Skip to main content

Top Tips for Treating Female Athletes

Have you ever felt that you could be doing better for your female clients? As a health or fitness professional, you have a lot of the pelvic health knowledge you need to help your clients but they just don’t seem to be responding or achieving their dream goals. Sure, their symptoms have improved a bit but they still can’t run, jump, lift heavy weights or take part in what they want to do. They might be ante-natal, post-natal or never been pregnant - they may have incontinence, pelvic-organ prolapse, and/or diastasis. You might have been taught that these high impact, high load exercises and activities are “bad” things to do, and certainly not everyone can go back to doing these things…

...but what if we were taught things that aren’t quite true, that the evidence doesn’t seem to support?

I have found that it took a major rethink of my whole approach to Physiotherapy to help my clients achieve their dream goals, within minutes, not weeks. I started challenging what I believed and was taught, examined the evidence and listened to my clients. In short, I had to change the model I was working with because too many clients weren’t getting truly better.

Research actually tells us this is true - systematic reviews have shown that the things we thought were useful aren’t actually doing what we thought - they don’t work for the reasons we thought! We know that “modalities” - all of them for back pain - don[‘t really work better than anything else, but all are better than doing nothing. Some might be better in combinations but there’s not enough evidence for that yet.

Not only that, but the evidence on how much pressure is exerted on the pelvic floor (Intraabdominal Pressue or IAP) is not what we were traditionally led to believe. Things like crunches are less pressure on average on the pelvic floor than simply standing out of a chair!

Since 40% of women will have pelvic organ prolapse, around 50% of women who exercise suffer from incontinence, and 1 in 7 to 1 in 3 women will suffer from pelvic pain during their lifetime, don’t you think they deserve to have a fighting chance at doing the things they truly want to do?

Let me tell you about Vicki, an attendee of The Female Athlete Course, just like this one you are going to sign up for. Vicki is a fitness professional who developed pelvic organ prolapse and suffered from the symptoms quite terribly. She had been doing everything she could to try educate herself and help herself and her clients. She was unable to even lift up 16kg (35lbs) without feeling the symptoms. She felt quite hopeless and that her exercise, an outlet for her, was unable to be done again like she used to, like she needed to.

During the consult, Vicki disclosed many things which were quite upsetting for her. Listening to her story in full was so important for her - she needed to be heard. By demonstrating to her that she could lift 16kg (35lbs) without symptoms in less than a minute gave her hope and encouragement. By showing her throughout the course that she can do things she didn’t think was possible, she was able to finish the weekend with a deadlift of 70kg (155lbs) without any symptoms at all.

It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. It happens all the time and I get emails and messages from previous attendees all the time, telling me how they have been using what they learned on the course and how it has been changing lives.

You are already a good therapist or fitness professional. You already change people’s lives. I genuinely want to acknowledge that. But you want to be better. You want to help more people. You want to learn more about how to do the things I did with Vicki.

That’s what this webinar is about.

Register Here to Attend this Webinar.

Here's a short clip of Antony Lo talking about the key messages when treating female athletes:

Antony Lo is on a mission to change the world for women - to be able to truly empower them to do the most they can, to achieve their dreams, to live life the way they want to, without fear or hesitation. To do that, he needs help - he needs health and fitness professionals to join with him to make this a reality.

Will you join him on this mission to change the world? I would love to have you on the team!

As a health or fitness professional, you have a lot of the pelvic health knowledge you need to help your clients but they just don’t seem to be responding or achieving their dream goals. Sure, their symptoms have improved a bit but they still can’t run, jump, lift heavy weights or take part in what they want to do. They might be ante-natal, post-natal or never been pregnant - they may have incontinence, pelvic-organ prolapse, and/or diastasis.

You might have been taught that these high impact, high load exercises and activities are “bad” things to do, and certainly not everyone can go back to doing these things…

...but what if we were taught things that aren’t quite true, that the evidence doesn’t seem to support?

You might not actually change the things you do, but you might change the reasons why you do them!

You are already a good therapist or fitness professional. You already change people’s lives. We genuinely want to acknowledge that. But you want to be better. You want to help more people. You want to learn more about how to do the things.

Register Here to Attend this Webinar.

The Details:

  • When: Tuesday August 20th at 8 p.m. EST
  • Where: Online - join from anywhere! Once you register you will receive instructions on how to join
  • Who: In this one hour complimentary webinar with Antony Lo will challenge your beliefs, help you simplify the model you use and help you apply a model of care with your clients.
  • What: Those who join the webinar will be able to ask Antony Lo questions directly.

Register Here to Attend this Webinar.

 

Antony Lo (he/his)
B.App.Sc.(Physio)(USyd)., Master in Manual Therapy (UWA)

Antony Lo is a physiotherapist from Australia and runs The Physio Detective service. He earned his degree from the University of Sydney and has been in practice since 1997.

He completed his post-graduate masters in Manual Therapy (Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy) from the University of Western Australia and commenced his Specialisation training in Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy.

He has been involved with treating CrossFit athletes since 2011 and has helped some of the world’s best CrossFitters at the highest levels through to beginners of all ages. He loves and participates in CrossFit and is a strong advocate for the sport. Through participation and through his work as a Physiotherapist at all levels of CrossFit, he has developed a model of treatment that utilises the best from Sports Science, Musculoskeletal/Sports Physiotherapy, Pain Science, and Women’s Health research to provide a realistic holistic model of care balancing the biopsychosocial model of healthcare.

He is NOT an employee of CrossFit, he does not represent or work for them in any way and his views and opinions are entirely his own. He holds a CrossFit level 1 – Trainer Certificate and is a CrossFit Football Coach/Consultant (now CrossFit Sports Specific Application). Antony has a wife and 3 beautiful children in the best city in the world – Sydney, Australia!

Subscribe to Our Blog

* indicates required
What kind of emails are you interested in?
© 2024 Embodia