COMMUNITY EDUCATION · STAFFORD & FREDERICKSBURG, VA

Core & Pelvic Foundations For Active Women

The first workshop in Divine Physical Therapy’s growing community education series, created for women who want to better understand how their core and pelvic floor work during exercise, motherhood and everyday life. This small-group experience is taught in person by Dr. Thea Paige, PT, DPT, and built around learning, moving and asking the questions women do not always get a chance to ask.

Outdoor Core and Pelvic Foundations Workshop in a park

THE BASICS

What Is The Core & Pelvic Foundations Workshop?

Instructor leading a Core and Pelvic Foundations Workshop.

Core & Pelvic Foundations for Active Women is a small-group educational workshop taught by Dr. Thea Paige, PT, DPT, centered in Stafford County, Virginia. In two and a half hours it covers breathing mechanics, rib cage positioning, core activation without over-bracing, pelvic floor basics, a return-to-exercise strategy, and a hands-on partner movement lab.

It is education, not treatment, nobody is examined, and nothing is internal. This is the first workshop in Divine Physical Therapy’s expanding community workshop series, with additional women’s health and family education topics planned for local groups, gatherings and community spaces.

The curriculum, in full

Everything below is taught in every session — no module is skipped for time, because the group is kept small enough that it never has to be.

Reviewed by Dr. Thea Paige, PT, DPT, CMTPT, PCES

SIX MODULES, ONE ORDER

What Does The Workshop Actually Cover?

Six modules, in a deliberate order. Each builds on the one before it, which is why the order never changes.

Breathing Mechanics

How the diaphragm drives the whole pressure system, and why breath is the first core exercise this practice ever teaches.

Pelvic Floor Basics

What the pelvic floor actually does, why relaxing it matters as much as contracting it, and why Kegels are not a universal prescription.

Rib Cage Positioning

Where your ribs sit determines what your diaphragm and abdominal wall can do; a stacked rib cage is the cheapest core upgrade there is.

Return-To-Exercise Strategy

How to progress load and impact after a break, a baby, or an injury, and the signals that tell you a progression is too fast.

Core Activation Without Bracing

The difference between tension that supports movement and tension that fights it, and why gripping harder is usually the wrong answer.

The Partner Movement Lab

Hinge, squat and carry, practiced in pairs with live coaching.

“Engage your core” fails as an instruction because the core is a pressure system, not a switch. The diaphragm, rib cage position, pelvic floor and abdominal wall distribute load together on every breath — which is why a woman can brace as hard as she likes and still leak, dome or hurt if the pressure has nowhere better to go.

WHO IT’S FOR

Who Is This Workshop For?

Active women at any stage: postpartum mothers returning to exercise, lifters and runners managing leaking or pressure, and women who simply want to understand a part of their body nobody ever explained. No fitness level is assumed, no diagnosis is required, and you do not need to be or become a client of the practice.

It is honest about its limits, too. A workshop cannot assess you individually, and it is not a substitute for pelvic floor physical therapy when symptoms deserve one-on-one attention. What it can do is give you the framework that makes every later decision including whether to seek care at all an informed one.

THE LAB

What Makes The Partner Lab Different?

Most workshops end at the slides. This one ends on the floor: attendees pair up and practice the hinge, squat and carry the three patterns that move children, groceries, barbells and laundry while Dr. Paige coaches each pair through breath, rib position and pressure in real time. Watching a partner is half the learning; feeling the difference in your own lift is the other half.

The lab is the reason groups stay at four to eight. With more people, coaching becomes performance; at this size, every attendee leaves having been individually watched, cued and corrected at least once in each pattern.

Soreness vs. Information

WHY HANDS-ON PRACTICE MATTERS

“I built the partner lab because of what I kept seeing in living rooms: women who could recite the theory perfectly and still held their breath the moment a real load showed up. Knowledge that hasn’t been felt under load doesn’t survive contact with a toddler. Ten minutes of coached carrying teaches what an hour of slides cannot.”

Dr. Thea Paige, PT, DPT, CMTPT, PCES

Core & Pelvic Foundations Workshop group session in a studio.

FLEXIBLE HOST FORMATS

Come To A Workshop Or Bring One To Your Group.

Core & Pelvic Foundations is the first workshop in a growing Divine Physical Therapy community education series. Public dates will be announced as they are scheduled, but workshops do not have to happen only in a clinic, gym or formal event space.

If you have a group of women who would enjoy learning together, Dr. Paige will come to you. Nothing about it needs to be formal - you need the people and a comfortable space, and the format and topic adapt to fit the group.

Request A Workshop For Your Group

A friend's living room, a baby shower, a church or women's ministry meetup, a moms' group, a workplace wellness day, a gym or run club, or something nobody has thought of yet. Tell Dr. Paige who is coming and roughly what they want to know, and she will shape the session around it.

With children, too. Dr. Paige is building age-appropriate sessions that women can attend alongside their kids - how the bladder and bowel work, healthy bathroom habits, breathing and movement, and plain body education that makes these things easier for families to talk about. Content is tailored to the ages in the room.

The teaching draws on Dr. Paige's advanced pelvic health training through the Herman & Wallace Pelvic Rehabilitation Institute and her certification as a Pregnancy & Postpartum Corrective Exercise Specialist (PCES) - the same clinical grounding behind the practice's one-on-one pelvic care, translated for a room instead of a treatment table.

IS THIS YOU?

You’ll Fit Right In If Any Of These Sound Familiar.

“I leak a little when I run or jump”

Nobody ever explained my pelvic floor to me

My core never felt the same after my baby

I want to lift without wondering if I should

I brace hard and it still doesn’t feel strong

I’d rather learn this with other women than alone

YOUR QUESTIONS, ANSWERED

Frequently Asked

No. The workshop is for active women at any stage — postpartum recovery is one common reason to attend, but lifters, runners and women who have never been pregnant get the same value, because breathing mechanics, rib position and pressure management govern every core, not just a postpartum one.If you are currently pregnant, you are welcome too; see the pregnancy question below for how the movement portions are adapted.

Nothing is internal, and nobody is examined — this is education, not treatment. The only hands-on element is the partner movement lab, where you and another attendee practice the hinge, squat and carry with coaching. Touch between partners is limited to spotting-style contact, and every drill can be done without it.If a question comes up that deserves individual assessment, Dr. Paige will say so — and what an assessment involves, including your right to decline any part of it, is explained plainly before anyone books anything.

The final module of the workshop: attendees pair up and practice three loaded movement patterns hinge, squat and carry while Dr. Paige coaches each pair individually on breath, rib cage position and core strategy. It turns the first five modules from theory into something you have physically felt work.Loads are light and adjustable, and every pattern has a regression, so the lab meets you wherever your body currently is.

Yes, in most uncomplicated pregnancies — the breathing, rib position and pelvic floor education is arguably most useful before birth. Movement lab drills are adapted for pregnancy: positions, loads and ranges all change, and you choose your own level in every drill without needing to explain why.If your pregnancy has complications or activity restrictions, check with your obstetric provider first, and mention it when you register so the drills can be planned rather than improvised.

A class trains you; this workshop teaches you. The goal is not a workout it is that you leave understanding how your pressure system works, how to activate your core without over-bracing, and how to progress back to exercise on criteria instead of guesswork, with a partner lab to make it stick.It is also taught by a Doctor of Physical Therapy with advanced pelvic health training, which changes what questions can be answered in the room.

KEEP READING

Where To Go Next

All Workshops

The full community education calendar, the workshop list, and how hosting works.

Pelvic Health & Postpartum Physical Therapy

When a workshop question deserves one-on-one care — in your own home.

Returning To Running After A Baby

The load and impact criteria worth clearing before your first postpartum mile.

Smiling woman in a blue shirt in a fitness studio.

BEGIN WITH A DISCOVERY CALL

Your Group Could Be The Next One.

Gather your friends, moms’ group, church community, coworkers or parent-and-child crew. Workshops can be flexible, approachable and built around the questions your group actually wants answered.