Board of Directors

Dr. Trevor Cottrell has been a professor of Kinesiology and Health Promotion at Sheridan College for the past 15 years. His education includes an undergraduate degree in Kinesiology from the University of Waterloo, a Masters degree in Exercise Science from Northern Arizona University, a doctoral degree in Physiology from the University of Arizona, and postdoctoral work at Queen’s University. His expertise spans human physiology from cellular biochemistry to applied human performance with a current research focus on optimizing training interventions for maximal power performance. He has developed extensive curriculum in human performance coaching and developed coach education programs in Canada and the United States.

Dr. Cottrell has competed at the regional, national, and world level in five different strength sports, including; Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, strongman, highland games, and tug-of-war. Having been a competitive strength athlete and coach for over 30 years, he is able to apply advances in human performance research with competitive athletes from a variety of backgrounds. As a strength coach at Northern Arizona University he oversaw programming of eight different varsity sports and was the lead physiologist at the High Altitude Sports Training Complex. He has served as a strength and conditioning service provider for the Canadian Sports Institutes and Wrestling Canada overseeing Olympic athlete development, and spent two years in Texas working in performance development programs for professional and amateur athletes. In addition, he is a cofounder of the Canadian Strength and Conditioning Association. Dr. Cottrell specializes in power development in athletes and has specific skill in youth athlete strength and power development.

As an Olympic weightlifting athlete he started competing in 1994 and won his first provincial championship in 1995. Having moved to Arizona for graduate work he competed for 6 additional years, winning state titles and medaling at collegiate nationals on multiple occasions. As a weightlifting coach he led athletes to National and International competitions and built his teams to win state titles and medaling as a team at collegiate nationals. Unfortunately, Dr. Cottrell’s competition experience ended with a knee injury in 2001. Since then he has built several competition teams and is now the head coach of the Vault Barbell Olympic Weightlifting Club.

Shauna is the owner of Maritime Strength and Conditioning in Windsor Nova Scotia where her work primarily focuses on developing area youth and high school athletes. She also provides personal training and injury rehabilitative services to the community and is responsible for the strength and conditioning programming for the King’s-Edgehill School Prep Athletic Programs.

Shauna has worked as a strength and conditioning coach for 15 years in both the private and university sector. She earned an Athletic Therapy degree from Northern Vermont University before obtaining a master’s degree in Applied Exercise Science, specializing in strength and conditioning from Springfield College in Springfield MA. Prior to moving to Nova Scotia, Shauna served as an Assistant Director of Strength and Conditioning at Harvard University. She is a trained facilitator for the Canadian Women and Sport women’s leadership workshop series and currently serves as Nova Scotia’s Provincial Director for the NSCA.

Sam Eyles-Frayne is currently the Head Strength and Conditioning (S&C) Coach at York University. Prior to this position, she was an S&C Coach at the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario (CSIO) for nearly four years, with a focus in working with Cycling Canada’s track sprint and endurance athletes. In addition to Cycling Canada, her experience includes working with athletes from 7 different national team programs who have competed at world championships, the Commonwealth Games, the Pan-American games, and the Summer Olympics.

Sam spent three years at Sheridan College, managing their multipurpose Strength and Conditioning Research Centre and composed, implemented, and trained eight of their varsity teams. She continues to teach part time in their Kinesiology and Health Promotion degree program.

Sam graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in Kinesiology in 2011 and completed her master’s in Human Health and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Guelph in 2012. She was an elite rugby player at both schools, earning three consecutive U SPORTS all-Canadian selections at Waterloo from 2008-10 and was named the school’s athlete of the year for the 2010-11 season. She became a national champion with the Guelph Gryphons in 2011 and was also named to her fourth consecutive U SPORTS all-Canadian team. She also represented her country in the 2010 U SPORTS All-Star Game against the USA and her province for five consecutive years with Rugby Ontario.

Amarah Epp-Stobbe (she/her) is the manager, Data Solutions at the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific. Prior to this, she worked as a Strength and Conditioning coach with CSI-Pacific supporting provincial and national team athletes from a variety of sports ranging from swimming to rugby.

She specializes in leveraging athlete monitoring data to make informed training decisions; including wellness tracking, physical testing, and GPS metrics. Amarah strongly believes in applied research that produces knowledge which can be easily put into action by coaches and practitioners.

She holds a B.Sc. from the University of Waterloo and a M.Sc. from Queen’s University where she got start in S&C, coaching parasport and special populations. Outside of work, she is currently completing her PhD in Kinesiology at the University of Victoria and in her spare time she tries to keep up with her dog on hikes.

Cole Hergott is the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at Trinity Western University (TWU) in Langley, BC where he has been working since the spring of 2019. Prior to this position, Cole worked in a variety of settings with a variety of athletes including those at the High School, Pro, and National level. Cole completed his Mater’s Degree at the University of British Columbia where he worked as a Graduate Assistant for the Thunderbirds S&C program. Cole holds many certifications including his CSCS and CPSS from the NSCA.

Cole played many sports growing up and through his desire to improve in these sports, fell in love with the training process. Once he met his first S&C coach at TWU while being a student-athlete, he realized he could pursue performance coaching as a profession and fell in love with the S&C field while volunteering as a undergrad intern through the TWU Spartan S&C program.

Joe began his career coaching wrestling, rugby and football as soon as he graduated high school. Upon graduating from the University of Utah in 1999 he began working with their strength and conditioning team. His primary role was with Football and Men’s and Women’s Basketball but assisted with the other 13 teams as needed.

He moved back to Canada in 2002 and began working with Level 10 Fitness inc. in North Vancouver. In his 12 years with Level Ten Fitness he worked and traveled the world with countless national teams and athletes including U20 Rugby, Sailing, Wrestling and close to everything in between while managing a staff of over 20 personal trainers, therapists and coaches.

He has coached multiple world and Olympic medalists in many different sports as well as many professional athletes ranging from the NHL to NFL. In September 2014 Joe took on the role of Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for the University of British Columbia where he is responsible for 26 teams, over 650 athletes and a group of undergraduate and graduate student coaches working towards their studies while garnering practical experience in the varsity weight room.

Since August 2021 Shawn has been the Manager of Sports Performance at Acadia University. There he is merging his previous experiences gained in Olympic and National Sport Organizations (NSO’s), Provincial Sport Organizations (PSO’s), and University Sport to deliver to Varsity athletics and help to develop aspiring S&C coaches in the Kinesiology faculty.

Shawn completed his Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and Athletic Training certification in 2005. During his Master’s studies Shawn served as a Graduate Assistant Athletic Therapy at Christopher Newport University and concurrently completed an Internship with Velocity Sports Performance from 2005-2008. After completing Masters Shawn continued with Velocity over the next 2 years. Upon returning to Canada Preston spent four years with Peak Power Sport Development as a S&C Coach from 2009 to 2013 providing Rugby Canada athletes preparation for the 2011 World Cup along with other work with Rugby Alberta, Alberta Alpine, Snowboard Canada and SAIT athletes.

From 2013 to 2014, Preston joined the Canadian Sport Institute Calgary where he worked with Rugby Canada and Hockey Canada providing contracted services for their athletes. In February of 2015, Preston became the head strength and conditioning coach at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg where he managed the Sports Performance program for 12 varsity teams until July of 2018.

Preston returned to the international athletics, heading the strength and conditioning programs of the Chinese rowing and sailing teams at the Hong Kong Sports Institute in 2018. In January of 2021, Preston became the Strength and Conditioning Coach and Sport Scientist with the Canadian National senior women’s seven’s team located in Langley, B.C. He was the Athletic Performance Lead, managing staff that included the integration of planning for speed, strength, on-field conditioning, nutrition, player wellness and recovery sciences in preparation for this summer’s 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics