Adrian Lightowler

Background

Adrian Lightowler began his career as a rugby player in Ireland and England before a neck injury forced him into retirement. While playing rugby he studied sport science and business at University College Dublin, and began coaching youth and adults in strength and conditioning (S&C), and rugby. Following his retirement from professional rugby, Adrian took up S&C full-time, working as a head S&C coach in professional rugby and with British Tennis before moving to Canada. Upon his arrival he began working at the University of Toronto (UofT) where he became the universities first full time S&C coach and spent 13 years working as Head S&C coach and Manager of Fitness and Performance. In these roles, Adrian was responsible for building the Varsity S&C department from its inception and later overseeing all fitness and performance related programming, services, and facilities for the entire student body, university staff and faculty, and community members. While at UofT he worked alongside other Performance Redefined (PR) team members including David Frost and Tyson Beach for almost 10 years, as well as with Kosta Poulos and Harrison Beeforth, all of whom have profoundly impacted him as a coach and person. Adrian is proud to be working alongside them now with PR.

He joined the PR team in 2023 and concurrently runs his own private fitness and performance coaching business where he works with both athlete and non-athlete clients, from youth to seniors. However, he first met some of the F2T instructors and began to learn about their role in the fire service at a joint workshop that was hosted at UofT in 2017. Adrian recalls being immediately inspired by the impact and importance of the work they were doing for fire fighters, as well as their passion for health and performance, and their exceptional coaching skills. He feels privileged that he is now able to play a small part in the ongoing development of this incredible program. The best parts of being an F2T instructor for Adrian are the exceptional people he gets to interact with and the opportunity to learn from the F2T content, the other instructors, and most uniquely from the experience of the fire fighters enrolled in the courses. The two things that stand out to him about fire fighters is their humor and the camaraderie they extend to those around them. Working with them really does feel like being part one giant team striving toward a meaningful objective and having a good time while doing it.

Activity Habits

Outside of work Adrian’s life is heavily centred around his family. He and his wife have been married since 2010 and they have two awesome boys (five and eight years old) who keep them both busy and on their toes! Adrian loves taking his boys to all their sports and seeing them develop and socialize within their sporting communities. He also has fun helping coach their teams when needed even in sports that he did not grow up playing. His wife is a flight attendant and a realtor so between them they have busy and varied schedules that often have them in different places. However, when they are all together as a family they have a lot of fun at home and try hard to enjoy everything that life throws at them each day and embrace the craziness that comes with an active, young family.

Adrian often says to himself that he wants to be here for a good time AND a long time! His main motivation to exercise, then, is to feel good mentally and physically, be capable of being independent and healthy throughout his life, and around to meet his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His wife’s work as a flight attendant means they will have lots of opportunity to travel for the rest of their lives, so he also wants to be healthy enough to enjoy that with her once their kids are older and they have more free time. Finally, Adrian believes that as someone with expertise and knowledge related to wellness and fitness he has a responsibility to his family and community to lead by example and in so doing, demonstrate balance in his life and an ability to overcome barriers to maintaining and improving his own health and fitness.

To stay active he enjoys lifting weights a few times per week and tries to run and swim as well. Adrian especially enjoys working out with friends and/or outdoors whenever he can. He takes every opportunity he gets to be active with his kids when they want to exercise with him or go outside and play whatever sport or activity they happen to be into that day. Although he enjoys working out with friends it is sometimes hard to coordinate schedules so most of the time he has to exercise solo. Adrian does still manage to get the odd workout or run in with some of his neighbours, which is fun and really helps with his motivation, but it just isn’t always possible, so he looks for other things that he enjoys to combine with his exercise like exercising outdoors and in the mornings.

Perspectives on F2T and fire fighter wellness and fitness

In Adrian’s opinion the people and peer-to-peer structure are what make the F2T program special. The coaches and ambassadors he has met through this program all share in common a passion for helping their peers through their coaching and advancing their knowledge and skills to help their fellow fire fighters perform their work, and at the same time live longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives off the job. In turn, this helps them be the valuable, and positive contributors to their communities and families that so many fire fighters are.

Adrian would like fire fighters and departments to know that the program does a great job of simplifying many complex concepts in fitness and health. Often simplicity can be confused with a lack of sophistication but having spent the best part of a decade coaching using the principles, knowledge and tools shared by F2T, and also being involved in the research behind the program, he is convinced that there is no more effective approach to coaching and planning training than what is shared in this program. In recent years he has coached or been responsible for the coaching of tens of thousands of individuals from recreational to elite performers using the F2T concepts and principles, and he does not believe he could have been anywhere near as effective without this knowledge and approach.

Adrian would succinctly describe F2T as a community of support and practice. He would advise a fire fighter thinking about investing in their wellness/fitness that no matter what is important to them in life, what they enjoy doing now, or what they want to do in the future, investing however much, or little time and effort they have in their health and fitness will pay them back exponentially. It is never too late to start, and everyone has to start somewhere, so taking a small step in a positive direction and building on that is the simplest yet most effective approach. The progress won’t be linear but sticking at it and staying positive when things don’t go as planned will definitely be worth it in the long run and when it matters the most.