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Guest Name
Signe Ronka
Guest Occupation
former figure skating champion, founder of Flexafit & Figure Skating Fitness magazine
Guest Biography

Signe has over 15 years of experience coaching beginner to senior level skaters at the Granite Club, East York Skating Club and Richmond Training Centre in Toronto.

 

Signe is the founder/head coach of FLEXAFIT, a sport specific fitness program. As the industry leader in sport specific off-ice conditioning, Signe's mission is to train, educate, motivate and equip athletes of all levels with the right tools for achieving on-ice success. Signe's program is recognized globally; she travels across North America and Europe hosting seminars and workshops for skaters and coaches. Signe's program is run across Ontario at various figure skating clubs, where she has implemented a structured workout program for figure skaters of all ages and levels. Signe's goal is to help skaters build a solid foundation off the ice at the grassroots. She is a key player in club off ice development, consulting with directors and providing strategies on budget, scheduling and implementation of the FLEXAFIT program. Signe has developed fitness testing specific to figure skater needs, which she tracks throughout the season and establishes consistent results with skaters improvements. In addition to working with club directors, Signe is actively involved with the board of directors at club level to promote coach feedback days, parent seminars, club development seminars and more. In 2017, Signe launched the very first licensing program, where she licensed the FLEXAFIT program to South Africa. 

Signe presented at the Strength in Unity conference in 2018 to a group of 100+ coaches, where she spoke about the importance of off ice training and how best to implement into clubs. 

Signe presented numerous workshops for skaters through Skate Ontario, Skate Newfoundland and Patinage Quebec. 

In 2017, Signe was the key note speaker at the World Figure Skating Championships in Finland. Her presentation was well received and took the interest of the Olympic Training Centre in Finland, where she has now joined in collaboration to help develop testing assessments, programming and coach education sessions specific to figure skating. Signe also presented at the 2018 Skate Canada Ice Summit General Meeting, amongst top Canadian Olympic Level Coaches, on sport specific training off the ice. 

Signe also produces products for skaters and coaches to help support on and off ice training. In 2010, Signe released a DVD "Reach New Heights", which incorporated sport specific off-ice training, off-ice jump exercises and conditioning drills. In 2017, she published "Plan, Skate, Track- The Ultimate Figure Skater Guidebook", which is designed for skaters to periodize their season, set SMART goals, track on and off ice sessions, and track nutrition/sleep. Signe has recently released a more global educational approach to training. 

She launched a weekly show called: The FLEXAFIT Show, which provides educational topics each week with various guest speakers as well. In addition, she has opened up her services to allow more skaters from across the world to train with FLEXAFIT via online training. Signe also offers full package consulting plans online for skaters who are interested to see the bigger picture of their training year, where she breaks down each month and cycle of training with proper prescription of exercises. 

Signe is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Figure Skater Fitness, a quarterly magazine that takes a scientific approach to sport specific training on topics of fitness, nutrition, injury prevention, mental training, glamour and more.