How mishfit® personal training grew into an award-winning franchise

When I was working as a fitness professional I saw both one on one clients and also ran a group training for  predominately pregnant and postnatal women. The group option was perfect for those women who needed to bring their kids with them. The one on one training in my private studio, was perfect for those women who had more complex issues or who did not like / fit into the mums and bubs option. All mishfit® clients were encouraged to see a pelvic health physio – who was able to better guide me to exactly how their pelvic floor was coping.

Having a background in teaching, it seemed to me only natural to create a curriculum where all women learned the skills on how to navigate exercise safely. I then franchised this unique business model of having an inbuilt education and partnerships with pelvic health physiotherapists.

I won GOLD in the Fitness Australia (now called AUSactive) awards.

Working this way with literally hundreds of women, was both a crash course on all the intricacies of women’s health… and taught me how to concisely teach the skills that they needed to know.

These are precisely the skills that are currently omitted from standard fitness professional education.

In theory this business approach is good. In reality, it left too many holes for women (who desperately needed my information) to fall through.

These holes were:

• Women entered into the program at different starting points (in the group program) or had different levels of body awareness, or learned at different speeds. This meant that it was difficult to make sure that they all got the essential information that they needed to be able to modify any exercise for their age/stage and of course, their individual needs.
• I was forever repeating myself with the skills that they needed… and I know that over time, I took shortcuts with delivering that information.
• Women were often overwhelmed with all the information and could only digest and incorporate a portion of what I was sharing with them.

How do you make an online course?!?!?

About this time, I had the idea that I would create an online course, with everything that I knew. That I could direct women to do so that their learning would be enhanced. They could learn at their own pace and when they were not simultaneously toddler wrangling. They could replay the steps that needed to fully comprehend and embed this learning deep into their bones.

And of course, twe could discuss the parts that they wanted to focus on, futher individualising this learning.

I also imagined that I could run mini boot camps or mini-events whereas as a group we focused just on one topic at a time. I imagined the conversation that would dominate as we worked out with women talking with each other about what they had learned. From a teachers’ perspective… this is the pinnacle of learning – when it is not the teacher telling the student, but the students sharing information with each other.

I spent hours crafting the flow of the course on a project planning tool called ASANA and even recruited one of my pregnant clients – Amy. Click here to listen to a short video from Amy about why she got involved… and see me in my uniform!!). We did some filming… and it was pretty basic, with even had my orange pussycat, Ollie making an appearance.

But the thing was, was that although I was a teacher and understood how people learn effectively and I had totally nailed teaching the content from repeating it day in and day out over years – I had no idea how to create an online course.

Yes, there were platforms (called Learning Management Systems) around, and I researched them all. I even enrolled in an online course to make online courses… but despite spending thousands of dollars on this, I still felt overwhelmed on how to make it happen.

Click HERE to read on how you can have an online course in your business.

Fast Forward Five Years….

Fast forward five years and I have now created over a dozen online courses with a number of organizations – Fitness Education Online, Central Queensland University, EAT Fitness (NZ) and of course COTA. I now have technical support from professionals to ensure my videos and notes look professional and edited.

And then came the pandemic. My husband and I had a very serious conversation about how we going to use our time locked in. We knew that drifting from one day to the next, where we only had our jobs to punctuate our existence was not going to be good for our mental health. Mark committed to writing his business book that he had been talking about for years, and I committed to creating my online course for women – EVEolution™.

We both figured that we were saving money from not going to restaurants, theatres, traveling… all the things that we used to take our money and time – so to support us in our endeavors and ensure that they would actually happen – we both invested financially in the resources that we needed to make our projects happen.

EVEolution™ was born.

EVEolution™ is an online course for all women to navigate exercise. No matter what age or stage of life they are in.

EVEolution™ is made up of 6 modules:

Strong Foundations – all the basics… from what is your true core, to posture, diaphragmatic breathing to pelvic floor activation in isolation.

All about your bits! – this is all the stuff I am well known for! The leaking, the prolapse… all manner of pelvic floor dysfunction. As well as a cheat sheet to take to a pelvic health physiotherapist.

Matching with Movement – this is how you can take your pelvic floor contraction and add it to whatever level of exercise you love doing. These are all the lessons that I perfected, taught thousands of women, and franchised my mishfit business on.

Period! Periods! Periods! – If you are not matching your exercise with your menstrual cycle, then you are losing out my friend. But it does not stop there… what if you learned the secrets to optimizing your creativity and your relationships with your menstrual cycle?

Pregnancy + Postnatal – this uses the original footage I filmed all those years ago with my client Amy (also a GP) and shows how to assess for DRAM and what is the best exercise per trimester. I also have a couple of legends involved with this module – Amy Dawes from ABTA who talks about birth trauma. And Lauren Hewes from Tiny Ladder – talking about miscarriage and stillbirth. These are topics that are regularly swept under the rug… but information that is needed. Even if it has not affected you – you will be better equipped to help someone with whom this issue has touched.

Marvellous Menopause –this module shows how to navigate exercise with peri-menopause and menopause, and has a fantastic interview with Dr. Fatima Khan – an HRT specialist. This is called Marvellous Menopause because every care has been taken to show the opportunities that ageing gives us – in all facets of our life.

Each module also has a We are Change Makers Lesson – these are practical strategies on how to implement learning into everyday life. Learning is really not useful unless it is embedded into our doing!

EVEolution™ – my proudest moment

Out of all the courses I have created (and there have been a few) EVEolution™ is my proudest moment. I have always had an eye for detail and no expense has been spared to make this not only beautiful but engaging. Experience has taught me that making sure your course is beautifully and professionally presented and engaging videos – the percentage of people completing the course rises exponentially!

Interested in learning about how you can incorporate EVEolution™ into your business?

If you’re a fitness professional or any other service provider for women and want to become an EVEolution™ partner CLICK HERE.

If you’re interested in learning more about EVEolution™ CLICK HERE.

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