PiYo Certification

The PiYo Home workout was released in June 2014 at the Beachbody Summit!  I was so pumped about this program because I have done both Yoga and Pilates and I loved the moves but I was excited for PiYo because not only did you get the benefits of both formats, you also get Strength and cardio too!  

I have been waiting and hoping for the PiYo certification to come close to home so that I could become a certified instructor and be able to teach it officially.  In the summer months I started PiYo in the Park in my neighbourhood, but because I wasn't certified to teach the class I had to bring the TV, table, speakers you name it all to the park and plug them in etc.  We just followed along to the home fitness workouts.  I have been doing the same over the winter months in my office building with a few co-workers.  Both of those things have been awesome but I'm so excited to be able to ditch the TV and actually teach a class officially!  

My friend Erika and I went over to Vancouver on the 3pm Ferry on Saturday afternoon, drove an hour to Abbotsford and located our hotel!  On our drive into the area where we were staying we quickly located the Starbucks and the Cactus club where we would be meeting up with a team member for dinner!  

We made a Vancouver trip just last month for the Tony Horton Workout and Super Saturday event and luckily our navigating skills are getting much better!  

This time the hotel was a little nicer than the last one and we managed to catch an earlier ferry which meant we didn't have to drive in the dark or the Fog like we did last month.  

We caught up with Marnie at Cactus club and had a great visit.  I seem to have grown to love Cactus club since our Trip to Vancouver for the Autumn Calabrese workout/Canadian Launch and it's become somewhat of a tradition to go there for dinner when we are over there.  

Anyways... on to the PiYo Certification details!!  

The certification was scheduled from 9am - 5pm.  We arrived shortly after 8:30am after grabbing a quick coffee and easily navigating to the gym facility. We are getting pretty good at this!

Our Master Trainer Zach has such great energy and was fun to work with.  At first he had us all introduce ourselves and then he chatted a little about PiYo, what kind of workout it is and where it came from.  

We are also given our PiYo Round and Choreography notes and the beginning of the class.  

If you aren't sure what exactly PiYo is; I can tell you that it's not just a blend of Yoga and Pilates.  Rather it was born by blending elements of Pilates and yoga, integrating powerful strength moves, and creating a rhythmic flow of choreography and music.  Rather than just holding moves like you do in Yoga, we continue to move through the poses to the rhythm of the music.  And guess what you get an incredible workout because you just never stop moving.  

After the talking portion, we moved into an hour and a half workout which took about 2 hours with stoppages where Zack would show us the moves and talk about each section.  The workout we did matched the "Round" and Choreography notes we were given, so at each section/song we would stop and Zack would explain each new section. 

The different sections in PiYo are:

Warm Up
Heat Building
Lower Body
Full Body Fusion
Power
Flow
Core and More
Stretch and Strength
Cool down

Not every PiYo workout you do needs to include ALL of these sections but every workout does need to include the Warm Up, Heat Building, Flow and Cool Down.  

After our workout

After our LONG workout we did a bit more talking/theory and then took a short lunch break.  

After lunch we got into practicing our choreography and music skills in groups.  We split up into groups of 4 and practiced the Warm up section first with the music.  Everyone had to do at least one que during the workout so we all took turns.  For the warm up I was the first one to start with Arm Circles and Side Bends, which if you have ever done PiYo you know that this is how the Warm up always starts! The tricky part is timing it with the music and making sure you stay on the beat.  

We went through the rest of the afternoon going over the manual and then practicing our choreography for the different sections with the music as groups.  

Then at the end of the day we did a group run through of the warm up with Zack where he would stop to see if we knew what to do next.  

By about 2:30pm I think most of us were all pretty exhausted.  It was a very full day and we all left there full of excitement but also completely spent!  

Zach our awesome Instructor and the group!

Today I am sore all over, but I still managed to make my muscles practice the warm up over and over until I had it down and I also went through about half of the Heat Building section a few times to the beat of the music.  

Now it's just Practice, Practice, Practice.