Every day, medical fitness professionals are trusted to support folks who are navigating some of life's most vulnerable seasons: progressive illness, disability, trauma, grief, diagnostic uncertainty, medical harm, chronic pain, and changing identities.

Yet, few educational programs prepare practitioners for the relational realities that accompany these experiences.

What happens when your client’s suffering enters the room?

How do you tap into your deepest humanity while remaining within your scope of practice?

The Trauma-Informed Medical Fitness Academy was created to answer those questions.

Grounded in nearly 30 years of coaching experience, more than 60,000 coaching hours, and decades of supporting people living with complex chronic conditions, these courses help practitioners to build coaching relationships that foster safety, autonomy, dignity, and sustainable participation in movement.

Multiple options designed to meet your unique educational goals

Whether you're curious about trauma-informed coaching or ready to become a leader in complex chronic illness support, each level builds upon the last through practical education, real-world case studies, guided reflection, and mentorship.

Foundations Webinar

Perfect for practitioners who want an introduction to trauma-informed medical fitness and practical communication strategies you can begin using immediately.

Price: $35
Access does not expire

  • 55 minute webinar

  • Why exercise can feel unsafe

  • Underlying safety concerns

  • Mutual vulnerability without stepping outside scope

  • Practical strategies to respond to vulnerability

  • Complete in up to 60 days!

Foundations Course

Go beyond the webinar with six in-depth learning modules exploring the principles behind sustainable coaching that effectively balances relational humanity and medical exercise expertise.

Price: $99

  • 3 hours of instructor videos

  • When clients' suffering enters a session

  • Practitioner reactions to client suffering

  • Becoming: both expert and human

  • Exploring clients' core human needs

  • Navigating fear and uncertainty

  • Scope of practice, liability, and credibility

  • Complete in up to 90 days!

Basics Course

Go beyond the theory, to witness 4 expanded case studies in practice.

Price: $179

  • Everything included in Foundations Course

  • Four expanded case studies discussing multi-system flare-ups, medical trauma, loss of self, and existential crisis

  • Common coaching mistakes and how clients interpret these mistakes

  • Clients’ experiences from their perspectives

  • Practical communication strategies for improved interactions

  • Maintaining scope while remaining deeply human

  • Complete in up to 6 months!

Advanced Course

Move beyond the basics to consider the practitioner you are becoming. Deepens content from the Basics Course.

Price: $299

  • Everything included in the Basics Course

  • Reflection prompts

  • Quizzes

  • Guided exercises

  • Communication practice

  • Extended practitioner dialogue

  • Discussion of professional growth through discomfort with uncertainty and fear

  • Complete in up to 9 months! Verification of hours available upon successful completion.

Comprehensive Course

Designed for professionals who want personalized mentorship and advanced competency.

Price: $895

  • Everything included in the Advanced Course

  • Stronger U HOLD Model – learn how to competently hold space with clients’ vulnerability, including how to personalize your approaches, open mutually vulnerable dialogue, identify what each unique client needs, and deliver that support consensually

  • Advanced relational coaching skills

  • Personalized mentorship

  • 3 One-on-one coaching sessions

  • Competency-based feedback

  • Complete in up to 12 months! Verification of hours available upon successful completion.

Who Will You Become?

The Trauma-Informed Medical Exercise Academy is designed for practitioners who want to:

  • Build exercise programs that honor both physiology and lived experience.

  • Support clients through chronic illness, disability, trauma, and uncertainty without stepping outside their scope of practice.

  • Develop coaching relationships grounded in safety, autonomy, dignity, and trust.

  • Respond thoughtfully to complex human experiences while maintaining clinical credibility.

  • Integrate technical expertise with compassionate, evidence-informed care.

We invite learners who are

  • Medical Exercise Specialists

  • Clinical Exercise Physiologists

  • Cancer Exercise Professionals

  • Personal Trainers working with chronic illness

  • Physical Therapy Assistants

  • Occupational Therapy Assistants

  • Rehabilitation Coaches

  • Lifestyle Medicine Professionals

  • Health Coaches

  • Wellness Practitioners

Instructor

Ryder Fox

Lead Educator

Ryder Fox is the Founder and CEO of Stronger U and the Founder and President of THRIVE Lifeline. They are a trauma-informed wellness coach, educator, systems strategist, and curriculum developer with nearly 30 years of experience supporting people navigating chronic illness, disability, trauma, and other complex life experiences.

Over the course of their career, Ryder has logged more than 60,000 coaching hours, mentored hundreds of practitioners, and educated thousands of professionals internationally through courses, conferences, and organizational partnerships. They specialize in helping practitioners develop sustainable, relationship-centered approaches that support clients through chronic health conditions, trauma histories, periods of crisis, and the realities of long-term care.

Since founding Stronger U in 2007, Ryder has had the privilege of supporting some clients continuously for nearly two decades—walking alongside them through flare cycles, evolving diagnoses, disability progression, grief, recovery, and life's many uncertainties. Their work emphasizes client autonomy, trauma-informed care, ethical practice, and building helping relationships that remain effective over time.

In 2020, Ryder founded THRIVE Lifeline, a nonprofit dedicated to identity-affirming, non-carceral crisis intervention and peer support for multiply marginalized communities. Through THRIVE, they have helped develop innovative educational programs that train practitioners to engage in more humane, autonomy-supportive conversations around suicide, crisis, and complex mental health experiences.

Ryder also brings lived experience as a neurodivergent, nonbinary person living with chronic physical and mental health conditions. Their teaching is grounded in the belief that professional expertise and lived experience can work together to create more compassionate, ethical, and effective care. Across every course they teach, Ryder's goal is to help professionals become more thoughtful, confident, and deeply human in the relationships they build with those they serve.