Fitness
Cecelia has created a women-only gym in Papua New Guinea — and it's a hit
After losing her mother to liver cancer in 2019, Cecelia Kanawi knew that to break the cycle and avoid succumbing to lifestyle diseases, she had to make some life-altering decisions.
But little did she know her personal journey would have a ripple effect, attracting more than 100 Papua New Guinean women to her fitness program, called Break a Sweat.
“When I started Break a Sweat it was because personally I was self-conscious with my body,” Cecelia said.
“I was too ashamed to go to the gym and every time I walked into the gym I would wait until all the men or all the women who were already fitness freaks and they look super good in their outfits leave the gym, then I’d go into my little exercise in the corner.
“So when the COVID-19 pandemic happened, that was when all the main gyms shut down so I saw that little gap where I was going to tap into.”
Building a community
During the pandemic, Cecelia took an online course to become a certified fitness trainer and formally registered her business.
Break a Sweat started with just five members, but three years later Cecelia has more than 100 participants and provides services including personal training, group sessions, and online training to clients overseas.
But what makes Break a Sweat special is the community formed by the women, which extends to more than just fitness buddies.
“I have participants who are members of the disciplined forces (police and defence), health workers, law practitioners like lawyers and magistrates,” Cecelia said.
“And the support each of these women provide for each other when a need arises where a someone needs medical assistance or a protection order (for cases of domestic violence), they step in to assist each other.
“Break a Sweat not only impacted lives of the women that came to me but they also helped me in in return, that’s why I like to refer to it as empowering women through fitness where they support me and I support them back.”
Last year, Cecelia’s fitness program attracted PNG’s Pacific Games gold medallist powerlifter Linda Pulsan to join — later prompting Cecelia to become an athlete.
“She (Pulsan) realised that I had natural strength and the ability to lift weight, so through her recommendation, I was able to train with the Team PNG powerlifters and made my debut at the Pacific Games and won silver,” Cecelia said.
“When I went to compete, my shoes, my belt and my lifting accessories were all paid for by the women that I trained, so it was a community of women that supported me.”
Safe space for women
One of the participants, Matilda Pasum, joined BAS two years ago with the aim to bulk up.
“The environment here is welcoming and joining this has helped me mentally, especially being a full-time mum — it can be stressful,” she said.
“So I made an arrangement with my husband and even though he’s a soldier, he makes time to come home and take of our kids while I attend my sessions.
“He’s been really supportive of my journey and I am very grateful to him for his understanding and support.”
Tahina Booth is a former elite rugby league player, and founder of the Grass Skirt Project, a leading organisation tackling gender-based violence in PNG through innovative sports and wellness initiatives.
She says it’s important to have facilities like Break a Sweat accessible to everyday women in PNG’s capital, and wants the government to help create more spaces like it.
“It is incredibly important to have facilities like Cecelia’s for women’s economic participation and women’s access to physical activity, as it is very low,” Tahina said.
“Cecelia is doing an incredible job in creating a safe space for women in her community who can come and find a sense of belonging as she caters to their physical and mental wellbeing as well as providing nutrition education and dieting advice.
“From what I know, she doesn’t have a huge investment backing her but she’s doing all these with whatever resources and little funding she has.”
Fitness movement
Another gym in Port Moresby, East Street Fitness, owned by couple Florence Daple and William Darius Moaina, has also been striving to produce a successful and safe space for both men and women to have access to a high quality gym setting.
Florence comes from a background of playing local softball and running track in her youth, while her husband Darius played rugby.
The pair understands what it was like as a young athlete trying to find affordable and accessible gym facilities in Port Moresby.
“When you go into a gym setting, you want to be assisted,” Florence said.
“As a female, you get intimidated by all the male counterparts that are actually working out and they know what they’re doing.
“I wanted the help and we weren’t getting that.
“So we just thought to ourselves, why don’t we find a gym or come up with something that will be also available, affordable and will help not just us, but our communities?”
Meanwhile, Cecelia believes that while men can part of the solution in ensuring that women are empowered through fitness in accessing various gym spaces, she wants to see her brand of an all-women fitness grow across PNG.
Patricia Keamo is a sports reporter at The National in Papua New Guinea.
She is part of ABC International Development’s Women in News and Sport Initiative, funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Team Up program.
RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — 8News got a visit from two special guests Friday to learn about the benefits of Pilates and try out some beginner moves.
8News anchors Autumn Childress and Delaney Hall were joined by Laura Mae Harper and Angie Madison with Point and Flex Pilates. The studio, which opened on Sept. 3 last year, offers a variety of classes, ranging from beginner to intermediate and advanced.
“We went through years of teaching at other places and developed this beautiful studio for them and this community, and we’re super excited about it,” Harper said.
For more information, visit Point and Flex Pilates.
Like every piece of gear you wear on your body day in and day out, fitness trackers are incredibly personal. The right tracker for you should be comfortable, accurate, and tailored to your lifestyle, including your preferred workouts and health goals. Do you bike, row, or strength train? Do you run on trails for hours at a time, or do you just want a reminder to stand up every hour? Do you want to wear it on your wrist or your finger, or tuck it into your sports bra?
No matter what your needs are, there’s never been a better time to find a powerful, sophisticated tool to help optimize your workouts or jump-start your routine. We test dozens of fitness trackers every year while running, climbing, hiking, or just doing workout videos on our iPads at night, to bring you these picks.
Our top choice for most people is the Garmin Vivoactive 6 ($300), which works well with Android and iOS, but we also vouch for the latest Oura Ring 5 ($399) and the budget-friendly Google Fitbit Air ($100). For more wearables, check out our guides to the Best Smartwatches, Best Smart Rings, and Best Sleep Trackers.
Jump To
Best Fitness Tracker Overall
Garmin makes some of the most accurate fitness trackers on the market, and the Vivoactive 6 is the best midrange option for most people. It strikes a solid balance between smartwatch features and fitness tracking, with support for both iPhone and Android users.
Why WIRED recommends: The Vivoactive 6 is accurate, comfortable, and packed with useful wellness features without feeling overwhelming. It uses Garmin’s proprietary algorithms to power features like Morning Report and Body Battery, which provide daily insights into your sleep, recovery, and readiness. It also has built-in satellite connectivity and GPS, so you can track outdoor workouts without bringing your phone along. There’s also incident detection, which alerts emergency contacts if it detects a serious fall.
Garmin’s biggest advantage remains its free Connect platform, which enables health and fitness tracking without requiring a subscription. The company also continues to add new software features through regular updates without putting them behind a paywall.
The trade-offs: Garmin launched Connect+, a $70-per-year subscription with extras like live tracking and access to Garmin’s AI-powered Active Intelligence. Former editor Adrienne So doesn’t think most people need it, but it’s worth noting if you’re looking for a completely subscription-free experience. The Vivoactive 6 may also feel like overkill for casual users who only want basic activity and sleep tracking.
Fitness
Why this unexpected exercise is most effective for building arm muscle in your 50s – and how to do it properly
When it comes to building strong, defined arms, traditional fitness advice will usually point you toward endless sets of bicep curls and tricep extensions. But according to Dr Stacy Sims, a leading women’s exercise physiologist specialising in perimenopause and menopause, isolation movements like these aren’t necessarily the most effective. Instead, she advocates for one functional compound movement: the farmer’s carry.
Speaking on podcast A Life of Greatness, when host Sarah Grynberg asks how to get arm muscles like Dr Sims, the 51-year-old explained: ‘In order to get shoulders like this, heavy farmer’s carries. I’ve been travelling so much this year, and I haven’t been in the gym being consistent with all the push presses and Olympic lifts that I love to do, but what I have been consistent in doing is heavy farmer’s carries.
‘It’s good for grip strength, learning how to walk properly, core strength, shoulders – so if there’s one move everyone should do, it’s heavy farmer’s carries.’
The magic of the move lies in its ability to engage your biceps, triceps, shoulders, forearms and hands all at once. And because your arms are working continuously to stabilise heavy loads against gravity, the exercise activates the deep muscle fibres that don’t fire up as efficiently in single-joint arm movements, like bicep curls. Here’s how to do it with proper form, plus how heavy to lift and a workout to try, straight from Dr Sims.
How to do a farmer’s carry
- Standing with feet hip-width apart and weights at the outside of the ankles, hinge your hips back and bend the knees, keeping your back flat.
- Tighten up your lower back and abdominals before reaching down to grab the weights.
- After gripping the weights, begin to stand tall by driving your heels into the ground, maintaining a tight form. Once you reach full standing position, tighten your armpits and make sure your shoulders are pulled back to activate the muscles in the rotator cuff area.
- Finally, begin to take small steps forward, maintaining a strong grip and form. If you’re returning in opposite direction, set the weights down, turn around, and then grab the weights again before walking in the opposite direction.
Set/reps for results: Aim for three sets. Try timing your farmer’s carry for 25 to 30 seconds or go for 10 steps forward and back.
Form tips: Start out with a light weight to ensure you don’t end up leaning too far forward or towards one side. Make sure to keep your back straight for safety. When it comes to moving, small strides will do. They’ll keep you balanced as you increase your weights.
How heavy to lift
As for what “heavy” means to Dr Sims, she says: ‘How many people have heard that you should be able to farmer carry 75% of your body weight for a minute? That is made up from bro science. It’s a good metric but there’s no science behind it. So, a heavy farmer’s carry is you have two very heavy dumbbells by your side and you’re walking back and forth.’
Here’s a weight guide to follow:
- Beginners: 2x 4-6kg
- Intermediate: 2x 8-12kg
- Advanced: 2x 12-20kg
Farmer’s carry workout
Dr Sims shares a descending ladder workout to try.
- 500m ski
- 500m heavy farmer’s carry
- 400m ski
- 400m heavy farmer’s carry
- 300m ski
- 300m heavy farmer’s carry
- 200m ski
- 200m heavy farmer’s carry
- 100m ski
- 100m heavy farmer’s carry
‘If you really have anything left in the tank after this workout, you go back up in 100m,’ she adds.
One of our most frequently asked questions here at Women’s Health? How to build muscle and burn fat at the same time. So, we asked superstar trainer Oyinda Okunowo exactly how to do it. In this 4-week plan – created exclusively for Women’s Health COLLECTIVE members – you’ll get the workouts and nutrition guidance needed to help you on your way to better body composition. Tap the link below to unlock 14 days of free access to Oyinda’s plan and start training today.
Get the plan
As Women’s Health UK’s fitness director and a qualified Pilates and yoga instructor, Bridie Wilkins has been passionately reporting on exercise, health and nutrition since the start of her decade-long career in journalism.
After earning a first-class degree in journalism and NCTJ accreditation, she secured her first role at Look Magazine, where she launched the magazine’s health and fitness column, Look Fit, before going on to become Health and Fitness writer at HELLO!
Since, she has written for Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle, The Metro, Runner’s World and Red. Today, she oversees all fitness content across Women’s Health online and in print, spearheading leading cross-platform franchises, such as ‘Fit At Any Age’, which showcases the women proving that age is no barrier to exercise.
She has also represented the brand on BBC Radio London, plus various podcasts and Substacks – all with the aim to encourage more women to exercise and show them how. Outside of work, find her trying the latest Pilates studio, testing her VO2 max for fun (TY, Oura), or posting workouts on Instagram.
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