Welcome to Manifestation, Motivation and Passion. If you're looking to transform your life,
this is the podcast for you. It's all about improving yourself on the inside to see transformation
on the outside. I look at how to find and improve motivation and manifest lasting changes.
Thank you so much for joining me today. Today on Women Empowering Women, we're talking
physical health and wellbeing with Emma from Ulala Mummy. Emma completed a Bachelor of
Science and Exercise in 2001 and started her career as an exercise physiologist. Thanks
for joining me today, Emma. Perhaps you can start by telling us what drew you to a career
in fitness. Great. Thanks for having me, Quinn. I have
a real strong passion for health and fitness and even as a younger child I've always exercised.
So I guess it was just something that I was interested in and thought I could see myself
helping other people enjoy the same passion that I had. When I graduated, I wasn't quite
sure. I moved into corporate health first, so I worked a lot with corporates and delivered
a healthy lifestyle program with another fitness company. After this, I decided that it was
time to specialise a little bit more in the aged care and help those that maybe haven't
got the opportunity or are still needing to stay active and as independent as possible.
So that's where I kind of moved into. Then I moved into the medical field and worked
mainly with people that were suffering from chronic illness and medical conditions that
required that one-on-one help and direction with their exercise so they could get the
attention that they needed before I fell pregnant. So that's where I kind of stopped with that
area and then Ulala Mummy came about. That sounds like quite an achievement.
And then Ulala Mummy started. And Ulala Mummy, you welcome children as well.
That's right. So it came about because having children of my own, they didn't really want
to go into creation and I also wanted to get back and help other mums find a balance in
their life after having children. So I thought it would be a great opportunity to deliver
classes where mums could come along and bring their babies and children in a safe environment
where they were exercising by their side. So if they needed to pay some attention to
their children while they're exercising or I could help out in some way, I thought it
would be a great opportunity to do so. And it sounds like a great way to get children
active as well. Do you incorporate any children's activities?
It's a win-win really. The little kids actually become my best friends as well. And we have
picnics set up. They get a free play date. They make new friends. They run around. They
cheer their mum on. We're always saying, run mum, run. And they participate as much as
they can. There's always a ball there for them to play with. Babies get tummy time and
the mums can relax and they actually enjoy the process of talking with other mums and
sharing their experience with motherhood as well as exercising.
And what a positive way to demonstrate to your children that exercise is a good thing
and it's beneficial. 100%. Yeah. We see the kids squatting and doing burpees all the
time. I wish I had have kept those up. It would have been a lot easier now. Yeah, that's
it. So for those that are just beginning, proactive approach that we can take to get
into the activities and what's the best timeframe to go for?
Right. So depending on whether it's following an injury or starting exercise for the first
time, because there's many people that have never had an interest in exercise and for
one reason or another, they decide that it's probably time to get into that. Or those that
have had babies and they're coming back first child or second child perhaps. Obviously it
is important that you have your medical doctor checkup, just a general checkup. If you've
had a baby, it's most important that you've had your six week check with your obstetrician
and given the all clear. It also depends whether you've had a natural birth or a cesarean as
well. So that can sometimes take a little bit longer. The most important thing is that
you start slowly. If you try and rush something, you've got these major fitness goals, it's
only going to set you back a little bit longer if you push yourself too fast too soon. So
I always encourage the mothers like I say, or even the dads, we have dads that come along
as well to the fitness classes. Just to get their checkup first, if they're starting for
the first time, I like to have a good chat with them before we get going. Everyone completes
our health lifestyle questionnaire and a medical assessment from myself prior to their first
training session. Then we can build up from there. That's where we normally start just
through the paperwork process and the chat over the phone so I get to know the individual
a little bit more.
You briefly mentioned injury in there. So if someone is recovering from injury, is going
in the pool one of the best situations?
Yes, so depending on what the injury is. I deal a lot with people that have maybe had
sporting injuries, a lot of the moms are starting back netball for the first time and rolling
ankle. I deal a lot with rolled ankles, calf strain, tight shoulder muscles or shoulder
injuries and things like that. So I always say that it's actually important to find balance
and variety with your exercise program. It's important to mix up your usual routine, maybe
something different for the body. So this might mean that if you're a runner and you
spend a day swimming instead of your usual run back to back run or trying a variety of
activities will give the muscle group some time to recover as well. Our risk of injury
is lower when we do a variety of activities. So definitely to take the weight off the body.
The swimming is a great idea. However, if you're suffering from a shoulder injury, then
it's obviously important that you increase some walking or some stationary bike riding.
So depending on the injury will depend on the type of exercise program that you should
be engaging in. So if you've got a shoulder injury, maybe focus on some leg exercises
so you're still getting some exercise that you're just not putting pressure on the one
that's recovering. Correct. But there will also be a rehab program that's involved with
a shoulder injury. So there would be a light resistance band and they would be working
on resistance exercises, increasing the resistance load that they would be taking into that muscle
group. Yeah, perfect. And you mentioned pregnancy before. So we know it's okay for women to
continue doing exercise, but are there any exercises that or activities that pregnant
women shouldn't be doing? Yeah, a good question. What happens is a lot of people decide as
soon as they get pregnant, wow, I'm going to start an exercise program for the first
time, which is not ideal. It is important to move. It's just not important to go all
out gung-ho when you're just starting for the first time. If you are somebody that has
always exercised and you've always been a runner or a gym goer, it's okay to keep going
with those exercises. Your body will tell you when enough is enough. You will also find
that the impact, everybody's body changes at different rates and different times. You'll
find that the pelvic floor muscles, everything starts to change. Your ligaments and tendons
start to loosen with all the different hormones coming into the body. So therefore you're
more prone to injury. It's really important that you work through and slowly decrease
the amount of impact that you're doing on the body. The running may have to stop and
you might be on a stationary bike or a cross trainer or stepper or something like that
rather than that high impact running and the contact sports will also stop. It's important
that people maintain their pelvic floor exercises and abdominal exercise will also change. However,
that doesn't mean you have to give up doing core exercises. It's just not your typical
lying flat on your back because of the oxygen supply for the baby and crunching. That will
not help during pregnancy.
As far as pelvic floor exercises, do you do a bit of Pilates in there as well?
We do a lot of resistance work. I have a lot of women that come through with me. They'll
fall pregnant, they'll tell me, they'll give me their little wink, wink, let me know that
they're pregnant so they don't want to tell the whole class which is fine. I'll give them
alternative exercises. Those that have just told me they're pregnant, they may only be
early stages like four weeks pregnant that they tell me and they won't really want anyone
to really know until about 12 weeks. We do a lot of Superman planks. I just basically
cut them out from doing their abdominal work and I'll give them standing exercises. I'll
always emphasize squeezing their pelvic floor muscles, whole three counts. We do a little
bit of ball work as well and we do some elastic work. It's really important that they maintain
their squats and their lunges and their upper body strength and everything like that because
that will help with labor and birth and the recovery rate as well. It's important to keep
them going as long as they can and it might be that they stop running at a certain point
because they're uncomfortable or their pelvis hurts or they're getting lower back pain.
We just listen to each individual basically and their needs as they go.
You mentioned earlier on in the conversation that you also used to work with the elderly.
For anyone that's listening, are there any exercises that they can be doing at home just
as an active approach to keeping their mother and daughter up?
I just absolutely love working with the elderly and I actually run two fitness classes a week
on a Tuesday and I work at 10 o'clock for 50 plus. I have about 18 to 20 members in
a session and work on range of movement. We work on balance, flexibility, independence
and we use dumbbells. We use medicine balls. I think we cooperate as much as we possibly
can to keep them as independent as possible and avoid falls which is our main basis. Once
we have a fall sometimes it's facilitated and we end up in aged care as a result. We
keep everybody as strong as we can and independent as possible.
That's a great way there. Great. With winter coming up, whereabouts do you do your…
We try and stay out until the winter. The thing is I think in the 10 years I've been
operating probably on a couple of times due to severe weather. I have accident falls so
I've been up in Melbourne. I've got a lot of experiences there. He's always allowed
me to do that. I also use the Seventh Day Advent Church Hall in Pelmyra so I have another
hall there. If possible we try and use undercover areas. I often run sessions from my own home
in Attedale where I've got a small private gym. I also like to go under sporting clubs,
verandas basically, so we still get the fresh air and we still get that feeling of being
in the outdoors and in that community environment where we encourage the community to participate
as much as possible. Fantastic. If anyone wants to contact you,
what's the best way to go about it? Most people like to contact me through Instagram
or Facebook or the website so I have contact details on there. It's just www.ulalaamummy.com.au
all one word. You can shoot me an email at emma at ulalaamummy.com.au and I'll get
back to you as soon as possible. I'm Quinn Carnegie and I hope you enjoyed this
week's episode of Manifestation, Motivation and Passion. I'm so thrilled you chose to
spend time listening and would be even more grateful if you left a positive review. And
if you found value, no doubt your family and friends will too. I'd love it if you share
it with them. Thanks again!