susanne's blog

A few weeks ago, I was at the weekend birthday get together of a friend of mine with a bunch of other women, most of whom I hadn't met before. My friend introduced me as the person to talk to about pelvic floor stuff and I was more than happy to talk about pelvic floor restorative action that anyone can take right away. Like considering a change of foot wear, sitting and especially slouching less, walking much more, doing hip and butt strengthening work, learning to breathe properly and, of course, to seek out a local pelvic floor physiotherapist (besides working with a Restorative Exercise Specialist, because those peeps can be a rather valuable resource, hint, hint!). 

Having goals is a great motivator to take action! But are your goals specific enough for you to actually take action? Do you have an action plan that will help you achieve that goal?

Before I work with a new client, I ask what her or his goal is and common answers are "I want to build muscle tone", "I want my back pain gone" or "I want a flatter belly".

These goals need some unpacking and fine tuning to turn them into meaningful actions. 

If you beat yourself up because you haven't gone to the gym or taken that yoga class, relax! You can be fit without ever seeing the inside of a gym ever again. 

Your idea of working out might be a bit like what taking a dietary supplement is for some people. They take a supplement to make up for the lack of nutritional value in their diet. A supplement they take for a while, until they forget to take it. And then remember again, only to fall off the bandwagon again. As you probably know, it makes much more sense to ditch the supplement and eat foods which naturally contain all the needed nutrients - several times a day, every day. 

I made it my goal this summer to climb up the rope on our tree just the way I did before I got pregnant with our 3rd child in the summer of 2013 (the baby turns 1 next week).

It's May and finally Spring / Summer here in Ottawa. My heart is jubilant. My children, too. My feet - not so much. My feet have felt delicious all winter from wearing very flexible, zero heel, wide toe boxed boots (this one to be precise - I'm not affiliated with the company, btw) and because Ottawa has been snowed in for the last 43, oops, 5 months, my feet have had the privilege to experience uneven, naturally slopy terrain on my daily walks. I say privilege because each foot has 33 joints with numerous muscles and nerve tissue attached to them and these structures like to be stimulated. Our feet are the foundation of our body and I like a good foundation.

I hear it all the time: "My shoulder hurts from carrying my 8month old around all week." or "My baby is teething and I have to hold her all the time. Now, my back is sore."

Your shoulders and back might have been fine the week before and suddenly, boom, there is pain. The pain didn't come because you carried your baby more than usual. Well, it did. Kind of. Really, the pain came because you've been carrying your baby (and your own body) in a tissue damaging way from the start. And that one day, your body thought now is ENOUGH! 

The World Health Organziation recommends a C-section rate of 10-15%. Quite a big difference to the 30-40%  which is the reality in most of the Western world. 

Failure to progress in labour is the number 1 reason for unplanned C-sections. From a diagosis of failure to progress, it can go three ways:

I started leading the Boomerang Kids Strollercize group in Westboro, Ottawa on Thursday mornings. It's an hour long walk / run with some added exercises and stretches for moms with their babies. Most bring their strollers (its called strollercize after all) and some bring their babes in carriers.
I'm walking my currently 31 week big pregnant belly. And I love it. Because I love walking. And hanging out with moms. And babies are cute, right. I mean I better think they are cute because I'm going to have a third one very, very soon... 

You want to know something really personal about me? I carry a lot of tension in my pelvic floor muscles.

Everytime I'm starting a conversation with a stranger, bam, my pelvic floor muscles go tense.
Everytime I get a little self-conscious, bam, my pelvic floor muscles go tense.
Everytime I have a negative thought, bam, my pelvic floor muscles go tense.

I know they go tense, because I can relax them again. And that is what I do 357 times a day. 

Except now I'm pregnant (19 weeks now) and my pelvic floor must think that my growing baby is heavier than it really is because it tenses up more than ever. Now I have to think of relaxing it about 679 times a day. Seriously. 

Recently on facebook, a long question came up from somebody with diastasis recti. It's the kind of questions I hear and answer a lot. I wrote out a pretty lengthy answer and I think it should be up here too (I edited and organized it a little bit).

Here is the question: