What Every Woman Needs to Know

The Core Program: Fifteen Minutes a Day That Can Change Your Life
by Peggy Wachterhauser Brill, P.T.

Introducing the fitness program designed by a physical therapist exclusively for women - proven to increase strength, tone muscles and reduce aches and pains in just 15 minutes a day!

Few women realize that most popular fitness regimens are designed for men. Yet women have their own unique fitness needs - and using a program developed with men's bodies in mind is not only ineffective, but can actually result in injury.

Renowned physical therapist Peggy Brill has devoted her life to developing an exercise program specifically for women. Based on her understanding of movement dynamics and body structure, these exercises focus on developing and balancing the muscles in the anatomical center of the body - the core - which includes the back, hip and abdominal muscles.

Peggy's remarkable head-to-toe workout targets the "hot spot" areas - neck, back, pelvis, hips, knees - that cause problems for even the healthiest women. In just 15 minutes a day, The Core Program's easy-to-learn exercises will help women:

• Strengthen their bodies to achieve balance and alignment
• Eliminate everyday aches and pains
• Prevent bone loss
• Protect against osteoarthritis
• Improve sleep, digestion and circulation
• Enjoy better sex
• Feel energized all day long
• Overcome the effects of aging

With inspirational case histories, detailed photographs illustrating each exercise and self-tests for rating balance, flexibility and strength, The Core Program is an owner's manual for the naturally strong, healthy body every woman should have.

Chapter 1

Can you imagine having all the energy you need, all the time?

Nancy, 32, has it. "Sitting at the computer all day used to leave me feeling drained. But now that I'm doing the core exercises, I don't feel like I've been run over by a truck by the end of the day. After work I'm taking a course in art school instead of dragging myself home and collapsing on the sofa."

Would you love to feel great every day?

Maria, 42, does. "For the first time in much too long I feel terrific, from head to toe. I never thought I'd feel this way again. I was dragging myself around, always feeling as if I were just one step away from moving at the pace of my 85-year-old grandmother. Best of all, I can accomplish everything I need to do, from lifting and carrying to walking long distances. I can't thank you enough!"

Is the notion of moving with ease and beautiful posture something you dream about?

For Jenna, 47, it is a reality. "Finally, I feel graceful; my strides are fluid. When I catch a glimpse of myself in a store window I see a confident woman, not someone who looks like she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders."

Do you wonder what it would be like to be able to summon strength anytime you needed it?

Carol, 36, can. "My arms and shoulders and even my hands were losing so much strength that I could barely carry my groceries. I figured it was just a sign of getting older. Not only do I really appreciate being proved wrong - now I don't have to think about whether I have the strength I need. It's always there."

Would you like to rid yourself of aches and pains once and for all?

Leslie, 40, did it. "Whenever I played on my company's softball team I felt it the next day. Back strain. Shoulder pain. Now I'm a star hitter and the day after a game I can savor the victory - not try to soothe aches and pains."

Is the idea of having dependable stamina immensely appealing?

Ellen, 37, knows how great it is. "I've been jogging for a few years but I was getting more and more worn out from it, partly because I was having a lot of discomfort in my hips. Now I enter mini-marathons, and keeping up with my husband is no trouble at all."

Core Benefits

You can enjoy all the benefits described above, and more, if you will give fifteen minutes a day to performing the Core exercise program I've used with such success for the women I treat in my practice. Moving through your busy life with a strong and supple and pain-free body is your right - because that is how nature intended you to be. I'm going to show you how to restore to your body what your life as a woman saps from it.

Why I Wrote This Book

One morning a few years ago, I was on my way to work. As I stood, surrounded by other riders on a slow-moving bus, I started to observe how some of the women aboard carried themselves. I've had this habit for a long time. Even before I became a physical therapist I was always fascinated by the way people - and especially women - held, and moved, their bodies.

A well-dressed, fit woman in her forties who was standing next to me kept tugging at the strap of her obviously overloaded carryall. Her whole body leaned so far to the right it seemed as though the carryall had a gravitational pull all its own. Near her, a woman in her twenties, who was sitting, tilted her head to an extreme angle as she talked on a cell phone. She continually rubbed her neck, which was obviously hurting. Then there was the tall thirtyish woman who carried fatigue around her shoulders like a heavy shawl. Her whole body slumped forward as she held on to the back of a seat with both hands.

What a shame, I thought to myself. These women look so uncomfortable - and they don't have to be.

Then, as the bus stalled in traffic, I noticed a woman on the street, who was at least eighty years old. In sharp contrast to the women on the bus, all of them much younger than she, this woman carried herself with freedom and ease. As she strode confidently on her way, her body was in perfect alignment. Looking at her, I realized how much I could do for the women on the bus - and every woman.

My work could give them the gift of strength and easy movement and physical balance today, and for the rest of their lives. They too would look, and move, like that confident, graceful, strong woman on the street, no matter what their age.

I decided right then that I would write a book that would enable women to use everything I had learned through my work, and that this book would be my way of fulfilling the commitment I had made, after my mother's early death from a heart attack, to the cause of women's health. I want to help women to change their lives, starting at the core. And I know how to do it quickly, easily, and inexpensively.

Fifteen Minutes a Day That Will Change Your Life

The Core Program is the fifteen-minutes-a-day, five-times-a-week exercise regimen that will give you benefits no single other fitness program can offer. In a very short time it will:

• Build strength
• Abolish muscle aches and pains
• Improve your posture
• Put an end to joint stiffness
• Give you a graceful, easy stride
• Eliminate fatigue after each session
• Relax your body so that you get a good night's sleep
• Improve your balance
• Enhance your stamina for the day ahead
• Heighten your sexual pleasure
• Rid you of occasional nausea and headaches and other symptoms for which doctors can find no cause

In fact, from your very first workout, you will experience an increased sense of well-being - a new sense of ease, energy and relief from everyday aches and pains.

The Core Program will give your body a head-to-toe workout that will also tone your muscles and carve inches off your waist and hips. You'll look great and feel terrific. Best of all, the easy-to-do Core movements can be done no matter how old you are. It doesn't matter whether you are overweight or skinny, fit or sedentary. Maybe you'll be able to do only one or two to start, but eventually almost everyone is able to perform all the exercises in the Core Foundation. Many others will go on to the more advanced versions of the program.

All you need is an exercise mat, which stores easily under a bed, or simply use a large folded towel for cushioning. Wear an outfit that allows you easy movement. Sweats are fine; so is an old leotard or leggings and a T-shirt. After you master the Core Foundation program, you have the option of continuing to the Intermediate program, and eventually to the Ultimate Core. These more advanced programs include some new exercises, and some variations on the Foundation exercises. They also introduce the use of simple hand and ankle weights, for added benefits.

I know that being a woman equals being busy. Family. Career. Children. Friends. Shopping. Traveling. Cooking. Grooming. Gardening. Cleaning. Exercise. And this is only a partial list. With two children (one a baby), two physical therapy offices and one husband, my life is extremely hectic. So hectic, in fact, that I barely managed to do the photo shoot for the exercise sections of this book before I got really big with the pregnancy for my second child. I was three months pregnant when we did these photo sessions, as may be obvious in some of the pictures. So I think I understand as well as anyone how precious, and how short, time is. That's why I made sure that the Core Program is lifestyle-friendly.

Do the program when it is convenient for you, in the privacy of your home or as part of your gym workout. Do it in the morning, the evening, or anytime in between. (I have patients who close their office doors and take a restorative fifteen-minute Core "break" in the afternoon.)

Copyright © 2001 by Peggy W. Brill, P.T.

About the Author

Peggy Wachterhauser Brill, P.T., is a board-certified clinical specialist in orthopedic physical therapy. Peggy has a private practice in midtown Manhattan and also maintains an office in the corporate headquarters of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. Her expertise is sought after by the Duke University men's basketball team, top executives all over the world and leading physicians at the Hospital for Special Surgery and several other major medical centers. Peggy lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters.