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.
Our team decided the TRX Home 2 System is the best multipurpose piece of compact home gym equipment you can invest in, thanks to its lightweight and multipurpose functions. I love that it supports both resistance training and cardio workouts while taking up zero surface area of my shoebox apartment.
All you do is hook the TRX Home 2 System onto the back of a door, beam, or pole with the included anchors. The hooks and suspension straps stay in place (which is essential for safety) while executing explosive movements like lunges and squats. In my apartment, I attached it to the back of my door and was able to install it properly on my first attempt. It’s never budged, no matter how much weight I put on it.
After using it a dozen times, I never lost balance or felt at risk of injury. It may look flimsy, but I attest it’s strong and mighty. For further stability, the straps feature grippy handles, which Sheridan recommends.
I know this product is top-notch because it has superior durability to withstand high-resistance, low-impact workouts. With weekly use, the anchors are not worn out and still feel good as new—you get what you pay for! Plus, the TRX Home 2 System was specifically designed by a Navy Seal over 20 years ago and has proven its effectiveness.
As a runner, it’s excellent for cross-training muscles I wouldn’t otherwise use, and stretching out my tired limbs. I plan on also using it on vacation for quick hotel room workouts because I need my daily endorphins.
Read More: Best Portable Home Gyms
In addition to the psychological impact, there are physical risks associated with following online fitness trends.
The experts cautioned that some activities may not be suitable for all individuals, and may even result in over-exertion or injury for some people.
This is often due to their high intensity and specificity in the muscle groups trained.
Ms Nur Amelina Azlan, a physiotherapist at Heal360 Physioclinic, said: “For example, pilates is very postural, very focused on the core muscles, whereas something like your spin class is more cardiovascular.
“But what we need is both elements together, not just one over the other.”
MAKING FITNESS “FIT” YOU
So, if what works for other people may not be the best for different people with different needs, how does one find what works for oneself?
Mr Martin John, clinical director at Orchard Health Clinic, which offers physiotherapy among other services, said that the first step is to be honest about your starting point.
“How is your energy? How is your sleep? How stressed are you? How much do you sit? How well do you move?
“Those are important questions because exercise should match the person, not the trend.”
Most people wouldn’t mind being a little bit fitter. But the fittest? That seems unreachable. However, many argue that all-conquering CrossFit athlete Tia-Clair Toomey is, by objective measures, the fittest woman in history.
Toomey, who is an ambassador for the fitness app Pliability, has won the CrossFit Games – an annual competition to find the fittest man and woman on earth – an unrivalled six times on the trot. In 2023, she paused to have her first child, then returned in 2024 and won the competition two more times.
In the midst of her winning streak, the 32-year-old also represented Australia in weightlifting at the 2016 Rio Olympics, won gold in the same event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, qualified for the 2022 Winter Olympics in the two-woman bobsled and completed a Hyrox doubles race in a lightning-fast 54 minutes 24 seconds.
In short: Toomey is incredibly fit. The average person might not be able to emulate her superior fitness levels, and most don’t want to – they simply want to be fit and healthy enough to thrive in everyday life. You can, however, benefit from her insights about how to approach exercise.
Read more: Do these three things each week to be fitter than most Brits
1. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good
“You can’t be perfect at everything all the time,” says Toomey. “Trying to juggle too many things at once is where many people come unstuck, because you’re stretching yourself too thin. So it’s important to find balance.”
The aim is not to do everything immaculately, but to identify the things that are truly valuable to you – these might be your workouts, work or supporting your family – and take pride in throwing the (cluttered) kitchen sink at them.
“Even if it’s just a simple workout, you can feel really fulfilled at the end of the day knowing you gave it your best,” Toomey says. “I think a workout is a perfect place to demonstrate this.”
Read more: Walking experts reveal the number of daily steps you need to boost health – and it’s not 10,000
2. Small changes make a big difference
Most people set themselves lofty fitness (and life) goals, then fall short of them. Just look at how many New Year’s resolutions have been discarded by the time February rolls around. Toomey suggests a more manageable approach.
“If you can get 1 per cent better every day, you can’t ask for any more than that,” she says. “It’s when you create excuses, stop challenging yourself and give up on pursuing your chosen goal that you stop progressing and plateau.”
She recommends making small tweaks to improve how you feel each day, rather than obsessing over a daunting target.
For example, you could head to bed 15 minutes earlier and keep your phone out of the bedroom, drink an extra glass of water, go for a walk after dinner or eat an extra portion of fruits and vegetables. Small changes soon accumulate to make a big difference over time.
“It takes a lot of pressure off people when they break their goals down like that,” Toomey says.
Read more: Study reveals the small changes to your diet, sleep and exercise that can add years to your life
3. Be open-minded
A lot of people use the phrase “exercise isn’t for me”. This is likely linked to a less-than-pleasant experience at some point in their past.
But exercise is a very broad umbrella, and Toomey urges people to remain open-minded when approaching it. This is something she learned firsthand.
“I enjoyed my first CrossFit session, but I didn’t really enjoy the coach, so I opted not to go back for two months,” she says. “Who knows where I would be now if I never went back because of that one interaction.”
Toomey ended up trying a different gym and finding a coach who was more passionate and encouraging. “Then I was hooked and fully committed,” she says.
For the everyday exerciser, this could mean changing the variables to make your workouts more fun. For example, if you don’t like how running feels, you could swap to a lower-impact activity like swimming or cycling. Or if you find solo strength training sessions boring, you might join an exercise class.
There is no need to suffer through a certain type of exercise just because someone told you it’s the best. Take a playful approach to your workouts and continue to experiment until you find something you enjoy. Because if your exercise plans are fun, you are far more likely to stick to them.
Read more: The easiest way to strengthen your entire body, according to this expert coach
4. Put your ego aside
If you have ever watched Toomey compete, it’s hard to imagine her struggling with anything exercise-related. But, she says, when she first started CrossFit training she found it difficult to hold a barbell overhead in a stable position.
This was exposed in a CrossFit workout named “Nancy” – five rounds of a 400-metre run and 15 overhead squats (squatting while holding a 30kg barbell overhead).
“I was a runner prior to CrossFit, so I would race ahead during the 400m runs, but then the overhead squats were very challenging for me,” Toomey says.
To learn the correct technique, she started by scaling back the overhead squats, using an empty barbell rather than one loaded up with weight. Then, as she improved, she gradually increased the load on the bar.
“It’s all about building confidence,” Toomey says. “Everyone wants to go from zero to 100, but you need to put your ego aside, take your time and put the work in to actually learn a movement. That is how people evolve.”
If Toomey is willing to scale back exercises to learn them properly, the rest of us should be too. That might mean starting with goblet squats rather than barbell squats, wall press-ups rather than full press-ups, or walking rather than running.
There are exercise options to suit all fitness levels – you just have to find the appropriate ones for you and gradually progress them over time.
Read more: Sitting all day wreaks havoc on your hips and spine – here’s how to stop that from happening
5. Variety is the spice of life
What is the one exercise Toomey wishes more people would do? She struggles to pick just one before prescribing variety.
“I just love seeing people active,” she says. “But constantly doing one thing will have a lot of impact on the body. I think it’s really important to have a variety of exercises. That way you’re constantly working different muscles, building broad fitness and stimulating the mind in different ways.”
This is good advice for any exerciser. The body works on a rough use-it-or-lose-it basis, so if you don’t use a joint or muscle to its full potential, it can weaken and tighten over time. Greasing the groove on a wide range of movement patterns is the best way to prevent this and stay mobile for decades to come.
Read more: After 50 you need to train smarter – the eight rules for strength training in midlife, according to experts
6. Commit to a plan
A one-off workout cannot transform your fitness, but a progressive exercise plan can. This is why Toomey recommends finding a structured programme to follow over a longer time period than just a single session.
“That is going to help you stay motivated, particularly if it’s linked to some sort of sports or fitness goal like your first 10K, triathlon or pull-up,” she says.
“It gives you something to aim for. Otherwise people think, ‘Oh, I’m just going to keep doing this forever,’ and it can feel quite overwhelming. Following a programme helps you build healthy habits that you integrate into your daily routine and actually stick to.”
Read more: I specialise in coaching people aged 40-plus – do these six things for immediate results
7. Look after yourself
Muscle isn’t built in the gym. What you do during your workouts triggers myriad positive physiological changes, but the actual adaptations happen while you are recovering.
For this reason, Toomey places a great emphasis on sleep and nutrition, prioritising quality fuel and recovery between her training sessions.
As part of this, she regularly uses a sauna, breathwork and completes a stretching and mobility protocol via the Pliability stretching app shortly after waking each day.
“I tend to wake up feeling a bit stiff and sore from the previous day,” she says. “But I want to walk into the gym feeling strong and confident. That stretching session acts as a form of meditation as well, helping with both mobility and mental clarity.”
Read more: Swap the gym for this trainer’s six-move kettlebell workout to build full-body strength at home
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