'We didn't look at women as women'

Verve Member Clare Hozack is a strength and conditioning coach based around Sydney’s northern beaches. Since experiencing several preventable injuries as an athlete, she has focused on improving how women are trained and treated in the fitness industry.  

From 2001 to 2004, Clare was a member of the Australian Sailing Team, and experienced several injuries. When she went on to work with other former female athletes and saw the same patterns of injury, Clare realised the fitness world had been designed around male physiology.  

At Verve Super, we see the same pattern in finance: a retirement system built around uninterrupted male careers, not the realities of women’s lives. So we caught up with Clare to ask her more about how this led to a female-focused coaching business, and why Verve Super aligned with her values.  

During my time on the Australian Sailing Team I had back problems, dislocated my wrist and hurt my knee… but I was young and blithe, and just figured I would get over it! I completed my Level 2 Strength and Conditioning and did a stint coaching at NSWIS when my first baby was only about a year old.  

About this time, my niggles became chronic, and after having my second baby I developed two hernias, prolapse, herniated discs in my spine, and stress incontinence (not helped by trying to climb to Everest Base Camp with tumour that had outgrown its blood supply, but that’s another story!) 

It was only after I finished a Women’s Biomechanics course that I put two and two together.  

By then I was working with other former athletes - mostly sailors - and started making connections between their back and pelvis and the injuries they were suffering. 

Basically, women have less support around their lower backs. To make room for possible pregnancy, our ribs finish higher, leaving more ‘unsupported’ space between ribs and hips and leaving our lower backs more vulnerable. Add to that that our pelvic cavity is wider (again to allow for the passage of a baby’s skull), which leaves less support for internal pelvic organs, and more surface area for muscles to stretch over. These areas are often also injured during birth, and changes in posture or scar tissue can affect the strength of pelvic muscles.  

The effects of oestrogen compound injury risk by making us more mobile and less stable compared to men. So if we don’t factor all that in when training women, they get injured or are less able to perform the same movements as men.  

We didn't look at women as women. I didn’t look at myself as a woman. I taught ‘proper form’ based on an average white man’s body. I assessed movement based on an average white man's norms.  

When a client’s period interrupted my macrocycles, we recommended they take the pill – fitting their physiology in with our plans, rather than fitting our plan in with their bodies… and I missed some incredible opportunities.  

As another example, the number one barrier to exercise for women (that’s 51% of the population) is pelvic floor dysfunction, and the largest cohort to experience symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction are elite cross-fit athletes, volleyballers, and gymnasts. Yet, personal trainers, exercise physiologists and coaches are lucky to get a single paragraph addressing it during their four-year degree.  

• New report finds most female athletes say there is not enough education around women’s health  

If we were looking at training women as women, then this massive issue would be one of the first things we would address to prevent injury and dysfunction down the track. 

I have always been smart, competitive, and ready to adapt when new knowledge comes to light. However, knowing something and experiencing it firsthand is very different. In my 20s I knew about these issues and was taking steps to educate myself, when the ‘it will never happen to me’ actually happened.  

I completed as much education as was humanly possible, and also became a women's health activist in the fitness industry. My lived experience made me more vehement, more passionate, and louder. 

For me, it means calling out the b*llshit! The internet is telling me right now that skinny is ‘trending’ again. Like women’s bodies are ornaments for display and the pleasure of others to look at.  

I think the skinny trends in the 20s, 60s, 80s, 90s and now are at least partly responsible for the disease load that women carry in their post-menopausal years; we're over twice as likely to develop digestive disorders such as IBS, as well as osteoporosis, autoimmune disease, dementia, and becoming frail when we're older. 

Maintaining solid muscle mass in our 40s mitigates a lot of that risk, particularly in the legs and forearms. I refuse to buy into women's bodies as a fashion trend, especially at the expense of their health and longevity. 

That all women are NOT weaker than all men. In fact, there's a huge overlap in ability, with maybe only 10% of all men stronger than all women.  

Women also have their own strengths, and I think we’re starting to see this in sport right now, where we will surpass men, particularly in ultra-endurance events such as ultramarathons. Women’s muscle fibre make up are actually better suited to that style of race, and women are now winning outright. I am very excited to see the next couple of decades unfold, as we start training women aligned with their physiology. 

Strength is leading from the front, and it's what I tell my girls on a daily basis. It can be lonely out there in front, but it's the only way to be true to yourself and attract your people. I do weights twice a week, not for an aesthetic or to fit in, but because I want physical resilience to the diseases of aging. In my Women's Strength and Conditioning program that I started recently on Sydney's Northern Beaches, we don't train that hard – it's not a fashionable state of training in this industry, but it's effective in keeping women in the gym and getting solid results over a long period of time. 

Verve is another opportunity for activism. It is me literally putting my money where my mouth is! I view my purchases and investments as political. Investing in women lifts women up, like by using products and services that are run by women, address women's specific risks, challenges, and concerns, and are engineered to suit them. My web designers, for example, are women. When I hire trainers, I hire women. When I purchase self-help books I choose women wherever possible.  

And then if I want more renewables, I buy them or invest in companies that install them. When I buy gifts, I look for local and handmade.  

These are all micro-actions that put together with another thousand people can make a massive difference to how women are perceived, and the opportunities available to us. For example, in the 1970s, women weren’t allowed to be lifeguards. They weren’t viewed as physically capable of doing the job, and they weren’t allowed to try. If there’d been a women’s lifesaving service at the time, society would have realised they could do the job.  

I feel like the same goes for money. Despite women making most buying decisions in a household, there’s still this idea that we’re not adept at handling money, investments, even maths. Verve is an opportunity to invest and manage money for myself, which other super funds have not provided.  

What you're doing at Verve, I'm doing in my Women’s Strength & Conditioning; thinking about women and what they need as women, rather than trying to squish them into average white male moulds. 

I want to thank Verve for existing. It is very aligned with my values and I feel empowered every time I attend your education sessions, or read your articles. 

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