‘My background is in sport. I was on the British rowing team for four years and after that I went into personal training. Once I had my children, I got interested in pelvic floor health and other aspects of women’s health, and realised most women didn’t know about their bodies. I met Bella through friends, and read about Emma in the Telegraph because she had featured in a Women in Sport supplement, and I thought she was very impressive and pioneering. We started presenting on the menopause together and found we had a great response.

We realised that you can be employed, educated and insured as a PE teacher, a CrossFit trainer, a yoga teacher or a director of sport – and basically be in charge of hundreds of girls and women – and yet no-one will ask if you’ve had any education about female health. If you look at participation rates of girls from the age of five, they’re much lower when compared to boys, and this is because the workforce hasn’t been educated about female health. Yes, courses exist, but they are extra and it doesn’t matter if you don’t have that education.

We are a CIMSPA-endorsed training provider, which is important because there are a lot of courses out there. Whilst others may also be evidence based, ours is written by experts who have worked with menopausal women for decades and is mapped to a CIMSPA standard. This means working with girls and women, covering a whole host of topics, not just a couple which other courses don’t. I think everybody should be able to help a menopausal woman with exercise and create a programme which will benefit the quality of her life going forward. We might be looking at a woman in her 50s, who hasn’t exercised for a while and might not know how to squat, lunge or deadlift. So, we need to create an environment and rapport with her where she feels able to share with us about her menopausal symptoms. These could include some symptoms that she is embarrassed about, such as pelvic floor dysfunction.

We also need to make sure that the personal trainer doesn't freak out and run for the hills because the word ‘menopause’ has been mentioned. There will be some trainers who have never had a conversation at work about anything to do with women’s health. I would love every personal trainer to be able to hold that space and then help women manage their symptoms. We might not be able to help all of our clients, but we can help some and we can talk to many of them.

We decided to partner with The Fitness Group because they wanted to take all this seriously. They've obviously got the products that they're selling, but they recognise there’s a gap when it comes to the personal training qualification. We’re the experts in this space so it makes a lot of sense to partner up.

At the moment, they are selling our courses as part of their personal training qualifications – and people get an option to buy our courses. But we're working together, having lots of conversations and just building our relationship, so I hope it leads into something bigger in terms of incorporating female health into some of their qualifications.

I’d love for women’s health education to be incorporated into personal training qualifications more quickly. There are some pioneering pieces of work going in this space, and it’s a huge opportunity, but it’s not happening fast enough.'

www.thewell-hq.com

Read the full interview...Physical Activity Facilities Magazine September/October 2024