter the course of life for many individuals. It also has the ability to influence entire communities and even nations. TrainerGirl aims to reach the ‘client’ who has not yet had the opportunity to develop behaviors destructive to her physical and psychological health. The result: strong, healthy & empowered young women. The women of the future.

As a personal trainer, I change people’s lives daily. My daily job description includes making people feel better about themselves and how they look, feel and perform. I reduce blood pressure, improve posture, battle depression, lower golf scores and tighten and tone a lot of body parts. It is gratifying work. However, only a select few can take advantage of the guidance of a professional personal trainer. The classic personal training client is hardly a case for philanthropic attention.

In contrast, the Trainergirl program serves the young girl (13–17) with a lack of financial resources to participate in organized sports or physical activities, possibly with a lack of female support in the household plus one or more of the following:

• Lack of self-confidence to participate in school-provided physical activity programs
• Distorted body image
• Low self-esteem
• Untrained social skills
• History of physical inactivity
• Obesity

The TrainerGirl Curriculum

By the end of the 8-week training program, each TrainerGirl will:

• Understand the five components of fitness
• Understand the elements of good posture and how it relates to how her body looks, feels, and performs
• Understand how different types of physical activity influence how her body looks, feels, and performs
• Know the FITT formula for training each component of fitness
• Know her heart rate training zone, how to check her heart rate and how it relates to her fitness goals
• Co-create a custom list of affordable physical activity opportunities in her community
• Have a customized fitness program to do in the home, backyard, park or community at no cost and with minimal equipment. I would love to see the TrainerGirl program available in every city, so every young girl has the opportunity get started off on the right foot.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?

1. I started my adventures in the fitness industry back in the early 90s. I wish someone would have told me just how much innovation this industry would see over the next 30 years. During my first workouts, I wore a big bulky cassette player hooked onto my gym shorts, my clothes did not wick my sweat away, and I had no idea what my heart rate was. My shoes were not antimicrobial or well cushioned, and big bouncy balls were for playgrounds, not grown-up gyms. That’s a lot of innovation in which I should have invested!
2. I wish I had read The Artists’ Way by Julie Cameron and started writing my Morning pages or journaling in my early 20s. Now that I write daily, I have captured thoughts and ideas, and channeled beautiful articles. I think back to all the wellness adventures I have been on, the protein powders I have sampled, the fitness classes I have taken, and the gurus I have met. Suppose I had noted it all daily, along with my deepest thoughts and emotions. In that case, I can only imagine the rich wellness content I would have on file today.
3. I wish someone had taught me how to nourish my network. It is much easier now with social media to stay connected, follow, like, and nudge the people I meet. Over the last 25 years, I met many creative people working in health, fitness, and wellness. This was the era before social media. It would be an incredible resource to be connected to all of the great wellness leaders and game-changers that I knew when they were young.
4. I wish I had attended the Anthony Robbins, Unleash The Power Within event at the start of my wellness career. I learned so much insight and tools about human behavior and behavior change at the 4-day event. My knowledge far exceeds the psychology, sociology, psychoneuroimmunology, marketing, and programming classes I took in my five years at University. Also, understanding human motivation has altered how I design wellness programs. It influences how I make posters and ads for my fitness classes, write articles and newsletters, and speak to my clients and potential clients.
5. I wish I had learned about intuition in childhood, and how to use it. I look back at many instances where my intuition screamed at me, and I ignored it. There were people, situations, and opportunities where I wish I had reacted differently. I never learned to trust my instinct and align with the voice guiding me. Lately, I have been taking courses and reading many books about developing my skills on this topic.

Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?

All these topics intertwine with my lifetime of work in wellness. Where I feel that my work covertly moves the needle is with mental health.

Here are some examples of people whose outlook on life changed when their fitness changed.

• I witnessed an older man enter my studio, malnourished and grey. Then, after six weeks of training, he arrived with glowing red cheeks, flushed with nourishment and the joy he radiated.
• I also observed a sweet lonely senior citizen who lived alone and without purpose. She began to ‘live’ again for the new community she found at her fitness classes.
• I have seen depressed people lift their heads and carry themselves differently after starting a fitness routine.
• I watched many awkward teenage boys discover their muscles, which completely changed how they entered the room.
• I have seen young, frail girls empowered by the dumbbells they could lift.

As I described in my TrainerGirl program above, I love to provide those most at-risk access to the joy, radiance, and empowerment that comes with a wellness lifestyle.

What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?

I post snippets and photos of my wellness explorations on Instagram @trainershari. I write feature articles on my wellness blog at www.radiancewelllness.ca. I guide members of my community through fun, sweaty workouts in our nature-loving wellness community in Georgia or through my virtual coaching program.

Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.