Elevating your practice in womens’ health

The popularity of women’s health-specific programs has exploded in recent times. In particular, more and more women seem to want to understand the benefits of exercise during the Pre and Post-Natal phase. In order to meet this ever-growing need, I needed to find a reputable program for my highly trained staff that would meet the needs of our client base.

I remember seeking out postnatal exercise programs after my first child was born as I tried to rebuild my body in a safe and considered way. Since then I’ve seen a lot of the offerings in the women’s health realm that promise to ‘fix problems’ rather than appreciate that we need to learn about our changed body and how to care for, nurture and restore not only our physical health but our emotional and mental wellbeing. For me, The Center For Women’s Fitness provided education drawn from a place of empathy, insight and experience at the heart of it. It acknowledges common issues and offered intelligent and holistic strategies to restore the female body and evidence-based research to support the method.

So in 2019, I completed Carolyne Anthony’s Women's Health Certification program just a few short months after giving birth to my second child. For me, Carolyne’s work profoundly affected how I approached movement in my own body and I quickly recognised a vast population of our clients who could also benefit from Carolyne’s teachings. Since then, the distinctive green and white balls central to her teaching have been a consistent favourite in our studios.

We were privileged to host Carolyne when she last came to Australia in 2019 and I was fortunate enough to attend her full certification program.  Carolyne offers education and training that supports a woman’s changing body and promotes working well, not working hard!

Carolyne is an advocate for women and she uses movement to empower and educate women about their bodies through every stage of life. Before becoming a lead educator, Carolyne’s mentors go through each program now delivered online, and the most important element is practice. She encourages her trainers to keep working while doing the course, experience how your own body responds to the training and teach her method to as many bodies as you can. Learning through experience and empowering women are two key principles that really resonate with me.

I believe in her work and incorporate it into my regular practice because it helps me exercise better, connect deeper, work effectively and still breathe!

One thing Carolyne focuses on specifically is engaging the parasympathetic nervous system through mindful breathing and passive alignment. I have seen a dramatic change in my own practice as a result of this and it is one thing I prescribe to most of my clients at the beginning of each lesson. The relaxation alignment exercise is the simplest way to draw the body out of the ‘fight or flight’ sympathetic nervous system, and begin to feel a greater awareness of their own bodies. It’s about calm breathing and observing how your muscles loosen as they hold on the bone. The softening of the muscle tissue from the head to the feet as you relax into a gentle exhalation. It truly is such a positive and empowering element that is so easy to practise. And for anyone who has studied Carolyn’s method, you’ll know that the green ball is an incredible addition as part of her program. I still use it every day!

Since studying with Carolyne I also feel that I am a much more patient teacher. When it comes to teaching other teachers, I consciously look to unpack some of the subtle aspects underlying key exercises and use progression throughout repetitions to layer details rather than just teaching a more difficult repertoire. When it comes to clients, I allow them to breathe and find their way more independently, rather than trying to micromanage every exercise. I also love the depth of challenge that I'm seeing my clients' experience or what I like to call the tremor of truth! I really try to talk to the fascial connections and educate my clients beyond the choreography so the purpose of the exercise is transparent. I want to be tuned into the body I’m teaching, which often means letting the lesson evolve organically rather than putting the client through a planned program, especially in a one-on-one session.

If I reflect on what my younger self would have wanted, I’m sure I may have been tempted by HIIT Pilates. I used to love to push my clients and make them sweat. Fortunately for me, I came up in a very nurturing environment and my continuing education over the last 18 years has happily taken me down this path where I feel we work smarter in our bodies, not pushing ourselves to breaking point.

There’s also so much to be gained from Carolyne’s Rocking and Rolling to Release program. The quiet nature of this program might be deceiving for some but when you start to understand the role of the green and white balls and how they give the moving body a chance to sink into an effortless movement pattern you can then transfer the learning into exercises that your clients will find surprisingly challenging.

The most common hurdle I find is hip flexor dominance when holding the legs up. Connecting the breath to the pelvic floor and then by extension the legs using the soft white ball under the sacrum to find a gentle and natural rock of the pelvis. Adding simple leg lifts with a focus on the sacrum placement on the ball adds awareness of instability and compensation patterns, and then finally bringing both legs to tabletop with a focus on the breath, allows for the legs to be heavy into the ball rather than holding them up and again rocking the pelvis gently into the ball to create a mini pelvic clock.
What I’m trying to do is utilise a strategy of laying strong foundations and layering information and challenge; loading and levering gradually needs patience from both the instructor and student, but the reward is having a client grow increasingly strong, confident and calm with an understanding that they don’t have to make the exercise hard to work well.
The breath work is so useful too as so many people habitually hold their breath while figuring things out. The fact that the breath underpins the ball work keeps clients calmer and again, not overworking their sympathetic nervous system.

The whole body focus of Carolyn’s program fits in so nicely with our Pilates programs and the clients love the independence they gain from introspection and observation rather than a ‘control and fix’ mentality. Working the fascial lines and treating the body as a whole rather than exercising one area at a time. One of my goals is to support the person I’m teaching to help them find confidence and feel secure in their movement so they can progress. And for me that’s tied back to the breath. There’s no better way.

You can find out more about Carolyne Anthony’s Women's Health Certification by reaching out to The Movement Collective in Sydney. They are the faculty/host for Carolyne’s training method in Australia.
Erin Jones is one of the co-owners and Studio Managers at The Movement Collective.