About Us

Before I met Nancy she was dancing at the age of four, continuing to dance through her teenage years, performing ballet and later, flamenco. As well as being a wonderful dancer she was a very fast sprinter, winning many races throughout her childhood.

As for me, I grew up in New Zealand, playing rugby, competing in athletics, rowing, martial arts and surfing whenever I could.

Nancy and I met at the Baha’i World Centre in the city of Haifa, Israel, not too far from Lebanon. We married in 1980, in Haifa, before moving to New Zealand.

Once we settled into our life together in New Zealand Nancy got into aerobics instructing, studied Naturopathy (healing through healthful eating, herbal remedies, vitamins and supplements, massage and exercise).

As for me, my passion for surfing continued, as did my interest in exercise and right living.

Nancy went on to become a qualified Naturopath, Fitness Instructor, and Personal Trainer, helping people to follow a healthy lifestyle so they gained better health, fitness and energy.

Among other career qualifications, I became a qualified Fitness Instructor, undertaking as well a great deal of personal study about strength and body building training.

At one stage in our lives we lived in a small Pacific Island group known as the Cook Islands where we ran a couple of gyms with Nancy running aerobics classes and with our also training gym members to compete in national and international body building competitions.

We returned to New Zealand and over a number of years our family grew to include not only ourselves but also three wonderful children. We continued our study and practice of exercise, nutrition, natural healing methods and right living.

Over the years we not only worked out at commercial gyms, we also set up our own home gym, training friends and clients, with my managing one of the larger gyms in Auckland (the largest city in New Zealand) and Nancy undertaking Personal Training as well as continuing her practise of Naturopathy.

During these years (and continuing today) I surfed whenever I could, and at various times got injured. These injuries often meant I had to see a physiotherapist, chiropractor, or osteopath. I got fed up with needing these treatments, so began to include more flexibility training in my exercise programs, as well as core strength training, which involved using a fitness ball.

What I found was that whenever I included a lot of stretching and core strength training my need to visit a chiropractor lessened and eventually became unnecessary.

As our eldest son, Cameron, continued to advance in his martial arts I decided to train with him. To compete and enjoy the training I found I needed to become more flexible which made me focus even more on flexibility training. This led me to realize the fantastic health benefits from emphasizing flexibility training combined with my usual exercises for maintaining cardiovascular fitness, core strength training and overall body strength training.

When Nancy and I looked at our combined years of study, practice, and instruction in healthy living we realized we had developed some very powerful systems for increasing not only sports performance, but also hugely increasing health benefits for anyone who was prepared to follow our system of exercising and nutrition.

Nancy has built up over the years a huge amount of knowledge and experience in the area of nutrition and exercise gained in the study, practice and application of healthy living for herself, family, friends and clients. Such experience has involved performing and studying dance, flexibility exercises, aerobics training, strength training, core strength training, natural healing practices, the study of anatomy and physiology and right living practices.

On my part, I have learnt an enormous amount through the study and practice of strength training, cardiovascular fitness training, core strength training and flexibility training.

Together we have developed a system of exercising and healthy eating that allows anyone, whatever their level of fitness, to develop for themselves, through following the guidelines provided in our programs, effective, enjoyable, easy to follow exercise and nutritional individualised programs that they can maintain and change as they feel the need to, so they can continue training, as we have done, for the rest of their lives.

We truly hope to help many thousands to find enjoyment in exercise and healthy eating, as each person feels increased levels of energy and a greater sense of well-being that adds not only years to their lives, but gives them years of quality living so they can continue to enjoy the freedom of living healthy lives with their children, their grand children and for some, their great grand children.

To all of you, we wish you all a joyful, energetic and fruitful life.

Yours in health, fitness and joy,

Jonathan and Nancy Rishworth