Jen Dugard (00:01.422)
Welcome to the Mumsafe Pro podcast. I'm your host Jen Dugard and today I am bringing to you a fun episode as we start to wrap up the year. A little bit of pre-warning I'm recording this at 8.23 on a Friday morning. I have two teenagers and they are still in bed which means I haven't been able to say I'm recording a podcast please be quiet.
There may be an intermission at any point where I go and ask them to be quiet, should they emerge. Chances are one of them will not emerge until at least, I don't know, I reckon I've got about three hours still with one of them. The other one may get up. So if you hear any clunking in the background, that is what's happening in my world. And I may pause and ask them to be a little bit quiet. Now, I was thinking about this episode over the last week or so, I would say.
and it's a little bit of a contradiction in my head so I'm quite a positive person in general however there are a bunch of things that piss me off and I thought every time something pisses me off especially about the fitness industry I let it annoy me then I think about it and then I my goal is always to put a not necessarily a positive spin but a proactive spin
whatever it is as is I have observed. Having said that there's been a few times this year where I've had these big big rants and I wanted to share some of that with you today. Now not everything is fitness industry related you're gonna get a little bit of an insight into the things that piss me off on a daily basis that generally I let slide but on those days that I'm feeling triggered
any number of these things can tip me over the edge. So I've put together a list of 25 things that piss me off or that have pissed me off in 2025, some of them for way longer than the last year. And I thought I'd share them with you. What I would absolutely love is for you to, if you resonate with any of these items, please let me know, slide into my DMs over on Instagram.
Jen Dugard (02:18.445)
and let me know what resonated the most or even better pop a Instagram story because I cannot be the only person that's getting wound up by some of these things and I'd love to know who my people are. Okay, shall we kick it off with something that frustrates me? Actually, does it frustrate me? On some days I feel like this is an amusement.
And on other days, it can tip me over the edge to the point at which I feel like either yelling at the person in front of me or crying either way. And this is people not being able to think outside of the box and get my fucking coffee order correct. I'll explain my coffee order for those of you that don't know. I like a single shot ice latte in a small cup. So the small paper paper takeaway cups or a small glass.
the dash of vanilla. Not that hard right?
You either get met with, course, no problem. I can do that. And they completely understand, or we don't do that. Or even better, we can't do that. To which I start this conversation if I just would like a normal latte with cold milk. no, we only do iced lattes in these big fuck off, super sized situations. To which I go, okay.
Could you just do me a single shot latte and pour a little bit of milk in and that's fine. And it can take a really, really long time for people to get it right. And then even if they do get it right, I then get charged $8 for my small coffee because it is called an ice latte. Now I've played around with so many different orders. Can I please get a single shot latte on cold milk? just add a dash of ice or a couple of pieces of ice.
Jen Dugard (04:19.981)
Some people get it and then some people go, don't you just want an ice latte in a small cup? And it's like, fuck yes, please, thank you. That would be amazing, but don't charge me $7. I've ordered, this was a good one not long ago. I ordered a espresso with a cup of ice and a cup of milk. And it cost me less than it would have cost me to buy an ice latte.
yet all of their resources were way over over and above what I actually needed just to get a fucking iced latte in a small cup. Anyway this is something that I find very very amusing in looking at someone's ability to be flexible and think outside the box or not. So if you drink an iced latte
in a small cup with or without a dash of vanilla and you've got a really good way of ordering it, please hit me up and let me know about that. Number two, this hasn't really pissed me off. I just think it's really, really a little bit weird is Christmas starting in October. In fact, Christmas decorations hitting the shops before Halloween had even happened. I just found that really, really fascinating. Don't we want the enjoyment of one thing and then the other thing?
I don't know, weird.
Jen Dugard (05:48.311)
Thing number three, people thinking that mums is still a small niche.
Jen Dugard (05:59.118)
In, it was in 2023, Mums made our
3.5 or 3.4 million people using our gyms and fitness facilities in comparison to 3.5 million men. If we had women in there and have it as not just mums then we have more women than men using our gyms and fitness facilities. Yet we are still not being taught about how to look after women properly in our certificate 3s and certificate 4s. Now
I do think about this all the time and go, well, would you want all of your pre and postnatal education in that cert three and four stage? Maybe not, but what we do need to know or do need to do is move our students from...
unconscious incompetent to conscious incompetent, which means at the moment they don't know what they don't know. They don't know that working with moms needs extra education. And almost if they don't know it's not their fault, but we really need our RTOs and our TAFEs and all the places delivering this education, providing information to our graduates or throughout their cert threes and fours.
that gives them more information about working with mums, working with women, because we still know that those CERT 3 and CERT 4 packages are more based on the male anatomy than they are on the female. So, you know, women or mums are not a small population. Mums is not a tiny niche. And we need to make sure that we are educating our fitness industry.
Jen Dugard (07:51.021)
I the fitness industry is listening, but we'll get to that one a little bit later on. So that moms are looked after safely and effectively. I feel like we've been saying this for a really long time.
Thing number one, two, three, four. I had numbers next to all of these things, but they've not carried through. Number four is the word just. I know that I've said the word just. I said it in my very first point on this podcast, but it really does devalue what we're talking about. I was at a presentation the other day. I can't remember which conference it was at. I think it was the keynote speaker and she was incredible.
And she used the use the word just quite a lot within her presentation. Now, probably a lot of people wouldn't even notice, but when we use the word just, it minimizes what we're saying and what we're putting out out into the world. becoming aware of your language and considering when you use the word just, I'm just doing this. I just wanted, we just need
really think about where that word comes in there. There's a few other words that kind of sit in that category for me as well. They're not coming to mind right at this moment, but if I remember them throughout the course of this conversation, I'll let you know, but be very, very aware of the word just. And what you could now do is tell you the amount of times that I say the word just in the remainder of this conversation. All right, number five, having to cook dinner and feed people every single night. Like, why is that a thing?
And why is it my responsibility to figure out what people need to eat every night? Admittedly, when my husband is home, he's pretty good at that, but nine times out of 10, the feeding of the humans of an evening is my responsibility. The thing is, I don't really care what we eat. And whenever I try to cook anything new, the teenagers don't like it. They've gotten a lot better at saying that to me though.
Jen Dugard (09:57.289)
after some of my frustration. So I will try and cook a new meal and introduce it to the house and I'll get things like, thank you so much for cooking dinner tonight, mum. Please don't cook this again. Thank you so much for cooking dinner tonight, mum, but I don't really like it. And I do appreciate their delivery rather than sitting at the table complaining about what is in front of them. But for somebody that does not like cooking,
to make an effort to make something new to then have to then receive, please don't cook this again. When I'm like, yeah, that wasn't too hard. I managed to do it. It didn't burn it. I'm winning. And then we don't want to cook it again. So it's like, now I have to go back to the drawing board. And then the other thing I get is if they, if we have the same thing too often, then that's not good either. Whereas I could eat just eat the same thing every single night and be completely happy. So.
I get frustrated on a regular occasion about having to figure out what we eat every single night. I think that in the scheme of, you know, when you feel like you've made it in life, for me, it will be when somebody else is turning up every single week and providing me with the food ready made. So when someone asks you what you want for dinner, it's like, I don't care. And I don't mean that without.
thinking about it or not actually caring, but if you are taking the time to deliver food to me, I am not gonna complain about it. So I can be quite an easy person when it comes to cooking for me. All right, next thing that we are talking about. There was a post on Instagram, no Facebook not long ago, and the person was advertising trading for mums.
Now usually I let these things slide. I actually posted this on my Instagram a few months ago so you might have already seen this but I usually let things like this slide but instead for whatever reason on that given day I decided to ask on the post what their pre and postnatal certifications are to the two which I got the response or I think you're confused we're training mums not pre and postnatal.
Jen Dugard (12:23.19)
to which I think maybe they're confused because the majority of us know now that one's postnatal, always postnatal. And if you are advertising to moms, you are advertising to postnatal women, therefore probably need some qualifications. It's really, really important.
to make sure that if you are advertising services to moms, or even the other one for me is if you've got a crèche in your gym or fitness facility, you may not be advertising to moms, but you're probably advertising the fact that you've got a crèche, which means that you're advertising to moms. You might just not be saying that you're advertising to moms, but you're saying that you're a child-friendly facility, yet you have no pre-screening, no staff.
that is trained in pre and postnatal exercise and no referral pathways to pelvic health physios. So this does really get my back up. if you are advertising to moms as a market, you need to make sure that your team is trained in how to work with them safely and effectively. In the Ozactive guidelines for the Ozactive pre and postnatal guidelines, it does say that if you are advertising to
mums or two pre postnatal women that you need to hold a relevant certification. The other thing is, is on all of our insurances, we tick a box and a lot of people might not even realize they're ticking this box, but they tick a box that says, I am certified for all of the services that I am delivering. Now it's not making you list all of the services, but if you're advertising to moms and you don't have a pre and postnatal certification, and then you take that box,
believe and I'm not an insurer and you'd probably want to give them a call and check with them I did do that a few years ago if something was to happen and you don't hold that relevant certification would that come back on you I would think that there's enough gray there to consider that you may be liable should something happen so if you're advertising to mums just get certified it's not that hard okay thing number
Jen Dugard (14:38.227)
Seven, I'm just going to talk about those people that are walking down the street and looking at their phone so slow and they've got absolutely no awareness of what is going on around them. In fact, I could extend this to people in general that have absolutely no awareness of what's going on around them, phone or no phone. How hard is it to see your circle of, or your peripheral and to understand what is going on? Anyway, we'll leave that one there. Number eight,
having to unpack after I've traveled. Yes, I am one of those people that will get home with all of the good intentions, yet the bag that is opened with clothes exploding out of it. I do take the washing out straight away, but the clothes exploding out of the bag and that can sit there for two weeks. In fact, if I've got a trip coming up, that trip could be in three weeks time. It's very, very...
unlikely that I'm going to unpack that bag before the next trip because why would I unpack it and put it away and then bring it out again? I know some of you guys are cringing when you're listening to this it's like I need to get home I need to pack it up I need it to be tidy and I would love it to be that way but it's really just not just it's really not a priority of mine in that moment. Yeah I do have the ability to look over messiness and I think that comes from
years and years of working at home and this is something I hear a lot of especially moms say all the time is I'm working from home and I just just and I need to clean up and I need to make the space tidy. I appreciate that. However, what would probably be more productive is to make your space tidy to leave all of that even if your space is a table facing a wall and the mess is behind you because when you are working from home you need to make sure that you have the same
capacity for productivity as you would do if you working outside of home. You you're saving all of this time by not traveling somewhere, you're saving money by potentially not paying rent, you are able to be there for the kids more. But if the impact of that is that you are not able to focus on what you're doing because you are cleaning up all the time, then it's really not.
Jen Dugard (17:00.435)
not productive is it? Okay personal trainers this is number what number is this? This is number nine personal trainers that want to work with mums but don't want to do the education it's the people that say I love training mums it's okay I've been doing it for a really long time it's okay I've been a trainer for the past 12 years I've always worked with mums it's been fine or I am a mum.
So I don't need to do a course or I know what it's like to be pregnant and have a baby. It's like, yeah, well, you've had one pregnancy and one baby and your experience, but not everyone's experience. This one's quite an interesting one. have, I do discovery calls and, and when someone comes onto a discovery call, we have a really great conversation about what they're doing, where they're, they want their business to go. You know, they wouldn't have got on the call in the first place if they weren't interested in.
know doing better when it comes to working with moms and there's generally three pathways. Pathway number one is they come into mom safe maybe they've done a pre and postnatal certification or they know that they want to come into mom safe so they'll they'll sign up for mom safe do safe return to exercise and then come into mom and come into mom safe at the same time. Pathway number two is they're not at all ready for mom safe but they want to do safe return to exercise they do their pre and postnatal certification obviously pass number three is they choose not to do anything and now not everyone sits in this camp that
chooses not to do anything, but there are definitely some people that I have these really long and in-depth conversations with about working with moms and what they do and why it's so important. And then the conversation after that is, I've just decided I'm not, it's not a priority right now. Okay, no problem. Carry on. Anyway, we'll let that one go. They're winging it basically. They are guessing. All the people that did a certification 10 years ago.
that's enough. We all know that we need to continue our education in working with women and mums especially with the way that the landscape is at the moment because research is changing all of the time every single time we do a safe return to exercise course we are talking about a new piece of research whether that means that we're changing the recommendations that we make inside safe return to exercise or not.
Jen Dugard (19:20.523)
A lot of the time we're not because it aligns with what we've already been talking about, but we really make sure that we pull in the newest pieces of research. We talk about them, we explain the nuance because nothing in this space is black and white. It is really, what is the person in front of us? What do they want? What do they, where is their body at right now? And how can we...
How can we guide them on a pathway of progressive overload to get them to where they want to be with some frameworks and some guardrails in there to make sure that they are being looked after safely and effectively along the way. Okeydoke. All right. Number 10. We are talking about panels on women's health with barely any women's experts or even let's extend this to
panels or speakers at fitness industry conferences with token women. It's getting better. And some conferences are very, very good now at making sure that there's women, but we still see a huge cohort of men in comparison to the amount of women up there. Now I do know that some people will say, we want the person that is best for the job. Yes. And
Who else could you ask because there's women working with the men that are up there and could some of the men say this woman would be really great for this but she's not yet got the recognition that she, that she, I want to say the word deserve, I don't love the word deserve but the recognition that could be deserved to her because of the work she's done.
and purely because maybe she's not putting herself out there before. So, you know, I'd really love to see in 2026 conferences making a real effort to make sure there is more women in these places and talking about all of the topics that we want to hear about. Okay. Number 11, fucking Facebook ads that I still can't get a return to create a return on investment. Now,
Jen Dugard (21:29.542)
interesting I know there's a lot of businesses out there that are able to and do create an ROI this is not this is something that's eluded me my whole definitely my whole well I didn't really use Facebook ads when I was running training in a park I never needed to it wasn't really a thing back then anyway but we operated a fully sold out fitness business without the requirement of Facebook ads.
by very good local area marketing, which is one of the things that we teach inside mom safe. And I think that was actually a good thing. It made me go out and get the clients. And I think for the majority of trainers, you know, if you're looking after anything between 20 and 50 clients, you can go out there and get them yourself. You need the strategy and the action and the time to go do it. But if you're running a business that has a capacity, then
running Facebook ads can be a huge impact on your profit and not worth it a lot of the time for those trainers that are running businesses that might have a maximum capacity of 30 people. If you're running three classes a week with 10 people per class, you've got 30 opportunities to exercise, you add Facebook ads in. Yes, it might, if it costs you 50 % of what one of those...
clients will pay on one hand, you've made $150. Let's say they're paying $300 per term, but if you're, know, you can only make a maximum capacity of 300 times 30 for that term. And then you cut that in half because you've relied on Facebook ads, then I believe I know that you could have done it in a different way. So I digress from my original frustration. I think the frustration, a big, big frustration for me is
personal trainers being encouraged to do Facebook ads as a first point of call when they're running a fitness business that does have limited capacity versus a big studio that has a membership where they can take a hundred members. And I definitely see, you know, let's fill out those members. Let's look at the lifetime value. Let's look at all of those things. But for a lot of the trainers that we work with,
Jen Dugard (23:45.599)
We do not want Facebook advertising to be the number one port of call because it significantly reduces your income. Let's, and we've always talked about it as being the cherry on top. So get all the layers, right? Become locally famous. And then if you want to add some Facebook marketing on top, maybe you're opening a new location. You just want to fill it up as quick as possible. And that the Facebook advertising is part of that runway to fill it up. But then after that,
then you are not going to reply and rely on Facebook advertising. And you're also, while you're doing it, you're going to be doing all of that become locally famous stuff so that you don't have to rely on it. It's really shit cutting your income in half because the only source of leads that you decided to go after was Facebook and Metta. And then circling back to my original frustration or pissed offness is I
I do a lot of experimenting. I've worked with lots of different people in terms of Facebook advertising and I have not yet got to a point where I am getting a return on investment. So I'm still doing it. I'm experimenting with it. So you can't say I'm not trying, but if anyone's got any top tips on the old Facebook ad situation, please let me know. All right. What number was that? That was number 11. Number 12. Let's just talk about the fact that people in my house walk past things that need to get done.
I can leave a rubbish bag at the front door and we can walk past it seven times in a row before I have to ask somebody to move it. And that segues very nicely into not changing the fucking toilet roll. Really people, it's not that hard. Toilet roll is finished. You reach down by the side of your, by the side of you while you're sitting on the toilet, you take one toilet roll off, you put the other one on and you continue with your day. Just do it. Number 14.
is planting watermelons and growing pumpkins. I do not, still to this day, do not know how this happened, but the only thing that grew properly in my veggie patch last year were fucking pumpkins. I don't even like pumpkins. So the fact that I grew them, I was very excited by the fact that we grew this nice butternut squash pumpkin situation.
Jen Dugard (26:07.431)
I made pumpkin pie with one of them and then the other one sat on the side until it died a death because I do not like pumpkin and I do not like cooking so I was not very inspired to cook with pumpkin. On top of that my beautiful husband thought that it would be really amusing to take some of the pumpkin seeds and put them back in the fucking garden and guess what's growing in my veggie patch again this year? I have planted watermelon. We have...
one watermelon plant that has come up. We have a few beans that have decided to grace us with their presence. There are a whole lot of other seeds in there that have not popped up. Guess what did? The fucking pumpkin. And this was a seed out of the old pumpkin. It's like this pumpkin is there to haunt my life. I was chatting to my sister about it the other day and she was like, maybe you should just pull out the fucking pumpkin. But there's something about something growing in my garden that I like, but I should still pull out the pumpkin.
let me know whether you should think I should pull out the pumpkin. All right. Number 15, number 15. This is quite an interesting one. It's, it's kind of like the, the advertising one, but it's coaches for trainers reaching out to me either on Instagram or on Facebook and asking me how it's going, getting clients. How long have you been a personal trainer for now?
I find it amusing and all of these people have the right intentions. However, well, actually it leads me to question myself. When I look at my Instagram page, I don't believe that it looks like I'm a personal trainer training moms. It looks like I'm a educator and a coach working with the trainers that work with the moms. Yet these people that want to get my business don't do enough research to actually figure out
that number one, I'm not their ideal target audience or number two, what I even do and who I do it for. So some days I just ignore it and then other days I fuck around with them and ask them questions. And then other days I'm really nice and anyway, interesting. If you're gonna send cold DMs, make sure you at least research the person that you're sending the DM to to make sure that they are a fit for what you're trying to DM them for so that you don't just look like a dick.
Jen Dugard (28:32.155)
Number 16. This has been going for a really long time and I don't think it's going to go away any soon, but mums on social media who or personal trainers who are mums on social media having a baby and then becoming an expert in working with mums. It's just not that simple.
I'm going to leave that one there. Number 17. One new piece of research coming out and small snippets of it being pulled out of the research blasted across social media with a very black and white statement that aligns with the bias of the person that is posting it. Either that or they're posting it for the, you know, the clicks and all the rest of it. And then
other people that are wanting information that also aligns with and then backs up their bias, jumping on that and running with it. Problem there is it these people, the secondary people, so the first people, I'm imagining the majority of them actually know that it's not that clean cut, it's not black and white, it's very nuanced, there's a lot of gray, but they're posting these things that...
create some controversy or create a reaction. And then they'll get all these, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, you get all of these then trainers or moms that take this one piece of information and they do not look at the whole research paper. They do not look at the 10 papers that came before it. They do not consider the individual person or the clinical or the, you know, the one-on-one experience. And then they insert this new belief into the way that they train moms.
Now there's a lot of new research out there at the moment and I love the fact that we are getting more and more research when it comes to working with moms. I also love the fact that a lot of the research is giving us confidence. It's reducing fear. It's helping moms to know and trainers that train with moms to know that it's not scary to exercise while pregnant or postpartum. However, a lot of it does promote more intense exercise, heavier weights, you know,
Jen Dugard (30:42.365)
Yeah, exercising at a higher intensity and not all of it offers a whole picture of what is going on right now. So yes, it may not be detrimental to a baby if a mum is exercising to a high level. But if she's exercising to that high level and she's jumping and she's lifting really heavy and she's running or doing all of these things, because that specific research paper says when she exercised to that level.
There was no detrimental effect on the fetus. There was no detrimental effect on maternal cardiovascular system or whatever else. But have we taken into consideration her whole framework? Because sometimes I think not. And I say this not to, I guess I'll just reiterate here that the research is absolutely fantastic and I'm loving seeing it. And I love the fact that it's forcing me to push my boundaries.
It's forcing me to consider the information I'm passing to trainers. However, I do think sometimes it's moving us into this space where we're not, we're not necessarily going through a checklist of where she's at right now. We're just assuming that, that says that therefore we can do that. It's really important that we take this research on, we stretch our
personal beliefs and the way that we've been training clients. And we do work with those women that it is suitable for to increase the intensity of their exercise during pregnancy or postpartum, but not without going through checks and understanding and pre-exercise screenings on where she is right now, what is happening with her body, and then moving her through a pathway of progressive overload to get her to where she wants to be. Now for some women, this pathway from
So can, can, you have awareness of your pelvic floor? Do you have awareness of TA? What is your stability like? Tell me about your pelvis. Tell, look at your transfer of load. Let me look at your abdominal wall. What is your breathing pattern like? Can, you have an automatic pelvic floor TA activation? This could take an hour with some women and then we've got them move through that pathway. We understand that they know the things and they are ready to move into that higher intensity exercise that the research is telling us is safe and it's good for them. However, you're also going to get some people
Jen Dugard (33:02.419)
that this pathway can take them a week. It can take them three weeks. It can take them six weeks. It could take them six months. It could take them longer. And it's really, really important that we understand that this continuum is different for every single woman and that we need to take the research but not throw out all of the best practice and all of the amazing work that we have done in order to get to the place that we are today, making sure that we're looking after mums.
safely and effectively. So my call out to you is to question everything. When you see a black and white statement on Instagram, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, like wherever you're getting your information, number one, go look at the research study, go read it, look at the size of the cohort, look at who the cohort was. Was it elite athletes? Was it Olympic level athletes? Or was it everyday moms? Because the majority of research is not done on everyday moms, that it's done on
women that are exercising to a higher intensity or they're in the elite athlete category. So who is the researcher aimed at? Can we then transfer that knowledge into our general cohort of moms, which admittedly, a lot of moms are exercising to higher levels than they've ever done before. So they are exercising like athletes. So maybe we can flow it through to some people, but not all of them. And let's consider her whole body and her whole being and her whole...
and mental and emotional wellbeing when we are prescribing exercise or offering her guidelines. So please don't be one of those people that grasps something because it aligns with your bias and then runs with it because it's not the full picture.
Jen Dugard (34:49.32)
Number 18. People saying do crunches to fix abdominal separation like it's 2008. Now it is true that when you do a sit up, the rectus abdominis is forced together. Now, so if we took that and the other thing that a lot of people, a lot of trainers do not know, and I ask this in every single safe return to exercise course that I do is that
the role of the transverse abdominis or the action of the transverse abdominis is that when I say, you know, draw pelvic floor, gently peel your skin away from your undies line, activate pelvic floor and draw TA, the transverse abdominis does not push the rectus abdominis together. The transverse abdominis, which inserts into the linear albus, so its origin is at the back and the insertion is at the front,
When I activate or I cue you to activate your transverse abdominis, it does this. It actually pulls on and creates tension, if it can create tension, at that linear elbow. So, you know, there is a number of research papers and if anybody would like them, please let me know. I'm very happy to send them to you. Shoot me a DM on Instagram and I will send you. There's two or three research papers that I can think of. can't remember the names of them, but they looked at, there's one overview.
systemic review paper and it was looking at you know when we do a crunch versus when we do a drawing in movement. So a drawing in movement is your transverse abdominis activation and a obviously a crunch is a sitting up. So on a very very simple level when we do a crunch we come forward the rectus abdominis comes together. So if we only were thinking about what action do we do that promotes the pushing together of the rectus
We might say, we'll do sit ups forever, because that's going to fix your abdominal separation. Maybe it is, maybe it's not, because it's just going to force the rectus heads together in flexion. The other side to that is we could say, well, when we do a transverse abdominis activation, or in this research, they called it a drawing in movement, it does this. So it pulls the rectus apart. So on a very, very simplistic level, we take a crunching movement and we take a drawing in movement.
Jen Dugard (37:12.892)
The crunching movement pushes the rectus together. The drawing in movement pulls the rectus apart. So with that logic, we could say, just do sit ups, just do crunches. However, one of the papers continued to talk about the fact that when we do a crunch, yes, it forces the rectus together, but it increases the distortion at the linear alve. So you've got the connective tissue in the middle, which is your linear alve. When you do a crunch, that is thickened, not tightened.
So what you could then hypothesize, and a lot of this is gray, is that if that is thickened, there's not as much tension at that point in that crunching movement. Yeah, so we've done a crunch up, we've forced the rectus together, but the transverse abdominis has not done its job to do this, and we've got this distortion and thickening at the lineal. When we do a drawing in movement, yes, it pulls the rectus apart, however,
it creates tension and less distortion at the linear alba. So I always had this question of, well, do we even care about fixing the abdominal separation? Like, do we even care about bringing it together? Are we more interested in creating tension at the linear alba, better transfer of load? Is that what we're more interested in? What if, you know, I do understand the merit of bringing, coming into a sit-up, bringing it together, however,
Maybe what we need is to do to assess number one, what happens to her when she does a pelvic floor TI activation? Does she have more tension at the linear alba? Is she then able to maintain that tension at the linear alba when she comes up into a sit up, which would mean that, you know, she's got less squidginess and still more tension at that point. So for women like that, maybe we could incorporate both.
Maybe we could get her to do a transverse abdominis activation, then a rectus, then a sit up. Maybe the sit up would start to pull it together, but maybe the transverse abdominis would still continue to create tension at that connective tissue. Because we've been taught for so long that transverse abdominis fixes abdominal separation. I feel like that is why so many trainers think that TA pushes the rectus together when it doesn't. But maybe we need to find the optimal resistance at that point to promote
Jen Dugard (39:35.366)
the rebuilding at the linear elbow, which may over time mean that the rectus head sit closer together. If you've got opinions on that, I would absolutely love to hear from you. But what I cannot align with is the message to moms of do not do transverse abdominis activations early postpartum because it pulls on the rectus. For the majority of women, the transverse abdominis is not the strongest of the abdominal, the muscles of the abdominal wall.
For the majority of women, I believe at that point, especially post pregnancy, where all these muscles have been stretched, activating that transverse abdominis is going to put just enough tension at that point to start to create progressive overload to be rebuilding it. That is my belief. We do not have the research on that, but I spend a lot of time thinking about these things. What I also cannot get on board with is,
Don't worry about transverse abdominis, just do sit ups. It's like, you've got to get that tension and then do the sit up. Anyway, I put this out to the universe. I put this out to you. I know that there's lots of nuance, controversy, controversy, know, camp A, camp B, sit ups, don't do sit ups, transverse, don't do transverse. I believe it's, it's not even, you know, it's definitely not a one size fits all. We also then could add in, you know, do we need to be looking at obliques, which we definitely do, but let's start with transverse.
then let's get, you know, look at what happens on that crunch. Then let's start to look at obliques because maybe, maybe she could benefit with some internal or external oblique release work in order to, to allow the promotion of the, the, the separation coming back together. If you've got thoughts on this again, please send me a DM and let me know. All right. What number are we up to? We're up to number 19.
Jen Dugard (41:33.052)
Hearing CEOs of big gym chains say that we need to be recognized by the health and medical industry, yet not wholeheartedly supporting and advocating for ongoing education and registration for trainers. I say this with a lot of love, but I think it needs to be called out. There's a number of people in our industry suggesting that we, as a fitness industry,
should be aligned with health and I am absolutely one of those people. I very much agree with that. You know the work that we do at Mumsafe is we partner hand in hand with pelvic health physiotherapists but in order to do that we've put strategy in place so we can't go to pelvic health physios and say I want to partner with you I'd like you to refer your clients to me
But I've done no pre and postnatal education. I'm not really interested in ongoing education. I'm not registered with OzActive, which is our governing body, but I'd still like you to trust me. It doesn't work in their world. You know, our medical industry, our allied health industry, ongoing CPDs is a must. Registration with their body is a must. If you are not registered and you are not doing your ongoing education, you are not considered a professional in those fields. Why is it different for us?
And why are some people or some big players in our industry suggesting that we get to align with health and medical without upholding best practice? It doesn't compute for me. So our Mumsafe trainers, have all completed at least one.
pre and postnatal certification that is worth over 13 CPDs has a full curriculum that we look over. We used to only align with safe return to exercise, but we acknowledge that there is a lot of really, really good courses out there for trainers, for Pilates instructors, for yoga instructors. So we have a number of courses that we recognize now. And then if someone brings a new one to us, we will do our research and look at what is in that curriculum. So they have to have done that in the last three years. Then
Jen Dugard (43:41.839)
They have to be registered with OzActive because we can't expect to be recognized by the health and medical industry if we are not aligning with our peak body, with our leading body in the fitness industry. So our Mumsafe trainers are, they hold their pre and postnatal certification. They are registered with a body. So we highly recommend OzActive. The majority of our trainers are, but we have some exercise physiologists that are registered with SR. Some people are in New Zealand, so it's Exercise New Zealand. Then,
they have a proven partnership with a pelvic health or an allied health professional. So in the line of work that we do, I truly stand by the fact that we cannot do the best possible job that we possibly can be without that two-way partnership with a pelvic health physio. So we get them to prove that, that they've got that relationship happening, but they probably couldn't get that relationship without the first one or two steps.
then they have to be committed to their ongoing education. We actually provide this inside MomSafe. So every single year that you are a MomSafe trainer, you complete the relevant modules for that 12 month period and you receive 10 CPDs. So, you know, we've made it so all of our trainers can remain registered really easily. And when I say registered, I should say accredited now because there is a difference in Ozactive with registered and accredited. Registered, can do that with our ongoing CPDs.
accredited means you have to have your CPDs and that is where I believe that all of our industry should be aiming for. So if you are an exercise professional and you want and you believe in the big picture and you want our medical industry, our health industry, our government to recognize you as a professional, you have to be part of the change that is standing up to say, I am going to act like a professional.
Not someone that's saying, well, CPDs are useless. Like, why do we bother with ongoing education? It's just not a thing. And if you are someone that may be listening to this and is at the top of your brand or your gym chain, and you are not encouraging or educating the real important reason why we need to make this happen as an industry, I think it's a really good time to reflect on best practice and where you see the future of our industry going.
Jen Dugard (45:59.781)
which segues me very nicely into number 20, which is people asking what does Ozactive even do? Now I understand that this was a thing probably, I'm going to say six years ago, I've been on the board of Ozactive for the past six years and when I first went on there, it was, there was still this misconception in the air that
you had to be a member of OzActive, which you don't, we want you to want to be a member of OzActive to elevate our industry. But there was a, I thought when it was a personal training that I had to be a member in order to be a PT and get my insurance. It's not the case. And I think that, you know, set the tone for some people for some distrust. I also remember not really knowing what OzActive did back in the fitness Australia days.
But what I did know is that they were our peak body. And if I wanted our industry to raise to a higher standard, that was enough for me to buy into that. Now I know that not everyone believes that that is enough. They want to know what value they're getting. You know, if you do the numbers in the return on investment, it's like, I don't know, $10 a month or something to be a member. So even if it is that buy into a bigger vision to me, that is worth it. However, if you are a member, go to your portal. You have
There's 15 courses sitting in my portal that I can do from things like there's a professional accreditation mentorship program, there's a putting client, a risk management module, there's effective and appropriate nutrition advice, there's education mentoring webinars, there's steps to success when you come to referrals, there's accident and injury risks and facilities and environments, there's NDIS information, there's
information on women's health and fitness for pregnancy and business growth. There's mental health information. There's a lot of free courses or free CPD education inside Ausactive. You've also got a professional toolkit in there. There's a jobs board. There is also your free HR support. I was actually talking to a good friend of mine the other day who was also a trainer who was saying,
Jen Dugard (48:11.546)
I've really dug into that HR support inside of that as active and it's been really valuable. Not only that, you cannot have not seen the advocacy work that we've been doing in Canberra, things like million moves that is, is, you know, promoting exercise to try to our general public. know there is a research paper that says that for 50, 50 % of the people that start to move, they will engage the services of a gym or personal trainer. So, you know, this advocacy work might look like it is once removed from you.
But if the role of Ozactive is to get more people moving more often, 50 % of those more people moving more often will come and seek out your services. So please get out from under a rock if this is you and go check out Ozactive and what they're doing. All right, what am I up to? What am I up to? Okay, number 22. This frustrates me about our trait, like not necessarily our mom's safe trainers, some of them, a lot of people who are coming,
into MumSafe or I'm having discussions with who think that they can't run a profitable business if they care deeply about mums. And I think that this comes from the fact that there is a story that they are telling themselves. That is that if mums are on maternity leave, they can't afford much. Therefore they need to make their products and services cheap so mums can afford them and flexible. So cheap and flexible. Two things that I do not agree with at all.
Number one, if you are servicing moms and you are doing it with best practice, so you've got all your certifications, your community, your ongoing education, your partner with a pelvic health physio, you're going over and above on a daily basis to service a specialized niche, even though it's a big specialized niche, but you are going over and above and you are making sure that you are equipped to work with moms. You are already by doing that, you know, going over and above.
lot of the industry. So a mum is seeking you out for your specialized skills therefore price point wise that puts you above other people in the industry. The other one is it's got to be flexible because babies get sick and they don't want to come. The other thing you need to realize is that the majority of mums as soon as they start to put that child in any kind of activity they are used to paying for terms up front and they will do it for themselves.
Jen Dugard (50:31.632)
but your story that you're telling yourself about the fact that, you know, if you charge them too much or you don't, or you set boundaries, they won't come is actually the complete opposite. You need to charge appropriately so that they see the value and they come to your services and they commit to them. And you need to make sure that you have terms of service, not drop in sessions, because you cannot as a mom.
who is running a business and every time you choose to run your business, you're choosing not to do something with your kids or your family or something else. You cannot put yourself in a position where you're undercharging and people aren't turning up or they can just turn up when they feel like it. So it is absolutely okay and possible to run a fitness business that has the best interests in looking after moms at its heart and soul and charge appropriately and have the correct boundaries and terms and conditions around your business.
If you need help with this please let me know. Alright number 22
Being asked to tone down information about working, about moms. I have a mom safe trainer who delivers some really great education for a running community. And she was recently asked to tone down the information that was specific to women.
What does that even mean? Tone down the information that is specific to women. Like the men are feeling neglected because when we tone down the information, aren't the women just being neglected? And we're going back to what we've always done in figuring that women will just figure it out for themselves.
Jen Dugard (52:19.855)
Having information that is specific to women makes it an inclusive environment. Ignoring the fact that probably more than 50 % of the people taking part in your event are women is negligent in my opinion. What do you think?
Jen Dugard (52:41.713)
Number 23, people saying it's not working without doing the work. I was mulling this one over the other day and I've probably been guilty of it myself from time to time. I think we all probably have, but when you listen to someone sharing about something not working and then when you dig a little bit deeper, they haven't shown up, they haven't done the work and they, it's their responsibility that something didn't work.
One of my favorite, I had a mom safe trainer once I'm potentially sharing too much, decide to leave mom safe. Absolutely. Okay. People come and go, I feel sad when everyone leaves, but that is okay. She had joined the membership because she loved the, or one of the reasons she joined it is because she got really good value from, the podcast. So, you know, if you're sitting here listening, you've probably listened to other episodes. I do talk a lot about business on this podcast.
And she had one of the reasons, not the only reason, but one of the reasons that she joined is because she'd heard all of these episodes on the, on the mom safe pro. What was the mom safe movement podcast came inside mom safe, but this was a while ago. So what I did, and this was detriment to myself, and we've completely wiped this off as a, way that you can be part of mom safe is, you know, we, we split our service in half for a short time. did it for about a 12 month period, trialed it, didn't work.
And we offered education only and then the full package, is every single thing that you need to build a sold out fitness business for moms, plus all the ongoing education, plus the support, plus the PR, plus all of that stuff. Anyway, when she signed up to MomSafe, she elected for the education only, which of course includes none of the business support. A lot of people do this, or they did this, and this is one of the reasons why we got rid of it. A lot of people would do this at the start of their journey.
when I could see very clearly in front of me that they needed business support, but because they were worried about the investment, which is not a lot to be honest, it's less than one PT client a week to be part of MomSafe and have all of the information and education and support that you could possibly need. They choose their education only and I'm sitting there every time. It's like, get that it's cheaper and I know that you need the business support. So this one trainer stayed with us for 12 month period and then left. We have an off boarding.
Jen Dugard (55:01.007)
Questionnaire which is you really valuable to us and one of the things that she shared with us is I got more value from your podcast No shit because in the podcast you were listening to the business stuff and when you decided to join mom safe You didn't opt into any of the business stuff because you either didn't want to speak see that spend the money or for whatever other reason You decided to go on the lower price point so
you know, that that's not necessarily well, I mean, it is a example of not doing the work. It's an example of not being willing to invest in yourself in order to do the work. And I just want to encourage just, I want to encourage every single one of you who has a passion burning in your soul to do the work in this space with moms, to get the support you need, whether it's from me or somebody else, and then do the thing that you've signed up.
because I know that it works. I've gotten to the point in my career as an exercise professional, as an educator, as a coach, that I know that the work that I do helps other people to grow a successful fitness business that works with mums if they do the work. I can't do it for you. I can show up with you, and I will show up every time that you choose to show up, but I cannot reach into your world and pull you out and sit you down and make you do the work.
But if you know that you've got a passion for doing this, please take the opportunity and learn from those people that have done it before you. know that it is tricky and it's challenging to, you know, get educated, manage your family, build a business, especially if you've not built a business before, especially if you don't really know what to do. But when you have that circle of support around you,
and you lead in you have to do the two things hand in hand because it's not not working you're not doing the work um we will welcome you with open arms all right we're nearly there we are on number 24 you know what pissed me off this year was the women's health budget 700 million dollars
Jen Dugard (57:15.141)
put forward for women's health and not one cent went directly into pregnancy support, preparation for birth or postpartum care. There was money that went into...
to maternity upgrades. So you could put that in that space, but not from a physical emotional perspective of helping women prepare for a better birth and helping women to recover from birth from a physical and emotional perspective postpartum. just don't know, just, I don't know how we allocate those funds and we overlook this massive, massive
cohort of people. Which leads me to Segway. This is a second part of number 24 of what has pissed me off this year. And I say this with love, but the fucking menopause conversation. Oh my god, she said the menopause conversation. Please don't take this wrong. I am not.
disputing the fact that the menopause conversation, the perimenopause conversation is so incredibly important. I am with every single one of you that is celebrating the fact that this has been a topic of...
conversation rallying importance throughout 2026. I will never begrudge that because the elevation of any conversation in women's health is incredibly important. However, I feel pissed off that we have
Jen Dugard (58:52.06)
skipped this whole period of her life and we are now so in the 700 million dollar budget there is education for gps around perimenopause and menopause there are perimenopause menopause clinics to help women when they get to this point of life i also want to recognize at this point that i know that 100 percent of women will go through perimenopause and menopause not 100 percent of women will go through motherhood however statistics tell us it's a 2013 statistic from the abs tells us that
77 % of women over the age of 15 in Australia will become a mother. So 77 % of that 100 % of women that are going to go through menopause are going to have been a mother throughout their journey as a woman.
Now the menopause conversation, especially the space that I am, I'm in, we're telling women to lift heavy and we're telling them to jump train and to do high intensity, know, short bursts of high intensity training, really good for bone health, really good for muscle health. However, this goes back to looking at her whole body.
If we are faced with a woman that throughout her pregnancy and postpartum has not been looked after properly, has not been given any guidance around how to birth better, to help to potentially prevent birth trauma, and then...
We're not giving her any return to exercise guidance afterwards. We've not promoted her seeing a pelvic health physiotherapist. And then 30 years later, 20 years later, 10 years later for some women, we're then saying, we've not set you up with this really good foundation, but now it's imperative that you jump training, you strength train, and you don't only strength train, but you lift really heavy. In fact, that you lift as heavy as you possibly can for between three to five reps.
Jen Dugard (01:00:46.466)
Yet her pelvic floor cannot cope with that level of exercise because of the things that were not looked after in the pregnancy, birth and postpartum period. I love the diary of a CEO podcast and I loved the two episodes on women's health.
But how the fuck could we go from a conversation on freezing eggs to the very next thing that was brought up in that conversation was perimenopause.
It makes absolutely no sense to me that there was that there was a beautiful cohort of amazing women. And again, the conversation that they had and the elevation of the women's health conversation was very, very important. And it's celebrated. I celebrate it all the time. And then I get really pissed off that we went from Perry from egg freezing to perimenopause. Where was the conversation around getting prepared for birth? Where was the conversation around hypertonic pelvic floor around recurrent
UTIs in young women that could be related to hypertonic pelvic floor that could if we sent them to a pelvic health physio set them up for number one getting rid of their recurring UTIs but number two set them up for better birth because they now understand their pelvic floor maybe it's easier to birth a baby with a pelvic floor that can relax who knows.
And then how do we miss the conversation about recovery postpartum and then, you know, really setting our bodies up for, to be in the best possible position for our perimenopause and menopause journey. Again, I love the fact that $700 million has gone into women's health this year. I love the fact that millions of people listen to those two conversations on the diary of a CEO, but I'm still pissed off about it.
Jen Dugard (01:02:38.102)
And the final one, number 25, if you know me, you'll already know this about me, is I get really pissed off when I can hear people chewing. In fact, it's not just chewing. Don't make mouth noises near me. Don't, I don't know, sniff. In fact, don't breathe. It's probably the safest option. And on that note,
I hope you've enjoyed listening to my 25 things that have pissed me off in 2025. I would love for you to send me a DM and tell me about your favorite one and then tell me something that's pissed you off in 2025. And if you think, if you know someone who you think could have both a laugh and also get a little bit pissed off alongside some of the things that I've been pissed off about, please share this episode on your social media, send it to someone in a text message, do whatever you need to do to kind of
to spread the word from both a serious and a slightly amusing perspective on the things that have pissed me off in 2025.
We will have a couple of more episodes this year. So I'm very excited to bring those to you. And if you are somebody who has ever considered that mom safe could be the right pathway for you, we are running an information session. The final one is on the 19th of December for this year, which is not this Friday today. Is this coming? You'll be listening to this on Monday. It is on Friday. You can go to www.mom.safe.com
genderguard forward slash mum safe info or send me a link and I will send me a DM or even check the show notes I'll make sure there's a link in there for you guys today thank you for being with me this was a longer episode than I thought it was going to be but I had so much fun I hope you enjoyed some of it too and I absolutely would love to hear from you have a really great day
