TasWeekend: Safe and healthy facts and figures

A NEW not-for-profit group is on a mission to change the way women exercise, with a special focus on promoting safe movements at different stages of life.

Choosing the right exercise can help prevent injuries. Picture: iStock

WE all know that staying active is integral to a healthy lifestyle, but for women, the issue of exercise is more complex than it seems. Constant media streams of supposedly ideal body images complicate the desire for wellbeing, while lifelong hormonal fluctuations cause physical changes that are often neglected by fitness routines. All of this is compounded by a lack of reliable research into the risks of certain fitness habits, especially during pregnancy and the postnatal period, when women are susceptible to long-term damage.

Continence nurse and pilates instructor, Peta Titter, of 3Degrees Pilates Studio in Hobart, is all too mindful of the controversies surrounding women’s exercise. For years, she’s treated a whole range of medical issues at work, educating her clients about their bodies, and supporting women back to health while managing her exasperation at the lack of awareness within the self-regulated fitness industry. Last year, her frustration with social media influencers reached breaking point, so she set up the Women’s Health Education Network (WHEN), a not-for-profit organisation designed to spread information about the importance of safe movement for women.

“On Instagram and Facebook, there are always images of women doing ridiculous amounts of exercise in pregnancy with babies strapped to them, or hanging upset down on pilates equipment”, says Titter. “I know, for a fact, that at least one of those Instagram instructors has pelvic floor dysfunction, even though she says she’s had no issues with her pregnancies, and it worries me because she has a massive following, and she’s telling women that her form of exercise is safe to do, when it’s not.

“So all of this was making me really upset and agitated, and I was driving my husband, Marco, crazy. In the end he said ‘enough’s enough, we’re going to start a not-for-profit’.”

3 Degrees Pilates Studio and founder of the Women’s Health ­Education Network, Peta Titter. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

Titter’s rigorous standards and expert knowledge of women’s needs meant she was well placed to collate a team of medical health professionals, and WHEN is now comprised of a clinical psychologist, a sports physiotherapist and a GP, plus Titter herself. Their combined range of knowledge, experience, and common sense offers women a safe, reliable, and supportive alternative to high-octane fitness trends and the powerful influence of digital media, and they’ve already delivered a series of pelvic floor information sessions, exercise in pregnancy workshops and postnatal exercise programmes.

“There’s a real lack of knowledge within the health industry, but you need to be able to question your health professional, just like you question your doctor,” says Titter. “We want to empower women by sharing the facts and giving them options. So, for example, if you stand on one leg when you’re pregnant, you need to know you’re putting a lot of pressure on your pelvis and you may get pain. You can make the decision about whether you do that or not, but don’t go blindly into exercise. Pregnancy is the one time in your life when you don’t know your own body. You have another person living inside you, and they have their own agenda from day one.”

“After having your baby, your body changes dramatically, but we often have unrealistic expectations of ourselves. You need to know that you’ll have a great body, but it’s not going to be the same body, so you need to exercise differently. You’ve got to be smart, and rehab yourself properly. Unfortunately, most women have their six-week check-up and that’s it, but it’s simply not enough.”

Dance teacher, personal trainer and pilates instructor Kate Crichton, 31, is pregnant with her second child, and benefiting enormously from WHEN’s educational guidelines. A former professional dancer, she damaged her body during her first pregnancy with inappropriate exercise, but now she knows how to stay strong without compromising herself.

“Throughout both of my pregnancies I’ve taught dance, but this time round I know much more about safe movement, thanks to Peta,” says Crichton, who at 37 weeks, cliches aside, really does glow. “I got diastasis last time, because I kept on with sit-ups, stretching with the kids, doing the splits, and giving demonstrations on one leg, and I wasn’t aware of how much harm I was doing to myself. Nobody in the dance world ever pointed that out to me. I’d seen a few other teachers who were pregnant and carrying on with everything that they normally would, so I thought it would be safe, and I didn’t want to let the kids down. But this time round I started vocal coaching much earlier, and I’ve learned to pay attention to all the little niggles in my hip because that can lead to pelvic instability. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can have loads of severe problems when you’re older, and there’s not a lot of research out there about that which is scary.

“Now I’m really in tune with myself in a different way to how I was before, and that’s really important because I want a body that I can use when I’m 60. I don’t want a bust pelvic floor and sore hips and stomach muscles that don’t support me. Being active is my life, and I don’t want to jeopardise that.”

Kate Crichton, 31, and Judy Knight, 62, have both benefited from Women’s Health ­Education Network exercise and information programs. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

Although WHEN’s starting point was maternal health, Titter and her colleagues are now expanding their focus to address women of all ages. With plans to train up continence nurses, get pelvic floor information into schools, support women who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, and help women with knee problems, which can occur as a result of fallen arches in pregnancy, the mission is to keep filling the gaps left open by the wellness industry.

“We want to teach pelvic floor education to teenagers because it’s not something women learn about until we’re pregnant, which is kind of missing the boat,” explains Titter. “It’s really hard to learn new patterning when you’re full of extra hormones, so we’d like to give girls a head start. Then, if they do end up with any issues with childbirth later on, they’ll have a really strong background to help them through it.

“And we want to address pelvic floor for women who don’t have children, because muscles are oestrogen-dependent, so all women are at risk of weak pelvic floors after menopause, which can lead to a number of issues. And of course a strong pelvic floor improves your sex life. We should really be leading with that instead of always talking about incontinence!

“We’d also like to teach knee strengthening programmes because arthroscopies are no longer available on Medicare having been proven ineffective. But women with knee pain can end up not being able to walk, or leave the house, which leaves them socially isolated, so we’ve come up with our Teas and Knees programme, which will give women exercises they can do at home.”

Before learning about safe movement, Judy Knight, 62, was at her wit’s end with knee pain and restricted movement as a result of osteo-arthritis. She’d tried all manner of treatments with little success, but learning to exercise correctly has given her a new lease of life.

“I spent a lot of time with physiotherapists, acupuncturists, osteopaths, all sorts,” says Knight. “Then I started doing pilates once a week, but I increased it to three sessions after an MRI scan showed how severe the situation was. My doctor told me I was a candidate for a knee replacement, and I thought no, I’m not. My sister-in-law had one and I really don’t want to go through that. So instead, I’ve worked on strengthening and stabilising my knees, and now I can walk and do the gardening without nearly as much pain. Before I couldn’t kneel or squat, but today I spent the morning digging out a sweetcorn patch.

“I have to keep at it, and maintain what I’m doing, because while pilates relieves the pain it doesn’t last me the whole week. But Peta’s given me a different awareness of how I stand and sit and lift things, and that’s made a big impact. They’re trialling a new treatment of injections now, and hopefully that will be ready in a few years so as long as I can stave off surgery, I’ll be happy. Knee replacements don’t have a great record, they’re not like hip replacements, so I don’t want to know really.”

WHEN’s vision is ambitious. Eventually they’d like to set up an institute for research into pregnancy and postnatal exercise, and have medical clinics throughout Australia where women can receive proper postnatal care from specialist nurses. All of this means they need to attract funding, but Titter’s passion for her work means she’s undaunted.

“We can never regulate the fitness industry,” says Titter. “It’s just too big. But we can educate women. We know how to keep babies safe, and that’s great, we absolutely need to do that. But we also need to keep mothers and women safe. We shouldn’t be devaluing women, because women are just as important as their children. If men had babies, Medicare would fund pregnancy recovery for months!”