Latest / The Body Pod / The Missing Link in Midlife Fitness: Pelvic Floor Health with the Buff Muff's Kim Vopni

Transcript

The Missing Link in Midlife Fitness: Pelvic Floor Health with the Buff Muff's Kim Vopni · The Body Pod

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: As we approach and move beyond menopause. The change in
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: estrogen levels is also another that's often the straw that
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: breaks the camel's back. The tissues lose, they become thinner,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: they're not as robust, not as resilient, They're dryer, more irritated,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and that can sometimes be what makes people more symptomatic.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: It could be what contributes to the challenges appearing maybe
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: for the first time, or making existing symptoms worse.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Hi everyone, My name is Haley and this is Laura,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: and welcome to the body Pod.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Here we go. Now we're regarding Welcome to the body Pod. Kim.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: We are so excited to have you.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: I have to say I was just in San Francisco
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: last week at a long of the conference with Stacy,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: and she shouted you out, like multiple times.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: This is what I love about Stacy.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I think that she's just so good at like bringing
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: everyone up with her. And then I heard her just
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: yesterday on her Instagram talking about pelvic floor. So I'm
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: super stoked to be here because I would say this
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: is the number one question that comes up with strength
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: training and just coming into this perimenopause postmenopause world. Where
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: As we're all figuring out it, like everything changes and
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: we kind of have to get used to this, this
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: new normal. So first of all, I'm dying to know
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: how you got the name the Vagina Coach.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: How did you come to own that title?
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: And what reaction do you normally get because I'm going
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: to say this really quick. I was in the car
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: with my husband talkie, I don't talking to someone on
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: my team, and he's just you know, driving me around,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: and I was like, no, we have the buff Muff tomorrow,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: like the vagina girl, and what the hell are you
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: talking about? Who are you having on your podcast? And
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: like you don't understand, but we're all so excited. So
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: how did that name come about?
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: It? Well?
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: It was a joke, honestly, not a joke. It was
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: an icebreaker for a talk that I was doing. And
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I have been in the pelvic floor space for just
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: over twenty years. And I initially started with pregnant women
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: and new moms because that's really the catalyst to what
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: got me into this. I was afraid of tearing in childbirth.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I actually grew up thinking I'm never having kids because
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I witnessed what my mom was going through. But then
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: when I met my husband and decided we want to
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: start a family, I was determined to have a different
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: story than my mom, and I watched my sister in
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: law give birth. She had birth completely different to what
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: you see in the media. They used midwives. So then
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the next year I was pregnant using midwives, and I said,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I really need to prevent tearing. I you know, I
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: watched what happened to my mom and she recommended this
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: product to me called the Epino, which is a biofeedback
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: device from Germany, and it helps women connect with their
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: pelvic floor and understand how to contract the muscles, how
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: to relax the muscles, which is of course very important
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: when you're birthing a baby. And you can also use
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: it rhstoratively afterwards to help retrain the pelvic floor. So
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: it made sense to me. Being a personal trainer, the
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: idea of stretching, strengthening, you know, biofeedback all made sense
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to me, and the principle of specificity, like I look
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: at birth and say, okay, this is like a physical
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: event we should be training for. And part of training
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: is also the recovery you do after your event. So
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: This is kind of the mindset I was in. I
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: was I had a program called Preparare to Push, was
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: really about helping empower women before they give birth about
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the pelvic floor, because we know pregnancy and childbirth are
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: major contributors to pelviot Flord disfunction. So at the time
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: being a personal trainer, I also trained as a doula.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I was known as the Fitness Doula, and I was
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: working primarily in this prenatal postpartum space. I had another
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: business called Bellies, Inc. Which still exists. I sold that company,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: but it was taking inspiration from other cultures around the
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: world that really honor this process of postpartum recovery that
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: we simply don't do very well in North America. And
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: we looked at many cultures, but particularly Asia. I lived
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: in Asia as a kid as a teen, and they
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: use wrapping, pelvic wrapping or belly binding as they call it,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: as part of their recovery. And so we took that inspiration,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: we made it a little bit more mainstream, coupled it
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: with exercise, and that was our postpartum recovery piece. I
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: was in that space for a while and then I
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: started to go through my perimenopause shit storm, excuse my language.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And I had no This was fourteen is years ago.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't know the term perimenopause. There was nobody talking
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: about it. I didn't know what was happening. But it
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: also veiled that pelvic health is now this other time
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of life we need to think about. And then oh,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and then there's postmenopause. And as we all of these stages,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: it's not just do your keik exercises and pregnancy and oh,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: here's a little wrap you can use postpartum. This is
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: really a life journey we have with our pelvis and
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: we need to honor it through all the different phases
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: we go through. A vagina coach. To come full circle
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: back to answer your question, I was speaking to a
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: group of women entrepreneurs. I knew I needed a bit
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of a brand change because Doula didn't resonate so much
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: with this perimenopausemenopause population. The group I was speaking to
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: were women entrepreneurs. It was called the Mompreneur Conference. All
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: of the speakers were some sort of business coach, marketing coach,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: strategy operations, and so when it was my talk, I
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: was saying, my talk was how optimizing your peblic health
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: can make you a better mompreneur. I come up on
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: stage and joke, now you have a vagina coach for
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: your business. And it was a joke.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: It was the.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Icebreaker coming off the stage, right, But it was just like,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: think the thing. That's what I have to do. I
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: have to step into this word that nobody likes to say.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: It's always gosh. It's part of the reason why there's
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: so much silent suffering because we can't even say the word,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: and social media doesn't allow us to say the word.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: It's changing a little bit now, but that's that's how
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: it happened. That's how I became the vagina Coach.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm obsessed with that.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I mean the vagina coach aka the buff Muff. I
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: mean you literally can't go with either of those titles.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: Where did buff muff come from?
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: That also was just so I if you follow a
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: lot of my stuff, Yes, I want to highlight proper
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: anatomical terminology, and all of us be comfortable saying that,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: but I also recognize we need a little lightness and
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: a bit of humor to a very heavy topic that
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: not many people are comfortable talking. About so I used
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: some slang terms and my podcast is between two Lips, and.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: I another good one, the.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Buff Muff, was I had this twenty eight day challenge.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I still have this twenty eight day challenge. And it
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: was at the time I had a program called Keigla Mojo.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: And when I was running these twenty eight day challenges,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I in my marketing was starting to say because I
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: had a photo of me flexing my bicep while holding
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: my Volva puppet, and I said, it's time to get
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: a buff muff. And I just used it as part
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: of the again the marketing, but more and more people
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: love that term. And I said, all right, so kigl
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Mojo is now becoming the buff Muff. And so it
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: just again somethings. You know, I can't say that I
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: had this master plan from the beginning. They just sort
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: of evolved with well, you're.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: Funny, so clearly it comes out you're naming.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: No. This is so great. And I love how you
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: said that North America really doesn't have this. Well it
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: didn't at least when I was giving birth sixteen years ago.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: I had a lot of a lot of issues with
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: the birth.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: The and uh, I would say I for sure should
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: have seen a pelvic floor physical therapist after I didn't
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: know they existed. And then I heard, like decades later
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: that this is part in Europe, this is part of
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: their post pregnancy care, like it's standard, it comes with
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: the package.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: And that made me really mad.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: But I will say I'll fast forward to about ten
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: years later, and I was seeing a physical therapist for
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: like this upper hamstring issue. Could not figure it out.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: This therapist was so great, she's in my groups now.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: I was living in New Jersey and honestly, like we
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: could not it. Just everything she was trying she could
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: not figure out. And she was like, have you had
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: any like trauma with like birthing trauma or anything like
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: with your pelvic floor? And I was like yeah, actually,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: and I told her this story about my youngest and
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: she was like, you need to see a pelvic floor
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: physical therapist.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: And I was like what was that?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: And I went in the first day, I didn't know
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: it was an internal exam. Like I was just like, cool,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: she's gonna be pressing on my uterus and like, you know,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: doing some stretches. And I went in and had zero clue.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: And when I left, I was kind of like what
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: just what just happened there? But if I didn't know it,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: and I was in the fitness world, I had just
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: never like I was kind of new to having babies
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: and maybe that I just didn't know it. But have
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: you seen this kind of widespread that women don't even
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: know what a pelvic floor physical therapist is?
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Thousand percent? And as I said, I've been doing this
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: for over twenty years, and I you know, I keep
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: saying to myself, they must know it now, everybody must
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: know this. Now I can feel like I repeat myself
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: and still every single day I've never heard of that,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Oh why didn't my doctor tell me about this? Or
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: well I've had paps along the way, why didn't anybody
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: refer me for you know? So it's super common, and yes,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: many parts of Europe do have this as standard care.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: And I hope in my lifetime that we see this
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: as a global practice because we've view right now pelvic
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: floor health, pelvic floor exercises something we do only if
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: we have a problem to fix. And then if we
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: go seek help, we get the classic go home and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: do your kegels or you can have surgery. Those are
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: sort of the two options, and a lot of people think, well,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: if I have this, then I guess I must need surgery,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: or pelvic exercise didn't work, so I'm going to do surgery.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Pelvic floor exercise may not work because nobody's really taught
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: you and nobody has evaluated your pelvic floor to see
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: if you are doing pelvic floor muscle training correctly and
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: also if that type of training is what your pelvic
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: color needs. It's we work in fitness. There is not
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: only one exercise that we do for our biceps or
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: our hamstrings. There are many different ways, different plans, different
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: ranges of motion, different speeds, different sets. Like there's so
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: many there's so much variation there. We need to take
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: fitness principles and apply it to the pelvic floor, and
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: a pelvic floor physical therapist, in my opinion, is the
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: gold standard for or evaluating your pelvic floor, and it
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: is something I recommend all women do, even if they
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: have no symptoms, once a year for a checkup. Just
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: like we go to the dentist once a year to
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: get a checkup, we should be doing the same thing
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: with our pelvit floor. And I think that that would
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: completely change this progression and moving into the different phases.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: So much suffering happens because we think it's normal, because
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: we're told it's just part of being a woman. Because
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: we're told, well, that's what happens after you have babies,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: that's just part of menopause. And we've heard it pass
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: down maybe from generations. Oh, that happened to my mom,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: And we just get in this acceptance phase. And part
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: of it is because we don't know the practitioners to seek,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and we then only have this one exercise that we
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: think we're supposed to do, and we know from research
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: that most women do them incorrectly. Not their fault. We've
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: never been taught. It's never been part of our conversations.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: And being in fitness, we learned about every other muscle
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: in the body, the origin, the insertion. Right, Why have
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: we not learned it should be standard in all fitness
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: education as well. When you're becoming a personal trainer or
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: fitness instructor. That is the foundation of the core, That
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: is how we transfer load through the body. If that's
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: not working optimally, your clients are going to want to
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: avoid certain movements or may not come back to you
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: because they don't want to talk to you. About your
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: pelvit floor and we as trainers need to open up
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: that conversation and we need to be one of the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: catalysts for referring people to pelvic PT, for normalizing this
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: conversation so that it's not hashash and people aren't suffering
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: in silence for so long.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: I assume that you probably have a good list.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Of physical therapists like that that you're always referring.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a directory, so way way way back, I
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: had I had a directory. I'm in Canada. I had
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: a directory of pelvit floor. They're called physiotherapists in Canada.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: And over time there's been a few other more robust lists.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: So Pelvicglobal dot com is a place I recommend people
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: go to. This was started by a PELVICPT out of Florida,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: doctor Tracy Share, and she has a directory of not
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: just pelvic physical therapist, but many different types of pelvic
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: practitioners and you can search by country or state or
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: zip code and it's a paid directory, so it's not
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: going to be an exhaustive list, but at least it's
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: a place to start. Good old Google and your city
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: is also a place you can start. And then I
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: give guidance on what to look for, because even if
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I said this is a great pelvic PT, it may
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: not be the right fit for you. As you know,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: it's a very intimate therapy and we want to have
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: we want to be able to build trust and have
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: a sense of comfort with this person. So whether or
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: not I think they're great, that you still need to
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: think they're great and have a connection to really have
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: success with it.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: Okay, so you think that everyone should is the first
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: step to get a practitioner and have that assessment.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I think it's if you take away one thing from
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: this podcast, I would say, yes, that is the one
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: thing that I think is it should be gold standard,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: and I think it really it can be absolutely like changing.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: That being said, geographically, there may not be somebody in
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: your area. Financially, it may be out of reach for
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: some people. Maybe people have a history of trauma or
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: abuse and that's not something that they are comfortable moving
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: forward with. So where people like myself come in, we
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: do our best within with not being able to work
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: one on one, with not being able to do internal evaluations,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: we do our best with queuing and imagery and education
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: and anatomy. I use a lot of different props in
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: my teaching so that people can take have a sense
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: of control on their own. I don't believe in outsourcing everything.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Going to see a pelvic pt is we shouldn't rely
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: on them to quote unquote fixed us. They can help
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: optimize that part of the body and make sure it's
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: working as part of the whole system. And then we
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: play a role in staying active and bringing it into
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: our fitness and doing all the other things. It's not
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: just about exercise in terms of optimizing pelvic health. So
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: I don't want to for those that may not have access,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say, well, I guess you're out
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: of luck. No, you absolutely still can do so much. However,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I do recommend it. I think it's the most underused
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: women's health resource that we have, and so many people
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: still do not know about it, and I think that
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: needs to change.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: Okay, so you said that women live, we shouldn't have
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: to live with these symptoms. So for our listener, what
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: are these symptoms? Because someone could be listening thinking, okay.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Do I have it?
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Am I suffering from it? We have a few different buckets,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: so to speak. So we have the incontinence bucket, and
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: in continence is there's a few different types. The most
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: common that people would know about would be stress urinary
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and continence. And this is where the pad companies tell
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: us it's just part of being a woman, and we
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: should just put this crinkly black underwear on and then
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: we can jump on the back of a motorcycle with
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: a handsome man and life is great. So stress urinary
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and continence is where we laugh, coughs, sneeze, jump, and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: a little bit of urine leaks out, and pads are
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: a band aid is very very treatable, especially with pelvic
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: floor muscle training. Then we have urgency or urging contents.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: This is where maybe I don't leak, but every time
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: I think or see a bathroom, or every time I
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: come home I put my key in the door, or
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: every time I hear running water, all of a sudden,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: my bladder gets very excited and I feel like I
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: need to race to the bathroom and I may not
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: make it, I may leak a little, I might lose
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: completely control of my bladder. You can have both, so
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: mixed in continence is both stress and urge, and we
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: have anal incontinence so leaking gas or store less common,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: but much more life altering. We have urinary urgency, which
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: we talked about, and then urinary frequency. So the people
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: who also will say, well, I have to plan my
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: whole day around the bathroom. I'm in the bathroom every
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: twenty minutes, every four minutes. I don't like to go
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and do this because what if there's no bathroom closed
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: by and they're feeling like their whole life is just
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: being in the bathroom. Some people will say they have
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: an overactive bladder, and that is a medical diagnosis that
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: requires some testing to see if that's truly an overactivity
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: of the detrucer muscle. Medication may potentially play a role,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: but within medical care currently we don't have a ton
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: of time with our doctors. So usually if we go
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: in complaining of how the health symptoms, I feel like
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I have to go to the bathroom all the time,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: it feels very urgent within that short time and with
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: a doctor we may be given overactive bladder medication and
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: told to do kegels without the root cause investigation to
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: why and is it truly overactive bladder. Then we have
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: pelvic organ prolapse. Statistically, this is actually more common than
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: in continence, but nobody knows about it. Fifty percent of
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: women who've given birth have some degree of prolapse. Prolapse
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: is where the bladder, the uterus, the rectum. Sometimes the
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: intestines the urethra shift out of their proper anatomical position
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: and they can bulge into or descend into the vagina.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Early stage prolapse is often asymptomatic, and part of the
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: reason I recommend people see a pelvic pt even if
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: they have no symptoms is to screen for pelvic organ
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: prolapse because if we can catch it early, we have
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: much more opportunity to definitely prevent it from getting worse,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: but potentially even improve sometimes even reverse the early stage prolapse.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: And this is the one that it can happen to
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: people who've never been pregnant. Constipation is a very big contributor.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Chronic coughing is a big contributor. Heavy occupation of lifting.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Lifting without awareness of the pelvic floor can be contributing factors.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Connective tissue disorders or posture like There's many, many different
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: things that can contribute to pelvic floridysfunction, but nobody knows
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: about it, and people are sidelined when they receive this diagnosis,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: and when it's more advanced, people see or feel a
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: bulge at the opening and they think they have a tumor.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: So again, we need to screen for these things and
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: understand that it can happen to everybody or anybody. It's
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: not your fault. There's a lot we can do to help,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and surgery is not always that's Surgery is often recommended,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: especially for prolapse, but it's it so often. If we
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: catch it earlier, we can improve or even reverse it.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: But also if you do have surgery, in my opinion,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: that increases the need for pelvic color muscle training. But
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: people are given the belief that we fix the problem
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and now you don't need that anymore, and I wholeheartedly disagree.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: The last category would be pelvic pain. Many many different
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: types of pelvic pain. It could be pain in the
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: bony scaffolding, the pubic joint, the tailbone, the hips, could
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: be pain in and around the volva. It could be
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: pain with insertion with sex. It could be pain in
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and around just like the opening of the vagina could
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: There's many different types and even like pudendal nerve pain,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: endometriosis can be a contributor to pelvic pain. There's many again,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: different contributing factors, different types of pain, and a pelvic
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: PTI can help uncover root causes, contributing factors, help you
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: address all of those things, so much of it can
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: be within our control. So those would all those are
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the three main categories, and statistically, in consonance is usually
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: around you know, thirty five to forty ish percent if
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: you look at research, prolaps fifty percent of women who've
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: given birth, but again, anybody can experience it. More commonly
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: diagnosed postmenopause pelvic pain varying varying statistics depending on the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: type of pain, but anywhere from like seven to kind
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: of eighteen twenty ish percent, depending on the type of
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: pain you're talking about.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm shook at the statistic. The fifty percent will
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: have like even mild prolapse. So tons of us are
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: walking around and we have no idea. Okay, and then
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: when does it get to the point where when somebody
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: knows that they have prolapse and they're probably passed maybe
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: the mild diagnosis they probably went in and discovered. I mean,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: is it like stage one stage two, Stage three, Stage one,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: We don't know, like what does that look like to
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: where the prolapse is almost like yeah, coming out of
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: the vagina.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it would be a stage four. So in
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: North America we do four stages or grades. Stage four
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: or grade four is the most advanced and where that's
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: where there is a visible bulge outside the opening of
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the vagina, and I want to we have a sense
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: of things falling out. Nothing is going to fall out
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: on the floor. There are still support structures that are
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: holding things, even maybe if it's not in the right position,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: so it's not going to fall out onto the floor.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: In the case of a bladder prolapse, the bladder bulges
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: into the front wall of the vagina, so when you
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: see or feel a bulge, you're actually seeing the wall
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: of the vagina being pushed by the bladder. On the
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: back wall, the rectum can do the same on the
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: back wall of the vagina. And in the case of
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the uterus, the uterus can descend from the top down.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: So we can't always self assess, but you can sometimes
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: if you insert a finger, you may feel, especially if
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: it's cervical, it feels sort of like hard, like the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: tip of your nose where if somebody was to look
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: they could see sort of that it is the cervix.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: But you can have you could have all three, you
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: could have just one. People who've had a hysterectomy yard
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: an increased risk of incontinence and prolapse. And sometimes the
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: reasons and they had the hysterectomy was because of prolapse,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: and that would then further increase their risk. But nobody
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: is told about these increased risks after hysterectomy. Three most
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: common reasons prolapse, heavy bleeding, and fibroids. And again, if
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: we can intervene with some other root cause investigation, we
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: may be able to address the heavy bleeding. Maybe maybe
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: not the fibroids, but definitely the prolapse. And my recommendation
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: is if you are considering surgery and a hysterectomy, to
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: talk about uterine suspension rather than taking the uterus out.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: It's not just a you know, it's not just oh,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: it's you don't need it anymore, you're done having kids,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: or you're never going to have kids, or let's just
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: take it out you don't need it. It is a
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: support structure within the pelvis. We need our uterus and
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: we want to do what we can to maintain it.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: So pelvic flore muscle training plays a role in that.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Our posture plays a role in that avoiding constipation, making
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: sure we have a good reaction time and a big
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: capacity in the pelvit coort to manage the loads of liftingessories.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Pessories are like orthotics that are inserted into the vagina
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: that can help support any organs that are shifting out
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: a position. I'm starting to talk more about potentially a
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: prophylactic benefit of pessories for some people. I don't want
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: to give the impression that we should all be wearing
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a pessary, but sometimes I'm like, well, maybe we should,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: especially people who have given birth. As we approach and
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: move beyond menopause. The change in estrogen levels is also
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: another that's often the straw that breaks the camel's back.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: The tissues lose, they become thinner, they're not as robust,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: not as resilient, They're drier, more irritated, and that can
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: sometimes be what makes people more symptomatic. It could be
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: what contributes to the challenges appearing maybe for the first time,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: or making existing symptoms worse.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: I've never heard of a pessary, am I saying it
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: me either? And do you put that in daily? It's
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: something that you would just put in to place and
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: then at night you take it out or how long
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: do you wear it?
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's many different shapes sizes. Some can be over
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: the counter, some are you would need to get a
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: prescription through a ur gynecologist or some pelvic floor pets
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: that do fit pessories as well. So the most common
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: is a ring PESSORI. I'll show you a couple of.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: Image to see you this is so fascinating.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, So these are just a few of the shapes.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Most commonly, somebody would start with a ring pessory and
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: it is silicone. What you would do is you fold
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: it like a taco, you insert it. When it opens up,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: it provides support to the walls and sort of hooks
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: almost behind the pubic joint, so it can provide a
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: little bit of support. Now, if somebody had a uterine prolapse,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: that there's a space there, so maybe they would have
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: something that would have a membrane in the middle. This
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: is another one that would be used for a uterine prolapse.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: This one as well, the ones that have knobs on them.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: If somebody has pelvic organ prolapse and maybe they also
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: have in continents, the knob is an additional level of
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: pressure against against the urethra to help prevent leaks. Not
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: always effective for every single person, but that could potentially
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: be a role. There are also one so this is
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the donut pessory. There are some that are you insert it,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: you inflate it with this device. You then unclip it
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: in it you can inflate it to however much space
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you need to occupy. There's another one that's quite common
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: called the cube, and you can have a cube or
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: a double cube. And so myself, I have had stress
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: and continence. I addressed it very quickly once I understood
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: this is now like eighteen no, maybe like yeah, eighteen
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: years ago ish. I've had a uterine prolapse I was
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: able to reverse on my own. I've had a recticle
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: I had a surgical repair for that. I do still
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: have a bladder prolapse early stage. And I also have
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: something called a levator avulsion. A levater evulsion is where
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: part of the pelvic floor muscles where they attach close
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: to the pubic joint. Let me show you another.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: I'm already feeling like we need to have a part
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: two to this entire because.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I know there's a lot.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: So here's twelve things I've never heard of.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: So here's our, here's our like this is external our vulvak.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: And now if I turn it around, if we were
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: looking inside, this would be the tube of the vagina, okay,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: And here you can see the sling of part of
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: the pelvic floor muscles that attached to the pubic joint.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Are you with me on that? So up at the front,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: and there's something called I'm just going to take this out.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: So this would be the two sides of the It's
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: called the levator ani. It's a group of the pelvic
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: floor muscles and they attached close to the pubic joint,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and in something called the levator revulsion, which happens in
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: statistics say about eighteen to thirty percent of vaginal births,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: the pelvic floor can lose its attachment to the bones.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It can be a partial, it could be a complete.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: It could be one side, it could be both sides.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: And you can imagine if that happens now a huge
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: element of support is gone in so I this is
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: not screen for either. More pelvic pts, especially with models
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: like this, are now learning how to assess for this
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: again should be standard care. But I found out fourteen
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: years after the birth of my second that I have
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: a partial evulsion on my left side because I kept thinking,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: I do all this stuff, I do everything, and I
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: could never get could never you know, there's a score
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: that you have an evaluation with your pelvic pete and
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: it was never improving no matter what I was doing,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: and I always still felt vulnerable. Why is that? And
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: now I know? So sometimes that can create some challenges
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: with pessor reinsertion. Maybe it wouldn't quite sit properly, but
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: there's so many different sizes and shapes it may take
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: a little while to find the right one for you.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so some people wear them just for the day,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Some people wear them just for exercise. Some people some
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: pestories can be put in and left in for weeks,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: even upwards of months. Some people do it themselves insert removes.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Some people see their care provider to have it inserted,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: removed and cleaned and then reinserted. So there's lots of
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: variation there, and there's also a lot of innovation happening
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: in the space finally, because we all have different anatomy,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: and those while they can be very very beneficial and
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: have been very beneficial over the years. Now innovation of
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: three D printing, personalizing pessories. There's one that I'm wearing
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: right now called the Rahea Pessori, and this is something
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: that is very easy to insert and remove on your own.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: It's a really brilliant design. Lots of over the counter ones,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the Uresta, We've just lost one on the market called
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the Poison Pressa. There's another one called the Revived Bladder Support.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: So those I recommend people. You can get them on Amazon,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: you can get them on the internet. Try those on
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: your own first, and if you feel like you need
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: a little bit more then you can pursue the prescription
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: ones through your gynecologist or your pt.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, two questions your faces are both way.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: Can you have sex with the passai?
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Some you can?
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: Not.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: All the ring pessories, the ones that are sitting a
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: little higher, the ones that don't have membranes or the
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: other sort of the stem or the cube, really really
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: space occupying ones, No, but some of them can yes.
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: Which I would assume no on those but just wondered
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: and then does it correct the problem? Is it training
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: your insides your muscles to correct.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: The problem, or we don't have really rope. There's no
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: evidence to say if you wear this it's going to
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: fix your prolapse. We do have some evidence that looks
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: at over time, some people notice they change the size,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: they don't need it as often. Some people anecdotally will
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: report that they feel like their muscles work better because
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: it has taken the bulge out of the way that
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the muscles are having to manage. If that makes sense.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: So it can potentially, but nothing right now saying that
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: that is going to cure you, but it is something
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: that could help people while they're waiting for surgery. It
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: could be something that helps people avoid surgery. Eighty percent
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: of people can be treated effectively with pessories. So for
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: people who definitely want to surgery, this is a really,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: really great option to pursue. I will say, in the
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: perimenopause menopause, if that's the phase of life you're in,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: you really really really need to make sure you have
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: a well estrogenized vagina. You need to have vaginal estrogen
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: on board and or vaginal DHA because we need the
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: tissues to be juicy and robust and resilient to support that,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: especially if it's inserted and reved daily, but also the
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: ones that are inserted and left in if that can
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: create almost like abrasions on really thin, dry tissues. So
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: if somebody is postmenopause, they haven't had vaginal estrogen, I
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: would recommend they start using it for a period of
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: two to three months before they start using a pesteror
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: on a regular basis.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Just to get everyone should be using vaginal estrogen everybody
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: from the start of their menopause for the rest of
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: their life.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Earlier if symptoms indicate postpartum. So we have genitourinary syndrome
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: of menopause, which is signs in symptoms, genital signs and symptoms,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: urinary sexual All the symptoms I just listed to you
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: fall under GSM as well.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: Waiting at night.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: I forgot to mention that one. And then those same
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: things apply to another low estrogen state called postpartum genitourinary
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: syndrome of lactation. So that's a fairly new sort of
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: expansion on GSM, recognizing that that is not the only
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: low estrogen state that we have in our lives, and
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: even with our menstrual cycle just before we bleed, we're
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: in a low estrogen state. So a lot of people
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: say their symptoms feel worse right before their period or
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: sometimes during their period because the uterus is also bigger
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: and heavier. But we're also in that low estergen state.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: So vaginal estrogen. Yes, I'm a huge it's so much
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: evidence to support how incredibly beneficial that is for so
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: many things. And I recommend from the start of your
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: menopause onwards for the rest of your life unless symptoms
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: indicate earlier.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that I have all of these issues because
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I had big, big babies, three of them.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: And okay, few questions with the little.
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: The thing, the PESI some of your can movement and motion.
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: I'm done.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure this out.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: So while you said you could have sex with some
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: of them and then not with others, what about if
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: you were using the the little.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Like not using a tampon, but you were using like
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: the little.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Cup thing like a menstrul cup.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like weird? Are these is something that get lost
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: in there?
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Like if you have the pestory, you have the menstrual cup,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: like I just feel like I would.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: I'm messing something up for sure.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Menstrual cup, so you wouldn't. Some people will find that
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: using a menstrual cup can sometimes feel supportive as a
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: pestory would, and it would be difficult to use the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: two together together. Okay, ye, yes, so give sure I'm
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: not going rogue here.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: That's a good question. A lot of yeah, ending up
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: in the er or something.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: So when you have to have surgery, is that like
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: the sling that people talk about or what is.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: The surgery that you're referring to? And are there different ones?
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, many different surgeries, most commonly for incontinents, so stress
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: urinary in continence. This is the laughing, coughing, sneezing, lifting.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: Lee a trampoline. I just.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, there is the other day.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: So yes, okay, pay attention to that, you know. We
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: we can just say there was a there was a
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: I'll get to your question. Sorry, I just want to
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: say one thing that there was a video gosh, maybe
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: even ten years ago now, as CrossFit was really starting
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: to come into the scene and become very popular, there
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: was a video that came out that was talking with
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: highlighting how many people leak during box chumps or CrossFit competitions,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: and in this video, I'm not saying CrossFit is bad,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: but it was highlighting that it was being normalized. And
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: while I appreciated they were addressing the conversation, it was
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: being laughed off and accepted as that's just what it
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: takes to be the strongest, fittest woman in the world.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: And I think, no, that's a part of the body
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: that is not able to manage that load and we
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: need to change something. So it's a signal the body
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: is sending you and you need to pay attention to it.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that exercise is bad, doesn't mean it's
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: not safe for the pelvit floor. I get that question
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: all the time. Is this safe? Is this not safe?
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: What's not safe? It's not about safe and unsafe, It's
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: about what tolerance or what capacity does your pelvit floor have?
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: And if you are experiencing symptoms in that movement and
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: that exercise, what variables could we change. Is it because
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: you're maybe just before a period a low estrogen state.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Is it because you didn't poop well that day, maybe
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: didn't sleep well the night before, Maybe you're really stressed
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: and you have a lot of tension in your muscles.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was you were holding your breath and bearing down.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was because you were fine until twelve reps,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: but as soon as you did thirteen fourteen, it was
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: it was fatigued. And now we need to build up
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: some more endurance in that. So there's so many variables,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: you know from being in fitness, there's many things we
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: can change with an exercise to make it more effective,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: make it more suitable for a person. But we view
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the pelvic floor as oh, that's bad for the pelvic
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: floor or that's dangerous for the pelvic flora. We need
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: to look at that differently and just say what variables
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: can we change.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say that's a perimenopause and me,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: I totally for too.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: What did I ask?
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, maybe what's working because I'm usually the
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: one that recalls.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: So these surgeries are so the one you said, the
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: sling surgery. This is very common for stress urin aerrying
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: continence and it is basically a piece of mesh that
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: it is attached in a way to add the kink
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: back into the urethra to help to help prevent leaks.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Very successful surgery. However, with any surgery, I invite people
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: to really do a root cause investigation and make sure
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: they have addressed the contributing factors to stress and continence
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: or pelvic flor dysfunction first. So many people go into
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: surgery and again think fix my problem, and they haven't
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: address the contributing factors. So then they come out and
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: then two years later they're now experiencing the same thing
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: because they haven't addressed those root causes. So that's a stress.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: You're a airring conscience. There is no surgery for urgency
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: or urgent continents. There are many different surgeries repairs for
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: prolapse pelvic pain. If it was like an endometriosis that
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: is contributing to some pain, potentially surgeries for endometriosis may
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: help alleviate some of the pain. But there really aren't
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: pelvic pain surgeries. It's mainly prolapse in continents. There are
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: also cosmetic changes that some people may choose for their
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: bulba or vagina labia perineum, but with any surgery, please
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: see a pelvic pt first, Please understand your root causes.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Please make sure you establish a peliclor fitness program first,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: and you are consistent with it, and my bias is
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: based on my own bias, but also based now on research.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Kegels aren't. They aren't the magic exercise. They can help
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: for a very few people. But people think of it, well,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I'll do kegels and then oh, it fixed my problem
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: and now I'm done. I don't need to do it anymore.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: We also we need to recognize, just like we don't
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: stop brushing and flossing if our dentist says we don't
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: have any cavities, need to continue with the maintenance of
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: pelviclore muscle training and rather than it becoming another thing
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: on the to do list, which our to do list
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: becomes much greater in perimenopause and menopause, and we have
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: a lot more things within our bodies to look after.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: People are like, oh gosh, now I've got to do this.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: But if we incorporate it into our resistance training, into
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: our yoga, into our plates, if we bring the two together,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: which that's what the pelvic floor is always along for
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the ride, but we want to make sure it's around
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: for the ride and able to manage the loads of
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: whatever else it is that we're doing. But if we
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: don't train the pelvic floor dynamically with whole body movement,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: with explosive movement, and if we don't do it in
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: a progressive overload manner, that's when symptoms may show up
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: with specific exercises. But so many people then jump to
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: the surgery thinking that's going to fix my problem. They
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: go back to doing what the contributing factor was without
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: addressing the function, and that's why we have such a
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: higher recurrence rate in pelvic surgeries.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: What is your thought on your reath through bulking agents
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: and neuromodulation.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: It's like filler if you think of what we may
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: put filler in our faces, it's like filler for the
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: space around the arethra. As with any intervention or device,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: there's I get asked daily about the kegel chairs and
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: take that money, invest it in a pelvic pt first,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: if you can to understand again the root causes, because
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: if you haven't had consistent muscle training, if you're low estrogen,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: if you're constipated, if you have really poor posture, if
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: you have really tight muscles, we can bulk it up
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: and it might help a little bit, but it's not
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: actually addressing the problem, and they can be costly, so
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: take the money, invest in getting an understanding first, and
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: then do we all know the foundations, sleep well, hydrate,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: make sure we're eating properly, do our resistance training. We
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: need the fundamentals in place from a pelvic health perspective,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: which many of them are the same that we address
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: our whole body health with. Then if we need additional
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: so maybe somebody like me with a with an evulsion,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: sometimes people have a bilateral evulsion, they may need may
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: need some additional support, but we still have to have
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: the fundamentals in place first.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: So then the physical therapists can diagnose and say, hey,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: you've got a prolapse here, or I have a bunch
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: of scar tissue from a DNC that I'm sure plays
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: into some of that.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I mean it has to thousand percent, but.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess the finding a good physical therapist is
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: like finding your favorite HRT doctor or massage therapist. Like
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: it's just a handful of people that you need in
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: your like in your health routine, because man, I would
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: have had no idea about half of these things.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the scar tissue piece is very common, and
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: that is something that also once you've had surgery, you
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: now have scar tissue. Scar tissue can influence and potentially
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: hinder function of muscle to some extent. I'm not saying
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: that if you have scar tissue your muscles are you're
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: absolutely going to have dysfunction, but it can be one
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: of the things that may be hindering the ability of
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: the pelvic floor to respond at the right time, to
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: generate the appropriate force to close the openings, to provide support,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: to do so in a balanced way.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: It's a you know, we have two sides that it's
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: a front back side.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: It's a bowl or hammock, however you want to talk
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: about it, and we need that to We need sort
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: of a global response, so to speak. And scar tissue
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: can anywhere in the body can hinder blood flow circulation,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: may create some sort of stickiness that doesn't allow the
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: muscles to really move and react as we need them
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: And that would cause pain with intercourse as well.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Right it could.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: It won't always, but it could. This is fascinating.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: So to go back to the strengths training here because
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: this is the question that I get asked all the
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: time I have prolapse, and I don't get any information
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: other than that, like not stage one, stage four whatever,
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: which I'm sure we'll play into the recommendations can I lift?
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: Should I be lifting heavy?
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, you need to co talk to your
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: physical therapist, like you need to have more information because
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: I'm not diagnosing or telling you exactly what to do,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: but what does that look like when somebody has can
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: they lift heavy?
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: On?
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: At stage one?
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: So this comes back also to the is this safe
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: for me to lift heavy? So we know in the
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: perimenopause menopause space, everybody's telling us we need to lift
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: heavy shit, and we need to do impact exercise, we
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: need to do sprint interval training, we need do all
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: these things. And there's a bunch of women here who
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: have pelvit thlortisfunction who are saying I can't do that.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: I've been told not to do that. That doesn't feel
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: good when I do those, But that is because we
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: haven't been given appropriate pelvit floor education and care along
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: the way. We know from studies forty six percent of
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: women stop exercising because of their pelvit floor. And this
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: was wow, maybe it was close to five ish thousand women.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: I don't quote me one hundred percent on that, but
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of them were younger. So if we think
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: about reaching our peak bone mass and we start losing
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: it at these are young people who are then stopping
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: in that peak phase. Think about the risks of osteoporosis, ibets,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: all the things. I think this is part of what's
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: contributing to that, potentially maybe even increasing that. I also
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: want to highlight that we are more than our pelvic floor.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: So people who say is this safe for my pelvit floor,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: you could argue is it safe not to lift heavy?
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Think about the consequences of not having impact in your
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: life of not lifting heavy. So rather than thinking of
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: the pelvit floor as the silo over here, let's bring
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: it into the system the body, the whole body, so
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: to speak, and train it underload, progressive overload. There will
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: be a point where everybody's different and certain movements for
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: me with my history don't feel great. But I still
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: jump in ways that I can and that feels good
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: for me. I still lift heavy in ways that feels
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: good to me. I didn't just pick up the heaviest
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: weight and start doing it. I have done a lot
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: of the foundation training to make sure my pelvit floor
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: can respond to that. There was also another study done
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: by doctor Lori Fearner, Canadian physiotherapist who now lives in
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: the United States. Sorry, in Australia. I think she's still
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: in Australia, not New Zealand, but she does a lot
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: of research. She did a study that a sort of
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: a sub section of this study looked at women with
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: prolapse and heavy lifting, and they had a mild, sorry
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: a light, moderate, heavy, and heavy was greater than fifty
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: kg's andy. This was about prolapse symptoms, so not saying
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: that this improved or worsened prolapse. It was nothing about that.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: It was simply women who had symptoms, did it improve
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: or worsen their symptoms? And the women who lifted the
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: heaviest had the fewest symptoms. Interesting. Right, So my response
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: to people who come to you and say I have prolapse, yes,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: absolutely recommend them to a pelvic PT Ask are they
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: managing it with a pessary? Have they done any pelvic
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: floor muscle training? We as trainers can There are many
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: courses out there now that you can learn. I've got
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Wondre's Brianna Battles has One Girl's Gone Strong, where fitness
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: professionals can learn female physiology anatomy, including the pelvic floor
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: and how to screen for it within our scope, and
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: how to then prescribe movement. And we need to apply
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: the same principles we would with a beginner. Let's connect
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: to that muscle. If we don't understand how to connect
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: to the muscle, it's hard to work it. Now, let's
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: use different queueing, different imagery. Let's add some sets, some reps. Now,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: let's coordinate it into some beginner movements, like a pelvic tilt,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: like a bridge like uh, it's called a hover, like
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: a kneeling position cat cow. Then let's go more upright.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Let's do some squads, let's do some lunges. We can
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: bring the pelvic floor, the voluntary activation and relaxation that
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: we think of as a kegel into those movements using
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: the breath as well. So the breath is a really
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: important partner. It works in synergy with the pelvic floor.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Inhales expand and relax the pelvic floor. Exhales contract and
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: lift the pelvic floor. So different breathing strategies happen. Is
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: different lifting styles, and we may need to change that
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: depending on the person, depending on the strategy depending on
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: the weight. But to say that heavy lifting is bad
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: for the pelvic floor is inaccurate, and I think you
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: could argue does more harm if we're thinking the population
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: who is afraid to move because they might have been
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: told don't lift anything over ten pounds, and that's not realistic, right,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: And so we need to train hard so that life
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: is easier right now, if we make our training easy,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: or if we don't train at all, then when something
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: maybe even moderately hard, just naturally happens. I think of
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: just like lifting your suitcase into the overhead bin. If
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: we haven't trained in movement like that, that increase in pressure,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: the pelvic floor doesn't build tolerance to that and could
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: potentially create an issue. Not saying that by training you
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: will never have any issues your pelvic floor, but let's
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: step in and mitigate the risks.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this kind of goes along with that.
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: You've cited that ninety five percent of women with lower
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: back pain have pelvic floor dysfunction. Can you talk about
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: the connection because I suffer from lower back pain and
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: I was really fascinated by that statistic.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was from a study done by doctor shaneed Defoor.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Who is a Canadian pelvic health physio mainly researcher now,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: and this was I believe the exact stat was ninety
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: five point three. I believe it was. So this is
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: women who were coming in for low back treatment and
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: upon evaluation finding they also have some sort of pelvic
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: floor dysfunction. When we think of the core, the pelvic
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: floor is the foundation of the core. We aren't taught that.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Not really many people know that. We don't think of
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: the breath or the breathing diaphragm being part of the core.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: We think of it as the ads and the low
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: back and the deepest abdominal layer, the transversus subdominus is
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: people think of as the corset muscle. Then we have
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: the obliques, then we have the six pack, the outer layer,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: and the deepest abdominals, the transverses of dominus, the diaphragm,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: the pelvic floor, and the spinal stabilizers called the multifidis
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: are what I many people refer to it as the core,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: canister or cylinder. I say the core four. And we
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: need synergy between that core four for control, stability, load transfer,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: and when something is not working optimally, it disrupts the
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: synergy of that core four and can lead to oftentimes pain, prolapse,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: and continents like it can lead to challenges. So we
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: know that when the pelvic floor contracts and lifts, there
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: is a sim taneous there should be a simultaneous co
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: contraction of the deepest layer of abdominals, the transversus abdominance.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: So when we hear in fitness sometimes people in fitness classes,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: you'll hear engage your core or pull your belly button
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: into your spine. The intention of that queue is to
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: activate the transversus. However, if we know that the pelvic
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: floor should co contract, so an engaged core is like
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: a pelvic floor and transversus coke contracting. Let's go from
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: the bottom up, because if we only think of this
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: belly button to spine, a lot of people really they're like,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: I want to do the best, and they will make
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: this so strong and they really engage and often bear down.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: And again, if the pelvic floor hasn't been trained as
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: part of that co coordination, that could be a lot
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: of pressure downwards and could also potentially create some challenges.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: So we need to retrain the co contraction, the relationship
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: with the diaphragm and the pelvic floor that core four synergy,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: and just by optimizing the breath alone can sometimes alleviate
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: back pain. And this is again that core for system.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: But if we have pain, if we have in continents,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: if we're worried that we're not going to find a bathroom,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: if we feel like our organs are shifting, we hold
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: tension in our pelvic floor. We're always on guard. And
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: that tension doesn't allow good blood flow, doesn't allow circulation,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: doesn't allow the muscles to go through their range of
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: motion to do all the things that we need to,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: and it disrupts that synergy. So if we're trying to
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: breathe in the pelvic floor is not letting go, we
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: can't breathe as efficiently. We might become now constipated as well.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: We're probably going to get some pain in our hips
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: and our glutes. So it's I'm talking in circles, but
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: I'm just it's highlighting that it is all connected.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: And the.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Transfer of load when we don't have the synergy of
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: the pelvic floor and the deep abdominals is a major contributor.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: To there's so much I feel like I just learned
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: new language. Like there's so much to this conversation.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: Also good So so Kim, you have an app, what
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: does that look like? What programs do you have on there?
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: What is your twenty eight day challenge?
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: What does that? What do you do in that twenty
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: eight day challenge? And how can this help midlife women?
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: So my bias, again I didn't talk about the research
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: that I was happy came out. My bias is we
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: should be training the pelvic floor dynamically as part of
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: a whole body system, and it should We should build
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: up tolerance so it experiences the loads of the lifting
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: that we are doing and the jumping we're doing and
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: all the things. And because many people come to this,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: maybe they've done kegels for a million years, maybe they haven't,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: but they're experiencing challenges. Menopause is usually the time where
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: they might have more time in their life. Maybe now
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: they have more money, maybe they're the loss in estrogen
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: is what it's like, really putting them over the edge.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: But that's a time where people are now more inclined
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: to take action, usually because there's a problem. And rather
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: than these the blankets go home into your kegels, which
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: you know is not effective. Let's instead of making this
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: another thing on your to do list, bring it into
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: whatever it is you're doing, so that the buff Muff
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: app The buff Muff Method is an introductory program that
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: is very low cost. I wanted to make it as
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: accessible to most people. That lays out the foundations, teaches
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: you what I call the core breath, so synergizing that
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: deep core, that core for showing you how to layer
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: it into movement, giving you a few different workouts to do,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: but also highlighting this is not just about a couple
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: of exercises. We have to look at things like your posture.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: We have to make sure you're pooping well every day.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: If you're constipated, that's going to make you feel like
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: you have to go pee more often and more frequently.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: And if you're straining, that's going to contribute to pelvic
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: organ prolops. We know that from research as well. So
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: it's about a holistic view of how optimizing the pelvic
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: floor can improve and allow us to do all the
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: other things that will keep us healthy and aging as
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: we're well healthy and strong as we are aging. We
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: know that urinearing continence increases fall risk, hip fracture risk,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: so many people are getting hip replacements, knee replacements. The
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: pelvic floor is going to be implicated in that as well.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: So I want to give people the tools to rebuild
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: their foundation, whether ideally it's preventive and proactive. They don't
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: have that many people doing that yet. It's mostly the
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: people on the other side who are now trying to
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: fix something. It's never too late. So this gives you
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: the whole body approach. If you want more support and
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: guidance and different workouts and YadA YadA. I have a
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: membership community where people can come in and learn an
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: additional technique called the hype oppressive method. The buff Muff
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: approach is really the voluntary activation, so retraining the reaction
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: time of the pelvic floor, building up strength and endurance,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: and coordinate it into whole body movement. From a prolapse perspective,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: that can be helpful for early stage prolapse. We know
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: once things are a little bit more advanced in terms
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: of being able to improve or reverse something else called
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: the hypopressive method. It looks very similar to the stomach
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: vacuum done in bodybuilding or udianavanda and yoga, and it
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: creates a pressure change and a vacuum that sort of
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: lifts the organs. So that's an additional technique that people
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: can learn. But it's also a community where people. We
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: have coaching calls and people come in and they see
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: hundreds of people and they realize I'm not alone in this,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: and they can sit on like a fly on the
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: wall and learn from the questions of other people. They
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: can learn from the answers I provide, they can have
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: access to. You know, it's hard to get access to care,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: and so having a place where you can come and
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: ask and maybe somebody else has been there is an
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: incredibly value resource just to take out the isolation associated
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: with pelvic floriace function. That's incredible.
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: Well, that would be extremely helpful to hear other people's
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: stories and how it connects to you. Do you think
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: we should be training our pelvic floor in our twenties?
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: Is this something we should just start.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: It's a body.
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: Part that we have not been training that we should
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: be paying attention to from the beginning.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: One thousand percent. When we are teaching kids about the
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: menstrual cycle, about sexual health, about our bodies, we need
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: to have the conversation around pelic health and the importance
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: of that and why those with female anatomy will face
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: additional levels of challenge because the pelvis is wider, because
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: they have a vagina, because they have a uterus, because
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: they menstruate, because they have hormonal fluctuations, because many of
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: them will become pregnant at some point in their life
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: and give birth. We need to plant that seed earlier
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: and from the time they are sexually active. They add
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: the pelvic floor physical therapist as part of their annual
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: check in. Your teeth goes to your pelvic PT for
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: your pelvicloor and when the like in the future. I'm
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: hoping also for any fitness certification, the pelviclor is in
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: that initial certification. All fitness professionals need this information. They
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: need to help screen for it. They need to understand
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: how movement can help or potentially hinder it, and that
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: then as people are learning fitness, it's just part of
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: the conversation. So one thousand percent earlier in life. We
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be waiting until we have a problem to try
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: to fix it.
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: And am opdns need to be addressing this, yes and
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: thank you.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, more physicians. I'm seeing more and more that physicians
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: are including pelvic pts as part of their practice. It's
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: more multidisciplinary clinics are are popping up. The barriers we
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: face are there are some doctors who don't believe in
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: pelvic pt there are some insurance providers who won't cover it.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: So there's many barriers unfortunately. And that's another reason why
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: I have my community, why I wrote my books, why
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: I have my blogs. I want people to have access
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: to information that just like when we think about HRT conversations,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: we need to be empowered. We need to be the
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: CEO of our health. We need to know rather than
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: just going in and having somebody say what we can
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: or can't do, we need to be the ones going
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: in informed. And so I'm trying to play role, as
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: are many other pelvic professionals on the internet, trying to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: increase this awareness. There's a lot more people talking. It's
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: becoming trendy now, which is like you'd argue a good
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: and bad thing, but mostly a good thing. There's more
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: people talking about the pelvic floor because they're recognizing how
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: important this is and how overlooked it has become. And
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: especially those stats like the people stopping exercise, well, exercise
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: is so so important for our overall health span. If
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: that's interfering with it, well let's address that problem.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: Everyone needs a vagina coach.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Everyone needs a vagina coach. That's on my business card.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: Ben.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: I want to have you like an in person session
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: or something like a in person seminar because.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: I want to spearhead this Vagina happens.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: But China happens. Added to the list.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, the in person stuff I love because again, we
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: covid put us all online and it opened up doors
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: and possibilities for learning, and I'm so grateful for that.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: The in person stuff is magic though, it really truly is,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: and it's just it's another opportunity for connection. So I
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: would love to do I would love to come and
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: hang out with you guys in person.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: So let's make it okay. Vagina happens.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: I'm I want to take this on. I'm so into
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: that who happens. There's a lot we could there's a
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: lot of different ways we could go. Well, thank you
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: so much, Kim. I really feel like this is such
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: an important conversation. I'm glad that it's more airtime. I'm
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: glad that you're getting more airtime and lots of people
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: are backing you up and supporting you so that I
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: think we have to collectively work together with physical therapists
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: and obguy on and personal trainers and you know, there's
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: there's a team, and if we all come together and
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: get this, it just gives women that have needed this
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: information so much for so long that I'm sure my
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: mother never had any of these conversations and even new
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: that there were options. It moves us ahead in the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: in this global movement that's happening right now.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: So hopefully we can keep bringing it to the headline.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: So thank you so much for your expertise and for
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: joining us here on the body Pot today.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: It has been an honor having you on.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: Well, it's been an honor to be here. Thank you
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: also to Stacy for the introduction and for all that
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: she does to help bring awareness about it as well.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: So thank you for having me.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I'm looking forward to johna have Yeah. Thanks
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: for listening everyone.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: five star rating and sharing the body Pod with your friends.