Staying active in motherhood and postpartum pelvic floor health w/Krystle Howald

In this episode, we dive into what pelvic floor health means and why it is so important. We learn about small, obtainable things we can do everyday to not only improve our pelvic floor health, but also stay active in motherhood while juggling the kids and all.

Links: https://app.expectingandempowered.com 

Discount code to apply at checkout: NINA20 - this is 20% off the yearly app.

Instagram: @expectingandempowered

Meet Krystle:

As a mom of three, I am SO passionate about providing women the information they need to thrive physically throughout pregnancy, postpartum and beyond. I’ve been working as a Women's Health Physical Therapist for 12 years and own Empower Movement Physical Therapy. At this point, I’ve treated hundreds of pregnancy and postpartum patients. Everything I’ve learned in those years has gone into creating Expecting and Empowered - a resource that I now recommend to ALL of my pregnant and postpartum clients. As I like to say, “motion is lotion”- movement during these physically demanding years sets you up for a smoother journey.

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Transcript

Do you pee your pants every time you sneeze, cough, laugh too hard, have a cold. Been there, done that. This is called you have poor pelvic health. I've talked about pelvic health on social media before, but we're going to really dive into it with my friend Crystal. She's an orthopedic physical therapist and she's freaking hilarious. I love her. I can't wait for you to hear this episode. We're also talking about exercise in motherhood, how to make it a little bit more simple, and how to shift your mindset around it. So let's dive in. All right, you guys, I have Crystal here today. She is a mama and an orthopedic physical therapist. What? You're gonna have to tell us what that means. Because I don't know. But anyways, I know Crystal because she is related to one of my friends, Amy, who is the host of her cell podcast. And then you guys have a podcast together, too, right? Yes. Expecting an empowered pass. And Crystal and I are going to talk about overall, like physical wellness and motherhood exercise and the pelvic floor. The pelvic floor is a hot topic over on my social media. People are always asking, Is it normal that I pee my pants? Well, I always tell them it's not normal, but let's learn about it today. But before we dive in, Crystal, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Yes, I am so excited to be here. I love it talking about vaginas and the pelvic floor. So I'm all about this and I feel like you've already prepped your audience a little bit by talking about copy animals to them. So I feel like they're like prepped and ready to go on these topics. But like I said, I own the business expecting and empowered, which is a pregnancy and postpartum fitness app with my sister Amy. And I am definitely the less fashion forward sister. So I am constantly on your page trying to learn how to look put together myself. So I really appreciate you. But like you said about women's health and orthopedic physical therapist, so basically anything that has to do with body is we are times that I love treating the body holistically. So I think like pelvic floor and women's health definitely is a niche. But honestly, when you look at bodies, they work in conjunction. The whole body works together. So I love incorporating pelvic health into overall health and wellbeing, which is done inside our app. And like you said, I'm a mom to three little ones which are getting so much bigger now. They're eight, seven and five. So I just check those kids out one after another. That's crazy. You are so busy. And I was just telling Krystal off camera that I'm so amazed at what they've created. if you guys don't know, expecting and empower it is an app and it used to be a PDF and I have the PDF and I remember Amy being like, Girl, you need to do this while you're pregnant. And that's I think that's one of my biggest regrets, is not taking my physical health more serious during pregnancy and not to like lose weight or maintain weight. I think there's a big mindset that women have with physical health, like I need to work out because I need to lose weight and I don't want to gain it all back and blah blah. I just feel like the mental space we need to be in is I need to be physically strong so that I can carry this baby and deliver this baby and heal better after birth. And so I love that you do that. I wish it was something that I had in my pregnancies. But you know what? It's okay. We're here now. And you all, you do the best with the information that you currently have. And there's also so much you can do in that postpartum period. But like you said, we are really obsessed with this intersection between physical and mental health, because before I had kids myself, I simply worked out solely for my physical appearance, how I looked, my performance. But after having kids, I realized that it really did have such a profound impact on my mental health. I was just telling, you know, before we hit record, like the first time I ever went to a therapist, she's like, So what do you do to, like, manage your anxiety? And I was like, excuse me? Like, I had never was told that I have anxiety. I'm like the happy, the fun one. I don't have anxiety, but sure enough, sure enough, here I am with anxiety. So I really do think to parenthood is such an amazing experience, but it truly is so hard on your physical and mental body. So like being on this journey to improve our physical health during this time can make dramatic improvement to our mental health. I do want to just give a shout out that you have an app and it's something that women can do within their home because first of all, it's so expensive to get a trainer, it's so expensive to go to the gym. And then when you have a gym membership, half the time you don't even go. So I feel like it's so important for moms to have something that's right at their fingertips. But yeah, just a little brag moment. I think it's amazing that you guys have that resource. So I personally work with a trainer and that's not typical. Like it's not something that everybody can do. It's not as easily affordable and is accessible. So for me, I feel very grateful that I have that option. However, you offer women lifestyle changes and physical health and help in your own way. So tell me more about your journey to help moms become more active. Well, too. I think that when we have kids, our whole like, you know, like big changes, right? Like we have time management issues. There's different stressors. So the ability definitely to do things at home, like I used to be a gym rat, I literally love being with a trainer at a gym in like a setting with multiple people. But then once I became a mom, that just does not really fit into the grand scheme of things. There's not enough time in the day, but I think some of fitness during motherhood starts with your own ideas about fitness. Like we really need to change our mind about what working out looks like cause it maybe working out looks like that. You need to change your expectations. Like before I had kids, my expectations were like, I'm going to get a 45 minute to 60 minute workout and I'm literally going to crush every single workout I do. And it's very easy because I'm in control of that. Then you have little kids and they kind of run the show. So it's hard. So maybe you get a successful workout as a mom looks like, okay, I'm going to move my body today for 25 minutes. And that is that chalked up as a success. I think people have a really hard time, myself included, of reformatting their brand to like, think about that being a success, going on a walk, success like it's really hard. I think of it as exercise snacks, but just if we're introducing movement to our body, it can have such a profound impact. But it doesn't have to be as rigid as maybe before having kids. I was I love this idea of changing or fitting it into your schedule during motherhood. When my kids were really little, I used to do most of my workouts during their nap time and or weekends, so I had the help of my partner and at first I really wasn't great at asking him to be like, Babe, can you, like, watch these kids? I just really want to get this work out in the markets I had. And it was like, because I literally needed a break, I had to start asking like, Hey, can you like, watch them? I am actually going to put Earpods in my ear so I can't hear them because my first one, I would go to workout and I'd hear her crying and I'd be like running up stairs to like, save the day and I didn't really need to do it. Like my husband had my husband, same as time too. He could handle it without me coming up, but I never gave him the opportunity to or like taking your workouts outside so you can't hear the crying as they're crying or melting down because that does happen, right? Or when they wake up from their nap, like I would have it like exercise rage. I'd be like, Can I just get 40 minutes by myself to, like, do this workout? So again, like, really reach. Changing that mindset I think can help so much when you're thinking about fitness and overall physical health and motherhood. I think it's you made a really good point about communicating with your partner about your needs, and I think that's something we don't do enough of as women in general. We have this mental load motherhood, the mental load of motherhood. We talk about it all the time here on mom and podcast, but I think it's important that you noted tell your partner what you need and not ask. Don't ask for permission. Tell them like this is really important to me. For me, I have days where I'm like literally in my house all day long, like today. I left my house once, but I didn't really breathe any outside air. I went to my car and came back. So I sit in my house all day long and sometimes by the end of the day, I just need to go outside and take a walk. And if the kids are home, I'll say to time my husband. I'll say, Hey, I'm going to go for a walk like 20 minutes. I'll be right back and he'll watch the kids. But also we prioritize our workouts. We didn't used to. I didn't used to especially. But right now it is something that's so important to me. And you touched on this a little bit, which I also want to talk about how I've shifted my mind from working out because I need to look and feel a certain way. I have shifted to more like, how? How does working out make me a better mom physically and mentally? But back to the whole asking your partner for help, He works out in the mornings and then right when he comes home I go, So we make it a priority. We make it something that's part of our day and it is life change. Like any therapist will tell you, physical movement can quite literally help your mental health issues. Yes, yes. Yeah. And it like when you really think about the neuroscience, right? Like our mental health, our brain is such a powerful tool inside too, like happiness controlling our mood. But it's really freaking complex because it's like this complex cocktail of hormones that's going inside over our head. But the crazy thing is that this brain chemistry can actually be modified by us. I think we kind of sometimes feel helpless to like the way that we're feeling like, my God, I have three kids and then two businesses. I'm feeling overwhelmed and stressed, but making a lifestyle modification such as sleep movement, drinking enough water, eating well, which I know you've been on this big gut health journey that has completely changed your life. These simple things can really change us for the better. So our corner of the world is movement and exercise. That's what we're experts on. But exercise truly is medicine. And again, it increases our energy of what, mind you talk to you that is not freaking tired, you know. And then our happiness exercises increases those endorphins, which is a neurotransmitter that's responsible for relieving stress and pain. In fact, and 2000, Duke did a study where they had a group of people that had major depressive symptoms. So they compared the exercise group to the group that received antidepressants. And they actually showed that exercise group had better results. And those results were a longer lasting with reducing their depression, which I think that is so powerful, because when we go to our positions, a lot of times we're given something simple, like their job is to keep us alive and not necessarily like like this stuff is like really wellness, right? So they might not touch on these things that really do offer some wellness pieces, which is why I really love holistic you type medicine. But exercise really changes some of those hormones in your brain. Like I said, it also increases serotonin, which is the same thing that's targeted in making antidepressants. And by no means am I trying to oversimplify my depression, anxiety and anything like that. But I think it's super empowering to know that we have like a tool, multiple tools that can be real changes to make, to make our physical health better because it honestly is easier to parent to be a mom. I used to feel like a little bit more rage until I started really implementing. For me, I used to think sleep was like optional, but then now I actually sleep like how I'm supposed to. I've always exercised. But these little tidbits, like the more we can lie to you and I'm I mean, once you feel good, you are like never going back from not feeling good. Although to you, like with life, with anything, people even that exercise or sleep while there's ups, there's downs of that. But it's easier to get back to your baseline if you really, like, hone in on those lifestyle factors. Yeah, so important, so important to do the simple things. And it seems so hard. It feels so hard to do the simple things. And we've all been there. I've been there and sometimes I get in this right where I like fall off a little bit and then I, you know, for multiple days and then it's so much harder to get back in. So it's normal, it's common, it happens. But I have a question for you. So a lot of my audience, whenever I share about my exercises, I do functional training, which my trainer told me that's what it is. I don't even think what that was. Well, I love that it's movements that are like movements I would be doing in every day. I don't over I don't lift super heavy. I challenge myself. My movements are slow and I pay attention to my posture and my breathing. And it's very intentional movement. Before before kids, I was like up in the gym, squatting like crazy, heavy like I wanted to be ripped and lean and this and that. And for me, my intention now and that is this is something I had to really make a decision about for myself. My intention now is to feel strong enough to be able to do things with my kids, to have mental clarity, because that's what exercise does for me and to just give my body what it needs as far as movement and like cardiovascular health. So my question to you, people ask me all the time, well, so what what do your workouts look like? And I think a lot of women don't really know what what is the definition of exercise? What do I what does that entail? What do I need to do? So, Krystal, in your practice, what is the definition of movement and exercise for women? And be specific because I think people think they need to be like sprinting and then doing all this like heavy lifting. Like what is what is exercise look like for mom? That's like, I just want to be better. Yeah, well, I do know that there's so much research that says that strength training through the whole life span is really where it's at. And I do think there is a continuum, right? Like where you're talking about pre pads, where you're lifting super heavy and doing things. It's like, what is the goal if your goal is to be healthy and well? Because I do know that people that are almost over left or they're doing too much stuff when we're building muscle, it's actually breaking it down and then we have to repair. So that can create a lot of aches and pains if like for moms, I'm overstimulated sometimes my body is already in this stress response. And so exercise can actually be a stressor to you if you overdo it. But then there's also the continuum of people that aren't doing enough. Only 20% of Americans are actually meeting the criteria for their physical activity goals a week work. The goal, like by the criteria, is only 20 to 30 minutes of physical activity 2 to 3 times a week. So, you know, if you think about it overall, I think that's a very doable. But like you said, it's almost like you how to prioritize it and like truly make it a priority. So I love if people can get in 2 to 3 strength workouts, like one cardio workout. And I like to add some kind of like intuitive movement or flexibility in there. So I usually will go to like yoga, which we have yoga now in the app, which is amazing. But really it would almost be like the baseline is if we're doing some strength. So I love functional strength. That's actually what you're going to see inside of all the programing. So our stuff is programing basically, and pregnancy and postpartum, there's very predictable things that happen, right? So your bump is going to get big. You're going to lose control of your abdominal wall, your hip muscles are going to get tight and they're going to get weak because they get tight. When they get weak, your cars are going to get super tight. They can cramp sometimes, which again means that you just don't have great angle range of motion. So all of these things really, really do impact our health. Our body should be like springy, able to absorb force. So during pregnancy we really have to change or modify our movement patterns to support a pregnancy. And and as we'll talk about in a little bit, that does contribute to pelvic floor health. Think about like, you know and it says your baby's like the size of a pumpkin or a watermelon. All of that weight of that pumpkin or that watermelon is like directly on your pelvic floor. So if you haven't thought about your pelvic floor during pregnancy and postpartum, you really should be thinking about it. Even healthy people have dysfunctional pelvic floors in a study that they did with collegian athletes. So we're talking about like the cream of the crop, right? Like D-1, volleyball players, runners, swimmers, you guys. 70% of these women had incontinence, meaning that they just have poor pelvic health. They don't know how to control their pressure or their pelvic floor. So this is a time period where we really want to get back to basics and then in postpartum. So if I was training in a functional movement, which we are, we're thinking about rebuilding your core because most moms do not have the ability to hit the control delete button themselves to reset their core strength. So when I talk about core, I'm not just talking about your abs or doing crunches. I'm talking about learning how to breathe again. Most of us actually don't breathe correctly, and we breathe 50,000 times or more a day. So if we're not breathing correctly, we can create all of these pressure problems which are actually usually referred to as like mommy problems. So incontinence, DSD, cis, recti, which means there's a splitting of the abs which might look more like a punching of your stomach prolapse, which means your organs are actually physically and have pressure and are coming down into the pelvis, into their vagina area. So I do think that for fitness, you really want to get specific for what your goal is like right now. Your goal is to be functional. So then that's so smart that you're training functionally. But I don't think all fitness is not created equally. So the synopsis of that is we got to be strength training, we got to be specific to what we're doing. And then also cardio is a great thing to add in every once in a while.  A couple of things I want to ask, because I'm already thinking about the questions that my people would want to ask and I might know the answers, but I think it's important to very simplify it. So first of all, in your app and your exercises you provide, do you cater to people who maybe never really had exercise or movement before? Because, you know, the doctor will tell you you should start exercising strenuously when you're pregnant. You know, they like they scare you. They say, well, you shouldn't change your exercise, you know. No, I 100% know what you're talking about. And part of that, you guys, it is simply put, is like a marketing ploy. Right? This is a huge industry. The fitness industry is. So have you ever like, I have males in my clinic all the time that have diabetes is recti. Have you ever heard a freaking person be like, my God, don't do that plank because your abs are splitting? No, Now they don't ever say that to them right? Yeah. Like we put fear into people we know movement is good most of the time. Most movement are not going to do like these crazy things like to your body. There's a lot of different ways to support your body, so there's more optimal things to do. But like some of that is almost like a scare tactic marketing ploy. And the goal is just to get people moving, right, to get some kind of exercise in and make that a daily or like weekly habit. So within your app I'm sorry, I don't I don't have it. So I don't know what it looks like. People can choose like the level of exercise based on, well, our app will meet you where you're at. So basically to like there's different ways that we can increase or decrease the intensity of our workout. So in our app, I feel like it's super doable not only for a beginner, but also we have literally like you as Olympic athletes that have done the app that like do really freaking well after using the app. So the way that it can be varied is that you either increase your resistance so you're adding more weight, you're doing more reps in a short amount of time. So ours is done and like mostly interval training. So it's like a set of three exercises. You have 5 minutes to get those exercises in. And then I've repeated our app multiple times for like our postpartum program and then we have expecting or elevated and empowered, which is like a harder version of the postpartum program. So I can change the level of intensity by changing the speed, by changing house specific I am with my function and by changing the load. So I really do think beginners or advanced people are going to really find what they mean. And I love that you cater to pregnant women too. And and I love that you are a physical therapy, like you're a professional. You know how people should be moving their bodies. You know, to keep their bodies healthy. I really want to talk about pelvic floor, but I want to touch on the breathing thing that you said. I don't know much about it, but I will tell you, my dietician, my functional dietician and my trainer have both been in my and my chiro Proctor, All three of them have been very adamant about the way that I take breaths in the way that I breathe, even after eating a meal. So there's just a lot to say about breathing, and I'm really glad you touched on that. So the pelvic floor, let's talk about vaginas, because we all got them here. Ladies, what is what is the public for? At one time I googled that and I like I feel like I should know I'm a nurse, but I take care of men mostly. What? Well, men. Men do have pelvic floor. that Know that the pelvic floor is like a basic, like structure. So it sits at the bottom and it's going to go from our tailbone to our pubic bone and then side to side. So it's almost like a diamond shape. And most people think about it only for sexual health. But this sucker has so many roles and responsibilities, just like us mamas. It does a lot of different things. One of those things which we've already touched on a little bit is helping to support our pelvic organs. So it keeps our bladder, our uterus and rectum, ideally where they're supposed to be and functioning in their own little roles. That also helps or prevents people from being incontinent. So often people are leaking urine and or stool and then it also plays a large role with the body. Like I said, I love being holistic with the body, so how our pelvic floor is it might relate to our jaw tension or foot problems. So this pelvic floor helps transmit force from our upper body to our lower body. Often in the clinic, when I see people that have dysfunction through this area, this might be a poor example, but I'm like, Your body is literally like divorced parents that are not co-parenting nicely. You know, like the bottom half does whatever the heck it wants to do, the top half does whatever the heck it wants to do. And we need to make these two areas work together. And that is the pelvic floor. The public learn to, though it takes over for quite a bit of other functions, like if your hips are weak or if your feet are really stiff, the pelvic floor will take over. It's like that chick at church that's like, Let me bring all the casseroles. Even though she's got ten kids at home and she, like, has no capacity to do it. So the pelvic floor is like the best helper. Additionally, like we said, though, it also has that sexual function. So the stronger our pelvic floor is, our the more that our clitoral hood can contract back when we get aroused. So then boom, boom, bang. The more arousal we are able to get if we have a great pelvic floor or orgasms, you better make a strong pelvic floor. If you are doing stuff and you are not able to achieve that arousal, which is a problem for a lot of people. But if I'm spending the time doing that, I am maximizing my results there. Yeah. Okay. So what what are signs your public for this week I know you said the urinating and I think that's a common one, right? A lot of moms say, after kids I just pee myself all the time. I had COVID last year and I was like, every time I coughed for like two months straight, I had to wear panty like I peed myself. And I was like, This is insane. Like, I've never had this issue before. So I started doing my own pelvic floor exercises from like YouTube. But what are some other signs? Your pelvic floor is weak. Yes. So the pelvic floor or any muscle in our body, to be quite honest, are kind of fussy. They like love to be in like the correct leg tension relationship to like maximally. So our pelvic floor has to contract and relax and work nicely with other muscles. So it's like even more than you would think for a symptom. So one thing would be if you have difficulty like starting your urine stream, so you sit on the toilet and you like, I can't pay you right away, or if you're like a sprayer, you spray your urine like left, right on the toilet. See it? These unpredictable streams can often show tension in your pelvic floor dribbling after you pee. So not being able to fully empty your bladder or if you get up and then you're like, God, I have to pee again. Even though I just pee. And having constipation definitely is a big tall tale. If I see people, which I know is a little bit in your story that have constipation, I know they have pelvic floor dysfunction or those skinny little poops. You know, we don't love pencil poop, so we like, you know, like a little bit chunkier poops that are like more they're not soft, but they're also not hard. And then any time that you're having a pain with penetration or inserting a tampon, I think often people think this is like kind of like how it is after having kids or I talk because I had a big baby and that you might have a different sensation when having sex that doesn't have to be or that is definitely a sign having pain and during sex and or throbbing after sex can be a sign that you have problems increase. UTI is like having more of them or they're like just a little bit more aggressive when you have them. And again, the big ones are leaking urine, right, Or having pain with sex and an inability to take a full breath. So like fully breathing into the pelvic floor because a pelvic floor has to be at least sort. So for us to inhale all the way down as I'm practicing my deep breath, like, yes, like get it, get it all the way down, because that is imperative. That is that pressure system. So as we inhale, we draw air all the way down to our pelvic floor. Your listeners could even check themselves right now. They could take their hand and they could scoop it around the inside of their sits bones. And my fingers now are pointing up towards my nose. I could try breathing in a nice deep inhale through the nose down our spine. Can you feel your pelvic floor? Come into your fingers a little bit like on the spot? I don't know. Look at where we should be or my fingers on my. So your fingers are literally like on your vagina, but you're scooping around the sits bones and my fingers are pointed up. So they're like, kind of like on the side. They're on my side. And as I breathe and it's it's bone girl going on that take that you said, I don't feel anything. You're so if you don't feel anything, then you're not getting breath all the way down and to maybe for you or when you're you're your keep telling you you need to breathe differently. And I can tell you that you don't breathe the way that you're supposed to do because your upper lip is a little bit shorter. So then when you're telling me, are you a weight, are you telling me my upper lip is shorter? Yeah. Because when you talk like this name, lip filler, I don't know. I mean, that would help your breathing, but you're, like, a little and to it. So. So if you breathe all the way down to your pelvic floor, not every breath, your pelvic floor relaxes, because we you should really feel like our fingers are there. I should feel tissue coming onto my fingers. And if you are doing it, you will really feel that in your fingers. And sometimes one side works and the other side doesn't. A lot of times we have asymmetric. I'm going to need a Google or the said phone is says the nurse. Okay, so not even orthopedic I mean you're looking at it know the names of the yeah yeah we're trying to keeping people alive I'm in charge of making sure that they can breathe all the way to their pelvic floor. Okay. So I love this. I've learned so much about the public for. But, like, can people make it better at home or do they need to go get help? Like, what are what are the resources women should be reaching out for? Yeah. So I do love if if admire in an ideal world, which is what we're trying to create. But I would love if every pregnant and postpartum mom could go in to see a women health physical therapist during pregnancy and after. And for actually in France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, it's a requirement to see a women's health after giving birth. You have to you can't pass go until you do so. My friend in Germany had none of the signs or symptoms that we just talked about, and she literally was empty for a year to optimize her pelvic floor. So, I mean, that would be ideal. But I do know clinically, because I see her day in and day out that it is really fricking hard to get into. Like you know, the logistics, the money, the time. A lot of times they have to bring their kids, which is that the most relaxing, Wait, can I tell you a story that pisses me off? It was I had my baby 2021 march and I wanted I was like pushing to go see a physical therapist for pelvic floor, just for personal preference. I never I didn't have any, like, active issues that I knew of, quote unquote. But I was like, I want to go see a pelvic floor. Can you write me a referral? My provider wrote me a referral. I try to make an appointment. And it was well, they were like, you can't bring anyone with you. And I was like, I have a seven day old or I don't know, She was like, Maybe a month old. I don't know, two months maybe. I was like, I have a fresh newborn. She has to come with me. I'm breastfeeding every 2 hours. She's coming with me. They're like, No, you can't. We're in a pandemic. You can't bring anyone with you. So I was so pissed off I called. This is the first time in my life that I called the patient advocate. I was like, This is absolutely unacceptable that a mother is trying to get help for her issues. And I can't bring my newborn baby like if I'm sick, she's sick. If she's sick, I'm sick. It's like we're one we're one person anyways. And I just that pissed me off enough that I never ended up going, which makes me sad. But just just to kind of reiterate how hard and granted that was during the pandemic, but it is hard as a mom to make that it it is so hard because we like fully you welcome crying babies in our clinic. And I will say it is hard, though, because I feel like the mom is almost like anxious about what the baby's doing, like and we'll have staff take them out and like rock them and stuff if they need to be calmed down while Mom's getting treated. But I do think that it's just really complex with the logistics. I do think now that the pandemic's done, I don't think you see any of that anymore where there's like, you know this. But I do think to even like pelvic floor health, sometimes you're not going to jive with your therapist. Like, I'm very open. I'm like, listen, drop your drawers. We're going to like, fix this pelvic floor for you and we're going to have to I'm just going to glove up and we're going to do it, you know, so that personality, it might be cool like that. Put your hand up there. I mean, I, I. Go ahead. Tell us, girl, I their muscle they need some time when it comes know you know. I'm so shocked I know there's will be shock and not everybody needs internal so people get really scared about doing their internal work. There's so much there's so many tools in the toolbox that we could do. If you're like, Dude, I do not want you up my vagina or my anus. You should stay out. I will stay out, you know, like I have to have permission to come in. But it is a really powerful tool. I truly believe every mom that had a baby should have a set of hands on their stomach and in their pelvic floor, including C-section moms, because, again, that weight of that baby has fully affected your pelvic floor during that time that you were pregnant. So we really need to be helping moms. And so internally, we're just releasing those tight muscles or if you have scarring. So if you had tearing during labor and delivery, you want to work on that scar tissue retention. Also to not to get to the audio. But I know your audience loves this, but we love it. We love dirty things that the pelvis and our chakra system is the balance between masculine and feminine energy. So like work and play. So people that really are like hard workers, crazy workers like, don't rest enough, There's this total imbalance between their pelvic floors. So actually one thing that we could do at home is insert our own finger into our vagina. I just did it the other day, and so in the shower I just put my leg up like I was going to shave my leg and I put my finger into the vagina. And it even as a women's health physical therapist at first when I started doing this, it feels awkward as hell. Like, okay, let me tell you, doing a coffee enemas is very awkward and I'm a nurse. I've done a lot. I've given a lot of animals, so but you just stick her into the second knuckle and you start stretching like so my and I'm stretching more towards the anus usually, and I'm just finding trigger points and then I'm just trying to breathe into those trigger points. Let those areas go that have tension. And that too, if you don't want to do that inside the app. So you're just like pushing you're just like pushing on tension points. Yes. So so it's a circle, right? So if the clitoris is up towards 12, the rectums towards six. So I just put my knuckle into the second knuckle and then I'm pushing down towards six is usually a lot of, right towards anus. So I'm kind of pulling backwards and then I'm going to go to five and then I'm going to hold, hold, hold. Usually there's spots that are really tense on your pelvic floor. We all and that helps release the tightness. Yes. So whether that tightness is from scarring from life stress right now to, like you said, you're inside, I probably think you're sitting on your computer a lot doing creating different like create of things, rails and graphics and having ideas, talking on a podcast like this. So we sit a lot. Our bodies aren't made to sit as much as modern technology makes us set, so we just all have pelvic floor tension. And if we would learn how to treat it through our whole lifetime, your your health and wellbeing. So it literally takes it took 2 minutes in the shower to stretch that sucker out and she was ready to play again. Maybe next time, ladies, you're having you know, you're doing the deed. Have your partner do it for you. Say early and never do it or done. God. To teach a man. All right. Well, I love everything. Pelvic floor. Now it's my new favorite thing. Okay. Wait to hear more about it. Krystal, you have given us so much gold today. I love it. And I'm so intrigued by. I kind of want to come see you. I think that would be fun. We're going to. We're going to make it happen to Wisconsinites. All right. Well, tell us where we can find you on socials and I will make sure to link the app. You can tell us with the name of the app is expecting empowered. Right. Make sure to link everything below. But I want you to tell us where we can find you guys. We create so much content that is like this and expecting and empowered on Instagram. We're also expecting an empowered dot com and then to for your listeners that are on here, like we said, we're just so passionate about making people move. So we do have a code for you guys. Nina 20 So on any wherever you get your apps, just go into the app store and that's expecting and empowered and if you pop in that code, you'll get 20% off that yearly subscription of the app. Wow, that's a really good I'm going to do it for myself. I really want to do yoga. There's yoga in your app. Yeah, girl, relax. That nervous system and. All right, listen, we're going to treat you. We're going to get you breathing all the way down to that pelvic floor. We'll get you all straightened out. Awesome. I love it. I love anything holistic, preventative health, healing. Thank you, Krystal. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. Follow along on socials. Leave a review and come back next week.