Kic’s Laura & Steph on making 2025 your fittest yet

Hello, dear Healthy Ish family. Happy day. Hope you are having a brilliant one. I am Felicity Harley. Oh today's EP is a goodie if I do say so myself. We have two fantastic guests joining us from their HQ in Melbourne. Laura Henshaw and Steph Claire Smith are the wellness moguls who disrupted the fitness industry by building a community with acceptance, body positivity and connection at its heart. Look, I know you love these women and admire them as

Very well and we're very honored to be back.

Thank you for having us.

Yeah, happy, It's my first interview of the year, So there we go.

It's always that thing when you get back to working, jam might be halfway through or even later in Jen but you still want to say happy years of those Yeahn't.

Is that weird?

I mean we are nearly weird share impiness. Anyway, let's talk about this exciting Health of the Nation campaign. You've joined forces with Body and Soul. Why is this important to you both?

Oh?

I mean for us, we just think it could be more aligned.

So us so keep We're all about making health and fitness more accessible, sustainable and enjoyable.

But partnering with.

Health with the Nation just means that we can do that at such a larger scale, reaching Ausis and such a nationwide scale, which is so exciting. There's a lot of information out there and a lot of misinformation and we like to kind of cut through the noise and make sure that you get the information you can trust. And I think when it comes to fitness and movement, it's all about small, sustainable habits and making those changes slowly. So we want people to focus on how fitness makes

To ensure that.

Ossie's making sure that their worth is not what their weight is. It's much more than.

That, absolutely, amen, or what they look like? What about that for you? What does it mean to you?

Oh?

I I mean so much.

I think as they've said, it's the scale of being able to help.

Because when we started Kick for both of us in.

Time is a tiny habit back was that by the way, twenty.

Fifteen was the official start. So we've almost been years.

Ten years.

Yeah, I mean it's amazing when you look back, it doesn't it feels like one hundred but also one Yeah. The same time, I think for us when we think back of you know, why we started Kick.

Obviously we both went through I shouldn't say obviously. I'm sure there were people that will have no idea, they never a should people know us story.

But when we started, we both went through our kind of own journey with body dysmorphia and having to kind of rebuild our relationship with ourselves but also wellness. But before that, Steph and I grew up in a very privileged environment where we were empowered with tools on how to move our body, trying different things, experimenting with different workout types through sports was a great experience in school

And I think for both of us in.

Completely losing that when we went down a path of comparison and really, as Steph kind of said before speaking about weight like our was our worst and that was due to Bodes being in the modeling industry, but also social media really exacerbating it. And we've seen in some of the data that's come out from the study from Alpath the nation that especially within the with gen zs, their motivation for working out, very sadly is body image and looks, and I think that speaks a lot to

Where do you start? How do you know?

And especially if it's been something where you've felt and even for both of us, like, confidence is such a big thing when it comes to moving your body. Like we own a health and wellness brand, and I still walk into the gym and think, oh my goodness, who am I to be here? I don't know how to use it? Is everyone looking at it? So we know that, you know, is everyone looking at me? We know that people.

We're well done now. As part of the campaign, there was a report done. About three thousand odd women and men took part in this and they found some really interesting findings and perhaps I mean I found someone really concerning and some inspiring. Were there any that surprised you around fitness specifically.

I wouldn't say too surprising.

I mean, we obviously speak to about community and the bader community in the space often, so a lot of it wasn't too surprising.

I think the point that Laura brought up earlier.

Though with gen zs a lot of them coming through with body image. I think that just speaks volume to social media and the impact that that can have on people's body image and everything, and so I think that was quite telling and upsetting for us. I think for millennial a lot of us have kind of moved through that era of you know, wanting to be as skinny as possible and nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,

Know, it's much less exactly exactly.

But I think it is really interesting to see the different motivators behind each generation. But I think obviously with what we're trying to do, we're hoping to ensure that no matter someone's age, that their why is less focused on the way that they look and much more about how they feel.

Well, let's pick up on that why, because one piece of advice I think with you, Steph, you told our print edition was one way to get your motive and consistency and build these habits that so many of us struggle with is finding your why and using it as fuel. Perhaps talk to us about this, like, what is your why? How do we find it? If we have it, how do we turn it into you know, the motivation and consistency that so many of us struggle with.

Yeah, totally.

I think first of all, I want to acknowledge that for a lot of us, within working out our why, a lot of people are going to have some sort of esthetic come to mind because we all have insecurities. That's totally normal. We're taught to want to shrink ourselves

And because of that.

Drive, it can be really unmotivating as well if you don't actually get there or you're not losing that last five and there's a reason why it's the last five, you know, it's the five that we fluctuate, particularly as women, which is completely normal and totally healthy, and to lose that you have to go into some pretty unhealthy habits to get there.

So I think it can be really unmotivating though, if your main.

Focus is getting to a physical goal and then you feel like you're not reaching it, it's like, oh why am I even bothering and give up all together? And so if you're focusing on other things that can help on those days, particularly when the insecurity is allowed in your head. But it's also because when we're focusing on our aesthetics a lot of the time, our workouts can become punishments, so we're not necessarily finding movement that makes

And then that.

Can be super unmotivating too, because it means that when the next workout is coming along, you're dreading it before it's even begun instead of looking forward to it.

Or you know, when you find movement that you enjoy, it's not.

To say that every day, you know, we've found movement that we enjoy, but it's not to say that every day we're like super pumped.

Again the gym, we'll go for a run.

Like, motivation is still hard to come by sometimes, but I think finding your why and that being the fuel and it being outside of what you look like is a really really important one. If you want to sustain.

What's your wife then stiff Does it change? Is it? I mean during pregnancy does it shift? How does what happens to it?

Yeah?

Totally.

I think since being a mom like my wife is definitely more so on longevity, like being there for my kids and hopefully their kids and everything like that, Like that's super important.

But I think on the daily I am a much more.

Energized and happier person when I've got movement within my routine, Like I see, it affects my mental health so so much.

So that's my.

Kind of daily motivator for sure. But as you said, like during pregnancy, I think what's important for me. I was fortunate enough to keep up some movement, mobility and strength in my first pregnancy, and I think it really helps me with my birth and then you know, rebuilding my muscle strength and everything when returning to exercise later as.

Well, Like I think it helped with all of that. So that's also keeping you that demanded this time.

Now, Laura, a lot of us know your why, well is he why to run?

Like, talk to us.

About your why because I also think part of why I is also setting some sort of goal or aspiration or something you want to hit because that also gets you out of bed. So talk to us about how your wife fits in with all your amazing marathons that you have run and intend to run.

So when I was training for the new York Marathon.

I obviously had the goal of you know, wanting to run the full forty two kilometer distance, which other was so grateful to be able to do. But the reason I did the marathon, and my why in doing that actually wasn't to tike a marathon off kind of off my list. It was because I have put my health second to everything for such a long time. Which the irony that we run a health of bosus that where here telling people, you know, preaching, but you know I wasn't.

What's the saying do as I say, but don't say as I do?

Totally?

But yeah, that for me, I was in twenty twenty three in particular, I was almost injured for the entire year. I think I spent about five to six months injured. I had a buil bulge disc in my back. I just continued to I was definitely burnt out. I was not putting myself first. Every my workout was the first.

Thing to go. I wasn't prioritizing my physio, for.

Example, was for me very important in rebuilding back from my injury. But I every time there'd be a meeting that went on top of it, and I was like, oh, I just can't make it, like push myself to.

The bottom of the list. And so in doing the marathon, in saying yes.

To it, I knew that I had to say yes to myself because there is no way. I mean, I've seen like some young guys wrought being marathonist, but I actually I don't think that's, you know, a great way, because you're going to be injured and feel shogging for such a.

Long time look good on social media but not good for you, but exactly not going to.

Be your body.

So I knew I wasn't going to do that, and I wanted to train properly, and so I knew that if I did it, I had to commit to myself.

I had to strup for myself. I had to go to the vizio, et cetera.

And that for me was a really important thing to do for myself. And it was almost like for me telling myself that and this was my wife, that I'm worthy of this time and I'm worthy to take care of myself. And that was very very empowering for me. And in doing that now it's interesting. I was reading an article the other day on the cart which was talking about the Donald Trump administration and how that's obviously making women feel you know, in America, bet around the world,

So especially in times.

Where you know there's people in power that are so unaligned with ourselves and take autonomy away from women in particular, I think it's really amazing that with something like exercise and looking after yourself, you can take some of that back and in feeling empowered and strong.

So that's also one for me.

And I think the other thing to note on the why as well and why it's so important is because we can have our big goals, but the most important thing is focusing on how you want to feel today.

That is what's going to get you to.

Move your body, to look after your body, to take care of your body. Because if we're focusing in six months time on a goal, you know that after maybe three weeks in, we know, like on the tenth of jown, it's quit. As dates when most people quit their resolutions right, the motivation wears off, it gets tough, and then it's so easy to give up because the.

Goal can feel so far away.

So it's really important to try and find something that you can think of in this today.

I want to feel empowered.

I want to feel strong.

I want to feel energized, you know, to help you work towards whatever your goals are, because that I assigned to me is what actually gets me up. And because it's not oh, I'll feel amazing in six months, it's I'm going to feel really good today.

I know.

I mean for me, I'm one hundred percent on your page because I think if I'm struggling to go out for a run, or struggling to do go to the you know, do some strength training or whatever it is, I always say to my little man Trees, how will I feel afterwards? And the answer is always amazing. Well nine percent of the time. It's really the feeling that you should be focusing on when you're struggling with motivation.

Totally, we'll be.

Back after the shot break with more from Steph and Laura. Now, the other thing that came up in the Health of Nation report was consistency and I was on your page and one of your guiding ethos kick is to make healthy living as sustainable as possible. What's the secret when it comes to fitness? How can we create a sustainable workout plan or routine or something that will see us through well.

I think motivation comes into it a lot when it comes to consistency, and I think where a lot of people go wrong is by setting kind of a goal in which the routine is taking their part of routine.

From zero to one hundred.

And we really encourage people to start small and build healthy habits.

I mean, it's a whole reason why.

And with our New Year kind of challenge, the workouts were between five to twenty minutes long and there was three of them a week, so we weren't trying to overhaul people's lives with this new routine that meant that.

They were going to have to spend an hour of movement every single day.

It's about finding what works for you, what makes you feel good, and what can fit in your lifestyle. And so if you feel like you've been I know people call it like a rut of routine and you want to kind of start movement again, but you're not really sure where to start, Like, don't start by going to the gym six days a week and kind of expecting that it's just going to kick you into gear and

What a workout looks like to you.

So I think for me, the only way that I can stay consistent with movement is by being more flexible with how I define a workout.

It definitely used to be, oh, it's.

Got to be like forty five minutes long, it's got to be in a gym, got to be using weights, or've got to be getting a sweat on to count.

You know, that was my mindset a long time ago.

And when I had that mindset if I didn't have forty five minutes, it was like, oh well, I might as well do nothing.

And then you beat yourself up for not doing anything totally.

Yeah, exactly, but it can then be really easy to give up altogether as well.

So for me now every week looks so different.

You know, I have my intentions of what I know the golden routine would be for me.

I'm like the best.

Week of my life, but more often than not, it doesn't look that way. But what I do do is roll out the mat. If I know my intention was to move that day, maybe sleep didn't go as well as planned, or I'm not going to get time to go to the gym today, So I'm going to roll out my mat in between.

My toddler's toys on the.

Floor in front of BLUEI and get at least ten minutes of politis done and just see how I feel. If I've got more time up my sleeve and I've found more motivation and energy from that ten minutes, maybe I'll stack on another.

But more often than not, even that.

Ten minutes just makes me feel really really good about prioritizing that time for myself. So since redefining it, I've actually been way more consistent with my training because I don't put.

The pressure on it looking a certain way.

And it's mad setting yourself up for success, right, And that's why with the challenge that we designed with Health of the Nation that obviously everyone has access to for a month.

That has been designed very similarly to what SEF was saying right our New Year Challenge. It's four weeks, it's three workouts a week, they're five five to twenty minutes. And the reason for that is we want to set people up for success. We know a lot of people will be starting from a loan baseline or they've been out of routine for a long time, and so it's not about you know setting, I mean, you do set.

Yourself up for failure. If you expect yourself to do six movements.

A week and they are an hour when you go from zero, right, that's really really hard and so it's really important. It was really important to us in designing this challenge. It's in that we designed something that would set people up for success so when they finish, they feel empowered. They think, Okay, how can I keep this

I think your point, Steph was really good because so many of us are conditioned to think we should do three workouts a week. They need to be forty five minutes, and if we don't do it, you know, we feel guilty or we beat ourselves up about it. But being more flexible really is the key. How do you both approach your weeks of workouts? I mean, do you put them in your diary? Do you think, okay, this is my ideal, but if I meet this that's okay? Or how do you yeah, how do you both do this?

Scheduling in workouts is a really, really good good way to do it. I definitely do it for my gym workouts. Doesn't mean that it always stays on the day that I've done it, but then I always try and find that hour somewhere else that I can still get there. But I think when you have something scheduled in, just treat it like an appointment or a catch up with a girlfriend, like you wouldn't want to cancel.

So don't councel on yourself. And again, it might mean that.

You might have originally put half an hour of Matt Polarate's down for your morning, but you decided you really needed a sleep in, so you've only got time for ten. But don't rule it out, like, don't think I don't have half an hour anymore, so I won't do it at all.

And that's what I do.

So I have like the intention to visit the gym at least twice a week because strength training just makes feel incredibly empowered and I love it and I want to try and keep up my strength, particularly through pregnancy. And then Matt Polarates is where my flexibility comes in. That's where like whether it's five minutes or fifteen minutes or it becomes a stack, I just fit it in when I can in my week being a mom at

In, or if I can't get the mad out. It's incidental exercise.

So if there's weeks where I know works really busy, sleeps being shocking, it's probably a bad idea to actually push myself and go to the gym, because also rest is incredibly important. I'll just try and incorporate more incidental exercise, like catching the train to work and walking to it from a train station or coffee shop, and taking.

The stairs that work instead of the elevator every day. Things like that.

Laura, you have to be intentionally in some ways because you have got a lot of keys to get under your belt before your next marathon in April, how do you plan your weeks of workouts?

So I have to plan them and I think when I leave And this is the same like outside of marathon training and just normal training. If I leave it to I'll just do what I feel in the morning. It's then I don't have like, especially if I'm trying to fit in a workout before work, I'm so much more likely to snooze my alarm because i don't know what I'm going to be doing.

I've left myself.

Mental load, Like in the morning when you wake up and you have mental load in deciding what you have to want to do.

And also you want to listen to your body. That's very important.

So if I have planned to do a to say, I have a thirty k run on my.

Training program, I will have that very soon and I can't.

Yeah, you're.

Capable.

It's so much more than we know.

I have that, and I feel shocking in that morning. I will of course not do that. But you have to plan otherwise. When you leave yourself the mental load in the morning, it's like it's so much harder to be motivated because you're giving yourself another task to have to get through to be able to start your workout. So planning it is so important. Whether you're in or

Works.

Again, it's one less thing off your mental load, right that then in the morning you're like, Okay, I've prepared this for myself. I've made it so easy. I just have to put the clothes on and go. I find that helps a lot. But yeah, a lot of especially with marathon training. I've got a planet in my calendar.

Yeah, I would agree, even as someone who like can't necessarily plan that far ahead. If I know I'm going to the intention to roll out my mat in the morning, I'll look the night before at what polarates pass if obviously, unless I'm following the challenges on or whatever or a program, I'll just go through, explore our different palties classes and pick the night before and schedule it in.

Because it is true.

You do, you put everything you try and like, oh and then they'll make a coffee.

Yes, yeah, yeah, well just I have to go on to now.

Yeah, exactly.

And so if it's already there and you've already picked it, it does make it quick to get into it.

Now you're coming on board. You're kind of like the nation's cheerleaders. You want to get you know, many people active, many people back into fitness. Inspire them to maybe hit that marathon goal or whatever they're achieving, or the baby goal, baby baby making marathon goal, your fitness inspirations. Who inspires you when it comes to health and wellness.

It's funny every time I hear the word cheerleader, I just get flashbacks of all the tryouts that I had in high school and didn't get into cheerleader, right.

Okay, really wanted to be in.

But I think we're really lucky, particularly like with our business journey, but you know, on this topic, our sitness journey is having each other the.

Whole way through. Basically, like we met each.

Other when we were at our lowest point with our body image and our relationship with food and exercise. So I think going through that and growing through that with someone just means that you're you're each other's biggest cheerleader.

And seeing kind of the ups and downs of.

Life and our twenties and everything and figuring it out has been really special to kind of be there for one another, and I love it.

Like obviously when she's going through a marathon training, I just think it's absolutely phenomenal.

Insane, But I think being her best friend as well, like watching laws go through that year of really not prioritizing herself and getting injured a lot and getting sick a lot and then being able to flip that made me like so proud.

And I particularly love.

That she's getting into straight the training because it's something that I love to. So yeah, I think I think laws and I receive it too, like she's my biggest cheerleader as well. I feel like she always notices when things are either up or down and is always there to kind of pull.

Me out of it when it's down, which is nice. So I would say each other, Okay, Laura, I think.

Two is sev like obviously being like I am a nine hour sleep person, so Seph is probably averaging five to six at the moment. Like that to me is to see you get up and move your body, and it's it's like what we've spoken about. It's not in the conventional way that we've been told from Like you know, we had to a one hour sweat session. It's like doing ten minutes. It's better than nothing. And I think that is just amazing to saying to you, to role model to like so many.

Other mums, but also to the not mums. It's yeah, super inspirational.

And I think as well, the kick community is the most inspirational place for it because it's so often I'll be like, oh, I can't be bothered, and then I'll go on the community.

I can't build the move for my body.

I'll go on the community and then I'll see that, you know, someone has never run before and they started the zero to three k program and now they're doing a half marathon and you know they've built that up over the past six months, and that is I see

We're well done. It's lovely having you on board for the Health of the Nation campaign and thanks for coming on Healthy.

Thank thank you so much.

If you did like this chat, if you got something out of it, share it with a friend, share the healthy ish love, tell me about it, leave a review, or let me know via DM across social media. At Felicity Harley, as Laura and Steph said, you listeners can have one month free access to the Kick app. How good is that and make sure you join our Health of the Nation challenge. This is a four week challenge design to get you moving with Steph and Laura's favorite workouts.