5-MINUTE FRIDAY: When is the Best Time to Start Pelvic Floor Work with PVOLVE's Chief of Training (Pelvic Floor Series part 4)
Feb 23, 2024
Danielle Donovan
Welcome to 5 Minute Friday - your weekly wellness pep talk! We are back for part 4 of our 4-part Pelvic Floor Series with PVOLVE's Chief of Training- Antonietta Vicario.
Today we are talking about just how soon is 'too soon' to be focusing on pelvic floor work and answering the question, is it too late to start focusing on your pelvic floor?
This is part 4 of our 4-part Pelvic Floor Series with PVOLVE.
Next week we will be back with Antonietta to focus on pelvic floor tips for postpartum.
Welcome to 5 Minute Friday - your weekly wellness pep talk! We are back for part 4 of our 4-part Pelvic Floor Series with PVOLVE's Chief of Training- Antonietta Vicario.
Today we are talking about just how soon is 'too soon' to be focusing on pelvic floor work and answering the question, is it too late to start focusing on your pelvic floor?
This is part 4 of our 4-part Pelvic Floor Series with PVOLVE.
Next week we will be back with Antonietta to focus on pelvic floor tips for postpartum.
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Speaker 1:
Hey squad, I'm your host, danielle Danevin, and you are listening to 5 Minute Fridays, a 5 minute pep talk and boost of inspiration to take with you into your weekend. Today we are back with P-Balve's Chief of Training, antonietta Vicario, and again we are talking about pelvic force, specifically women who are postpartum. I wanted to bring this question up because I just had my second baby, 10 months ago, and it blows my mind that you go to your six week checkup. They check you for a second. They say you're good and now what you need to focus on strengthening your pelvic floor. So, antonietta, I would love for you to share how long after having a baby should you start focusing on rebuilding and strengthening your pelvic floor? Are there certain exercises you should and definitely should not do? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, great, great question and I couldn't agree more that it is definitely something that you know. It's just wild to me that we're not talking about this that often. You know, women are left so unguided after pregnancy and, quite frankly, even before. So our Chief Physical Therapist at P-Balve, you know, says the pelvic floor. You can start exercising your pelvic floor right away. You don't need to wait until six weeks after having your baby to connect with your breath, right, like we're breathing all the time, especially when you just gave birth. You're bending over, you're holding your baby for some people they're breastfeeding. Our bodies are requiring a lot of effort to do our daily tasks right. So, sure, okay, wait until your six weeks check up to, you know, to exercise in a more rigorous way. But when it comes to the pelvic floor, you know we can start to move, breath and feel into those muscles. Those muscles, whether you were cesarean or vaginal delivery, our pelvic floor muscles were asked to expand and stretch potentially, you know, way outside of their resting range of motion. So our pelvic floor muscles and even if it was a C-section, you know your abdominals are connected to your pelvic floor. So the sooner you start just kind of tapping back in the better know.
Speaker 2:
I am not a doctor and I should, of course, you know, say a disclaimer that if somebody is experiencing some very specific symptoms, you know it's always best to get checked out by a physical therapist, somebody who specializes in pelvic floor specifically, so you really know what's going on. The pelvic floor can be weak and it can also be too tight. So there's both hyper tonicity, which is a pelvic floor that's tight, tight, tight and can't really relax or release, and there's a whole range of issues that can occur with hyper tonicity. It can also have hypotonicity, which is weak, where we would want to be doing more strengthening, more contracting. Truly, to exercise your pelvic floor, you want to both be able to release and contract, because a strong muscle is a muscle that can both lengthen and contract.
Speaker 2:
So when it comes to pelvic floor, it's really important to be doing both, but specifically around, you know, post pregnancy you can very safely tap into your breath, try to make some of those connections, you know, and really dive into those deep muscles, your transverse muscles, your pelvic floor muscles. They're going to help support your everyday demands, especially when it comes to, like lifting and holding and carrying and posture. It's the base of our seat. So when we have a strong pelvic floor, you know it runs up the entire chain of our spine and our hips are such an important part. Our pelvic floor relates to our hips, our glutes, so, yeah, so it's really never too early to integrate some of the breathing techniques and strategies that we've talked through.
Speaker 1:
And is it ever too late? What about for women listening saying well, my kids are teenagers now and I never did pelvic floor work postpartum is it too late to start?
Speaker 2:
It's never too late to start. I believe it's never too late to start anything. But all again, these tips, these tricks, these strategies, strengthening, if you need to strengthen, working on those deep belly breaths. We didn't really tap into this, but a lot of times, you know, if we're constantly holding tension, if we're in that hypertonicity state, our cortisol levels can rise. So also being able to find deep breathing can stimulate that parasympathetic nervous system. Right, that's that rest and digest versus that fight and flight response. So you know, all of the breathing techniques are going to help with so many things reducing stress, potentially, you know, being able to, you know, really tap into that parasympathetic state. So, no, it is never too late. And in fact, you know, with regular exercise, both the strength and the release component of the pelvic floor, depending on you know what symptoms the person is facing, you will be able to dramatically reduce, potentially even, you know, resolve the issue altogether.
Speaker 1:
So good to know it's never too late to start anything. I love that Correct. And there you guys have it another amazing, a five minute Friday. We'll link all the previous five minute Fridays focusing on the pelvic floor series with Antonietta in the show notes. To connect more with me, I'm over on Instagram at the squad underscore co and we'll be sure to link Antonietta and T-Ball and all the info from prior episodes in the show notes below. With that, cheers and happy Friday. Ühlanてやっということでれている.