The Female Athlete - Level 1 &
Diastasis Done Differently

This is a 20+ hour course designed for health and fitness professionals who work with females who have pelvic health concerns such as stress urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse or lumbopelvic pain.

It has been designed for you (health and fitness professionals) to enhance your evaluative skills in screening, differential diagnosis, assessment, and management of people who want to achieve their goals at moderate-to-high intensity with pelvic health as a consideration. 

Pelvic floor anatomy and intra-abdominal pressure research is reviewed, and case studies for common pelvic floor complaints are outlined for you to consider.

The course content is a mix of lecture and experiential movements and assessment labs reviewing movement assessment, squats, lunges, deadlifts, skipping, jumping and external pelvic floor assessment. 

Course participants will learn how to empower clients to move clients beyond low-intensity exercises with muscle-specific cuing through to high intensity exercises found in most fitness activities, manual occupations, and sport activities.

This course is pre-approved for 21.5 CEUs in many states, check the course page for the full updated list of pre-approvals.

1. To provide a chance for health and fitness professionals to think about their thinking, models, biases, and beliefs and then to challenge them!
2. To provide a framework from which you can approach the acquisition of knowledge, assessment, and management of Female Athletes.
3. To provide a basic understanding of high-intensity training (using CrossFit as a base model but including Bootcamp, HIIT, Tabata, etc) for female athletes/participants.
4. To provide participants with the tools to be able to communicate, assess and treat high-intensity training athletes more specifically.
5. To understand ante-natal and postnatal exercise considerations and apply them to high-intensity exercise.
6. To provide an overview of common high intensity, exercise-related musculoskeletal injuries of the lumbopelvic-hip complex and options on how to manage them using exercise.
7. To provide an understanding of Pelvic Floor Dysfunction in exercise and appropriate modifications for impact and relatively heavy lifting exercises.
8. To provide a way of utilizing “core stability” principles with a test-retest model using performance as a measure of effectiveness.
9. To provide an overview of the common body weight and loaded movements involving the lumbopelvic-hip complex, sound technique guidelines, and appropriate modifications.
10. To provide a realistic and practical balance between the biological and the psychosocial aspects in managing the high-intensity training athlete, their Coaches and their expectations.
11. To provide an understanding of the concepts of #tensiontotask, #spreadtheload, #variabilityiskey, and #BulletproofPFRoutine.

“I HIGHLY recommend taking The Female Athlete Course @physiodetective.  This course has completely changed how I coach and work with female athletes for the better.  If you are on the fence, go for it!!! @taranis.mom.strong

“The Female Athlete with @physiodetective is one of my favorite courses I have taken.  If you live near one of these places, it is definitely worth attending” @jstrakerfitness

“Antony’s courses truly empower us coaches to take a goal orientated approach to support the female athlete in front of us, so that they may return to fitness and strength, despite pelvic health concerns (incontinence, prolapse, pain).” See this reel on Instagram by Louise Cornish Fitness

“The Female Athlete Course came at a great time for me. I was ruminating on all the ways that standard physio practice and the evidence were not lining up, and the course helped me to put together a more cohesive way to practice.  One that is supported by the evidence, encompasses principles of women’s health, strength and conditioning, and pain Science, and at its core is driven by the goal of helping women to do all that they want.” Ruth, Director of Exhale Physiotherapy

Have you noticed just how HOT diastasis is right now?! Everyone has a program or course or book to sell about it… including me! The problem is that people managing Diastasis Rectus Abdominis (DRA) are confused because there are so many mixed messages floating around out there.

I have found that taking a step back and focusing on the key principles of assessment and management allows us to see the “problem” of DRA differently. By challenging the assumptions that help form our Beliefs, Attitudes, Meaning, and Story (BAMS), we are able to see how these BAMS affect our behaviour – the language we use, the choices we make, and the advice we give. By reframing what having DRA means, we have a chance of changing the experience for millions of women.

Traditional approaches to Diastasis Rectus Abdominis often focus on memorising anatomy, isolating specific muscles, changing breathing patterns, and performing low-level exercises. While this may work for many, others struggle with it — and the approach is often unnecessarily slow in helping people return to their goal activities.

In this course, a practical, interactive approach to Diastasis Rectus Abdominis is taken. The content is clinically relevant, practical, and based on the most recent research. There will be Real-Time Ultrasound used to help illustrate key points, along with a variety of exercises and activities to help integrate Thinking and Knowledge with Assessment and Management Principles in real people.

Are you ready to approach DRA differently? Are you ready to leave the fear and complexity behind? If so, then this is the course for you!

1. Evaluate Diastasis Rectus Abdominis (DRA) using a biopsychosocial framework
2. Construct a person-centered approach to the assessment and management of a person with DRA
3. Develop a systematic process to reframe what Diastasis Rectus Abdominis means from a theoretical and clinical perspective
4. Create an individualised exercise program for a person with Diastasis or program for a series of group classes

"Highly recommend this course! Learned so much and gained confidence in progressing my patients!" — @agpelvopt

"Diastasis Done Differently is truly different. I absolutely love the way the course is laid out. Antony includes very detailed and labeled ultrasound videos throughout the course so you can really see and understand what is happening with all the abdominal tissues during movement and exercise.

You learn up-to-date, evidence-based information on diastasis. The course includes a full consult, and you are given the opportunity to apply your knowledge and your thinking through reflection questions, case studies, and practical sessions.

The course empowered me as a therapist, but also teaches me how to empower clients through guidance, exercise, and knowledge.

The course has given me the confidence to guide my clients through their diastasis journey." — Ashley Burr, Certified Athletic Therapist

"If you want to learn more about helping people with diastasis, @physiodetective is the best person to learn from (IMO)" — Robyn Rayner, Pregnancy & Postpartum Athleticism Coach