About Us

 

Margaret is a registered and practicing Physical Therapist with a degree in applied health science, She is the owner of physical therapy clinic “BODY FOR LIFE” and has over 15 years running her own busy clinic, treating a range of patients with a range of different musculoskeletal conditions .

 

Margaret has a background in exercise and fitness and is also a qualified fitness instructor strength and conditioning coach and STOTT pilates instructor .

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Pregnant woman exercising

Her training also includes pre and post natal pilates and she is also an Advanced Pregnancy Practitioner and Advanced Postnatal Wellness Practitioner .

 

Margaret has been teaching pilates with a key interest in womens health for a number of years and she developed the pre and postpartum programs when she herself was expecting her second baby.

She developed the programs herself utilising her knowledge and training but also her own experience of pregnancy and postpartum recovery.

Margaret first became interested in women’s health from a physical therapist perspective after the birth of her first son, she found that although she herself was very knowledgeable in anatomy and physiology with a degree in health science, while also being very much a fitness enthusiastic  , having completed marathons , worked as a lifeguard in her youth and also an avid gym goer. Margaret presumed she would be well equipped mentally and physically for the journey of pregnancy and beyond .

Pregnant woman exercising

But she was soon surprised at how little she actually did know specifically and how little help and correct information there seemed to be out there for women, during pregnancy and beyond.  She found that unless you were referred to a women’s health physio you may be left in the dark trying to find your own way on how to recover and rebuild your body postpartum , she also found that being pregnant and wanting to be active was also a “isolating” time as it seemed to be a very grey area that people were unsure of what was the best practice.

Another fact that really bothered Margaret was how she started to see how vulnerable pregnant women and postpartum women could be, the emotional roller coaster of hormones, tiredness, mixed with body image concerns etc , left women and easy target for the fitness and diet industry to really cash in on . More frustrating was how actually some of these programs just didn’t do the main things she felt was needed for pregnancy and beyond, so that’s how she took more of an interest in women’s health , upskilling and attending courses workshops and retraining in the area of pre and postnatal .

Pregnant woman exercising with weights

Starting with local classes in her area , full of enthusiasm and excitement Margaret soon realised another challenge for women….. TIME!!!

Pregnant woman doing yoga

Her classes were loved but the attendance was poor, pregnancy is a mixture of feeling great one day and not so great the next, postpartum ladies are limited to time of feeds, naps and childcare, and so that’s when Margaret decided to develop a program that was readily available for ladies to do online at a time that suited them but it also had to be safe and also effective. Finding this balance of correct exercises that worked well and could be done safely took some time to pull together.

But perhaps some sort of a silver lining, Margaret was expecting baby number two during Pandemic lockdown 2020.. that’s when going live really needed to happen. Ladies really could not access the information they needed now even more so than before the pandemic. Margaret utilising here pregnancy and her time in lockdown , she finalised the online programs .

Starting out on Instagram to give some free live classes for pregnant ladies like herself at home in lockdown she soon grew a following of ladies and has now had hundreds of ladies who have followed her pregnancy pilates program through to her postpartum and now even a new Beginners program that is being called for as people want to keep up with the practice having realised the benefits .

 Margaret is extremely  passionate about her job and realises the need for this . For ladies to be able to complete in there home and educate themselves , and in turn allowing them to take ownership of their own bodies and their pregnancy, and their postpartum recovery.