Training Women

There was a time in my life when I thought it was normal and OK to not have a regular period. In fact when I realised that a regular cycle comes every 30 odd days I was shell shocked.

I didn't get a regular cycle until I was around 32 ish, and that was a combination of having Polycystic Ovaries and engaging in training and situations that led to low energy availability. It took a few years of constant focus to heal both my HPO and HPA axis to restore good health and cycle.

This is not an uncommon story. Menstrual cycle dysfunction is common in both recreational exercisers and athletes. It's just not talked about often.

Olivia sought help for her Menstrual cycle dysfunction over ten years ago, but poor advice from her doctor meant she felt disempowered to follow the advice and so continued living life as normal. It's only now, that she's made a concerted effort to heal.

In today's episode, Olivia and I candidly share our experiences with Hypothalmic Amenorrhea. We discuss our health struggles, what it meant for us and how we started the healing journey to restore our cycles.

This is important listening - the more awareness we can bring to this topic, the more helpful we can be to our clients. Enjoy

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Are you subscribed? If not, I encourage you to do that today so you never miss an episode. And, if you're feeling the love please leave me a review. These reviews help others to find this podcast which means, together, we can help a lot more female fitness peeps!

Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] and you can also DM at my Instagram page. Oliva can be found on IG here

What's the *best* way to build an email list these days? Do you use the same techniques as 5 years ago or have things changed?

These common questions will be answered in today's Fitness Legitness quickie. In episode 027 I talked about why it's important for you to build an email list, but I didn't go into the 'how to'. If you're still sitting on the fence about email lists, or you're not sure whether you should focus on it or not go back and listen to that episode first before listening to this one.

It's important to understand the reasoning behind building your list. Ok, onto today's show

In this episode, I share with you a very simple 3 step approach to building your list. It's simple, but it works.

Enjoy the show.

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Subscribe + Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed? If not, I encourage you to do that today so you never miss an episode. And, if you're feeling the love please leave me a review. These reviews help others to find this podcast which means, together, we can help a lot more female fitness peeps!

Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] and you can also DM at my Instagram page.

If you work with mums of any age, then you are working with a post-natal woman.

Yep, you read that right. Postnatal training and knowledge aren't exclusive to those first few months post-birth. As today's guest Jen Dugard always says, "if you're training a Mum, then she's still postnatal".

Let that sink in.

This crucial paradigm shift is just one of the many societal and fitness industry misconceptions that Jen is on a mission to change.

If you don't know Jen, she is a good friend of mine, an absolute rockstar educator and the leader of a whole new way of working with Mums.

Her certification Safe Return To Exercise has been completed by thousands of fitness professionals and has revolutionised Personal Trainers approaches to training.

In this value-packed episode, Jen shares her insights of working with women, what fitness professionals need to know (but probably don't) about working with Mums, and some key things you need to look out for.

Enjoy the show....

PS Jen can be found at @jendugard, and you can register a spot in her course here > Get Certified

One of the main struggles that most of my coaching clients share is fatigue. My clients are typically solo operators who are wearing every hat in their business and have families/friends to take care of on top of that.

Couple that with the energetic demands of running a business and working with clients day in, day out for years; there comes a point when burnout becomes a real threat.

Both Olivia and I have suffered from burnout in our business, in fact, that's how Olivia and I met. She came to me as a tired and exhausted fitness professional who didn't know what steps to take next.

In this episode, we share our experiences with burnout, how to identify if you're in the burnout zone and practical tips to help you recover

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Subscribe + Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed? If not, I encourage you to do that today so you never miss an episode. And, if you're feeling the love please leave me a review. These reviews help others to find this podcast which means, together, we can help a lot more female fitness peeps!

Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] and you can also DM at my Instagram page.

Hold on to your hats, because this conversation is a doozy. It's a concept that took me many years to learn, and honestly, I still have to remind myself from time to time of it.

Have you ever spent time stressing over clients who don't get results or don't progress?

Or have you invested a time of time, energy and effort in trying to get someone to change?

If so, this episode is for you.

As awesome as you are, you can't make someone do something they don't want to do. You can't make a client change - they have to want it for themselves.

Meaning, you are not responsible for whether they achieve their results or not.

Your responsibility is to them - that is, your responsibility is to support, guide, teach, provide appropriate information and create space for them to change. You're responsible for coaching, questioning and nudging them in the right direction.

That's it.

It's then up to them to take all of that and apply it.

This is what personal responsibility is, and something you want to teach your client.

If this all sounds scary, or you're unsure as to how you go about it, then get this into your earholes stat.

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Subscribe + Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed? If not, I encourage you to do that today so you never miss an episode. And, if you're feeling the love please leave me a review. These reviews help others to find this podcast which means, together, we can help a lot more female fitness peeps!

Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] and you can also DM at my Instagram page.

Building an email list refers to you collecting emails from potential customers and your audience.

You do this so that you can build relationships with these people via email marketing, and ultimately, so you turn those followers into customers.

Your email list is a business asset, yet in my observation of trainers, they tend to put their email list into the 'don't want to think about it' basket.

(Don't worry if this is you, I did too for a while until I realised how powerful it is!) So their email list is not given the focus and attention it deserves.

In this short and punchy episode, I share with you the key reasons why focusing on building your email list is one of the best things you can do for your business, what you need and how often you *should*be emailing.

Enjoy

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Subscribe + Review in iTunes Are you subscribed? If not, I encourage you to do that today so you never miss an episode. And, if you're feeling the love please leave me a review. These reviews help others to find this podcast which means, together, we can help a lot more female fitness peeps!

Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] and you can also DM at my Instagram page.

Picture this - your client rocks into the gym and you can tell straight away that she's stressed and tense. The first thing she says to you is "I need to get smashed as I'm stressed out today".

Sound familiar? This scenario gets played out in gyms and sessions all the time.

How do you handle this, especially if you know that a high-intensity session like that may not be the best for her at that moment?

How do you give your client what she wants and needs, whilst staying true to your duty of care to your client?

These are big questions that Olivia and I explore in today's show.

We share specific strategies and key questions to ask your client in that situation, and we discuss one of the most powerful training tools there is - the power of auto-regulation.

Enjoy ********

Subscribe + Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed? If not, I encourage you to do that today so you never miss an episode. And, if you're feeling the love please leave me a review. These reviews help others to find this podcast which means, together, we can help a lot more peeps!

Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] and you can also DM at my Instagram page.

Currently, I'm in the middle of a Social Media break. People are doing July challenges such as Dry July, or Beer and Pie July, and while they are commendable, I decided that taking a step back from Social Media would be my mid-year challenge.

I'm the first person to strongly advise you to use Social Media platforms for building your brand and business, so I don't take this decision to step away for a month lightly.

In fact, I got a little ancy thinking about it, which is one of the reasons why I knew that I had to! Lately, I've been wondering whether there's a more efficient way to use it.

The only way to figure that out was to gift me space from it. And well #mybizmyrules, so I get to do this.

In today's episode, I go into deeper detail as to some of the reasons why I knew I needed a break (these will probably resonate with you!) and how I'm going about it.

Enjoy

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Subscribe + Review in iTunes

Are you subscribed? If not, I encourage you to do that today so you never miss an episode. And, if you're feeling the love please leave me a review. These reviews help others to find this podcast which means, together, we can help a lot more peeps!

Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] and you can also DM at my Instagram page.

I'm excited to introduce a new vibe to the Fitness Legitness podcast and that's by bringing in my superstar co-host Olivia Park.

Olivia and I often have conversations about various aspects of training and health and how it relates to getting the most out of your female clients. Since we go on many tangents I thought it would be interesting and invaluable to share these conversations with you.

Olivia has a wealth of knowledge and practical experience as a trainer and is my Master Coach for the Female Health + Performance course. I interviewed her for this show many moons back, so if you want to gain an insight into her then check out the show here.

In this episode, we jam on the importance of programming in recovery for your clients and explain how fatigue can mask fitness.

Many female clients are juggling multiple demands that can make recovery from training subpar. Recovery isn't just about rest days, or bodywork (although that's important), it's about looking at your client's training load as a whole and ensuring you're finding that sweet spot between stimulus, recovery, and adaptation.

Tune in to hear our take on this.

****************** Are you subscribed? If not, I encourage you to do that today so you never miss an episode. And, if you're feeling the love please leave me a review. These reviews help others to find this podcast which means, together, we can help a lot more peeps!

Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] and you can also DM at my Instagram page.

One of my 'go-to' resources in the Female Health + Performance course is Lara Briden. Her two books, the Period Repair Manual and the Hormone Repair Manual provide evidence-based and practical knowledge for helping all women to understand their hormones.

I believe these books need to be read by every personal trainer, coach and woman!

So it's an absolute pleasure to have her on the show sharing her knowledge of Perimenopause and womens' hormones.

If you work with any woman over the age of 40 then this is a must-listen episode!

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Are you subscribed? If not, I encourage you to do that today so you never miss an episode. And, if you're feeling the love please leave me a review. These reviews help others to find this podcast which means, together, we can help a lot more peeps!

Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] and you can also DM at my Instagram page.