Canada’s vacancy rate for health-related occupations nearly tripled from 2.1% in 2016 to 5.8% in 2024, using Statistics Canada analysis that pairs Job Vacancy and Wage Survey (JVWS) vacancies with employment counts from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) aligned to JVWS coverage. That’s a clear signal that nursing and adjacent roles remain in demand, which is encouraging if you’re considering a serious career change.
If you’re looking at an accelerated path like the SJCME hybrid ABSN, it helps to remember the program can feel intense while blending online coursework with in-person immersion and clinical experiences. Your body has to come along for the ride, because nursing can be deeply rewarding work and it’s also physical work, even when you’re “just helping” or “only on your feet.” A simple six-week training runway can help you start your program feeling capable, not fragile.
Your Body’s New Job Description
If you’re coming from a desk job, the first win is being honest about the shift in physical demands, without turning it into a fear story. The goal isn’t to become an athlete. It’s to become durable.
A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis on work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) among nurses pooled results from 42 cross-sectional studies, covering 36,934 participants. It estimated an annual WMSD prevalence of 77.2% among nurses, which is high enough to treat “basic body care” as professional preparation, not a hobby. In that same analysis, the most commonly affected body regions were the lower back (59.5%), neck (53.0%), and shoulder (46.8%).
Those numbers don’t mean you’re doomed to be sore. They mean your training should be specific. If time is limited, you don’t need a thousand exercises. You need a small set of capabilities that support the body regions that get leaned on most often: steady hips, a strong trunk, shoulders that stay controlled, and legs that can handle lots of standing and walking.
It also helps to keep the labour conversation factual. In the JVWS, a position counts as a job vacancy if it’s vacant (or will be vacant soon), there’s work to be done for that job, and the employer is actively recruiting outside the organization to fill it. That definition matters because it keeps “demand” anchored to real, measurable recruiting activity, not just headlines.
From here, it’s worth asking yourself, what’s the most realistic way to prepare without overcomplicating your life?
Six Weeks, Zero Drama
The best plan is the one you’ll repeat when your calendar is already full. Six weeks works well because it’s long enough to build momentum, and short enough to feel like a clear runway.
There’s also a very grounded reason to respect the physical side of health care. Ontario’s “health care sector trends” reporting (summarizing WSIB-based statistics) lists 1,840 “Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD): client handling” injuries in 2024. That one line is a good reminder that “helping someone move safely” is not a small task, even when you do it with care and good intentions.
Here’s the out-of-the-box way to think about training before nursing school: you’re not training for a workout. You’re training for repetition. Clinical days tend to ask for the same few outputs again and again: time on your feet, bending and reaching, short bursts of effort, and staying steady when you’re tired.
So the plan below is intentionally boring in a good way. It’s built around a few movement patterns, gentle conditioning, and a little mobility so you recover well and stay consistent.
- Weeks 1–2: Two full-body strength sessions, two comfortable cardio sessions (walk, bike, elliptical), and five minutes of mobility on most days.
- Weeks 3–4: Keep the same schedule, add simple loaded carries and step-ups, and nudge total time up slightly while keeping technique clean.
- Weeks 5–6: Keep the exercises familiar, make sessions a bit “denser” with shorter rests, and add one longer on-your-feet day to build standing tolerance.
The plan is doing its job if you feel more stable, not if you feel crushed. You want to walk into your program thinking, “Good, my body can handle this,” because that frees up attention for learning.
Having said all this, where you live, study, or eventually work can drastically shape what readiness looks like.
Canada Is Big. Your Preparation Should Be, Too.
One positive thing about preparing physically is that it travels with you. Your habits don’t care what province you’re in, and they don’t require perfect conditions to work.
Statistics Canada’s analysis of 2024 vacancies adds useful regional context using economic regions classified by the 2021 Index of Remoteness. In 2024, the job vacancy rate for health-related occupations was 9.3% in remote regions versus 5.5% in accessible regions. For nurses specifically, Statistics Canada reported that vacancy rates for registered nurses and licensed practical nurses were about twice as high in remote regions as in accessible regions in 2024.
That matters particularly, for when staffing pressure is persistent, days can be less predictable. It’s not about working harder as such. But about having enough physical capacity and recovery skill so that a tough week doesn’t derail you.
Statistics Canada also reported that 61.8% of registered nurse vacancies in remote regions were “long-duration” vacancies in 2024, meaning active recruitment had been ongoing for 90 days or more. If you ever pictured yourself practising in a smaller community, that kind of statistic can be oddly motivating, because it highlights how valuable steady, prepared people are.
A Strong Start Is a Strategy
A six-week plan is less about getting fit and more about removing friction from your next chapter. When your body feels steadier, you tend to learn better, recover faster, and show up with more patience for the hard parts.
Build a small foundation now, keep it repeatable, and let that consistency support you through the intensity of training and into the work itself. And honestly, if you can give yourself six weeks of preparation for a career you care about, why wouldn’t you?