8. Menstrual phase dysfunctions and practical application of the knowledge

In this week's episode Courtenay shares some interesting physiology related to menstrual phase dysfunctions before diving into the topic of the week; Practically applying knowledge.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Remote Control EP The podcast. I'm Nicola. And I am Courtney, and we are here to share the real and the raw conversations about clinical practice, business, and what it means to be an EP. Because it's time that we took control of the conversation. Yes, it is. We would love for you to like, subscribe, share this with all your EP networks, and give us your feedback. Give us your feedback. If you didn't listen to last week's episode, we talked about the importance of feedback. So we'd love to hear what you think of the show, whether it's helpful, whether it's not. We're making it for the people. So yeah, this is for you ultimately. And we don't know what it feels like to be on that end. So let us know. Um, if you also have anything you'd like us to talk about, we're open to topics. So in conversations to have if you're uh wanting to know something about business, clinical practice, physiology, anything at all. But uh, I think that brings us to our physiology fact of the week, right? Yes, yes. And this is um, I wanted to talk about this because I'm currently working on some PD. Exciting. I don't know. Stay tuned, it'll it might not be very soon that's coming out, but I'm working on it anyway. Part of this is the menstrual cycle. And I wanted to share a little bit about menstrual cycle tracking because a lot of my clients do menstrual cycle tracking, but they track like day one to day 28 and what their actual period is and like how consistent that is. But when we look at like fertility awareness methods, which is actually more about what's happening in that cycle, we need to think about uh each phase and whether or not each phase is consistent as well. So we have like different phase dysfunctions, phase one and phase two dysfunction, which basically means that the follicular phase or the luteal phase is dysfunctional within that same consistent 28-day cycle. So you it's um let's say you are you have a 28-day cycle every month, but maybe you're not actually having the same luteal length phase every month, which tells us it's not just cycle length. No, it's not just cycle length, it's just that second, well, with the luteal phase is obviously one of the most important ones. Um, and if it's consistently varied, it tells us a lot about inflammation, it tells us a lot about ovulation and maybe what's internally going on for that person, which means we're not really getting a representation over the cycle. If you're just tracking that 28 days, and that 28-day cycle, it's regular and normal. It looks regular and normal. Yeah, so we often almost classify people as irregular cycles or dysfunctional cycles when it's not that same 28 days or 27 days or whatever it is for the person. There's it's more like, oh, sometimes it's 28, sometimes it's 35. We've got PCOS, so sometimes it's like 50 days. But obviously that's very dysfunctional. But we actually have these phases of dysfunction before that even presents that can tell us the cycles are not working and the hormonal signaling is not quite there. So we're getting lots of, I guess, interplay with lots of different factors. But that that's and you're looking at it in the context of fertility. Yes, fertility, fertility health. Um, because it's extremely important that we, as EPs, we have a massive role in fertility health in a sense of the whole body and the physiology and what's happening with the hormonal signals and everything to do with humans. Um and that is one way we can start to, I guess, assess someone's actual cycle and like what is their body trying to tell us. Um, but we have to obviously learn about that. Yeah. So well, you've already got me on your wait list for you boss. So uh but yeah, I'm just diving into all the like more and more and more of that anyway. I have been for a while. And um, I I feel like that's something that I mean doesn't how do we not know that as women? Yeah, I mean, like I didn't. Well, I mean, I'm not I do now. Yeah, like back in the day, I was like, oh, I'm so regular. Like after a regular cycle. Um I mean, that's also the only thing anyone asks you. How long is your cycle? Or is it regular? Yeah, and this is also something that might be worthwhile for you if you're listening to this and you've got clients and you're like, oh, this is so relevant for me, is some apps only track regular cycles, not they don't have the fertility awareness side, which so the fertility awareness side is actually the part that tells us like, are you ovulating? How many days is your lateal phase? Like, what's you know, all of the different like are you measuring temperature? Because that will change. And if your temperature is dropping in the lateal phase, it's also a problem in terms of ovulation. So I find all of that menstrual cycle stuff really fascinating, and I was excited to share that. I mean, it affects 50% of the population. So it's true, it's true. So yeah, physiology fact of the week. There's dysfunction in your cycle, even when you don't know might not even realize.

unknown 4:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Wow, thank you. So go and uh start tracking. Yeah, I might have to. Uh now, in an earlier episode, we um we spoke a little bit about depth of knowledge, and I think sometimes that's not always the problem. I think sometimes people have really, really good depth of knowledge, but then being able to translate that to the practical application is actually where it all goes wrong. Yeah, the missing piece. Yeah, yeah. Like I feel like I've met clinicians in all areas of health, not Vs specifically, that I'm like, oh, they could, they talk so much depth about everything. And I'd love them to just like be in my brain and like tell me everything that you know. But then when I've been like, oh, so when you prescribe it, I'm like, oh, wait a second. Yeah, you actually know how to translate that into application. Yeah, like what are you actually doing? Yeah. I see it all the time with students where they're like telling me all this stuff, and I'm like, oh my gosh, this student is so good. And then they can't either communicate it to a client or like they don't know how to even do the exercise. They've picked the right exercise and can give me the right explanation for it, but like demonstrating it, talking it through with someone, figuring out how to actually deliver it practically, or you go, oh, okay, what's our practical prescription? What are you doing? Like it's more than just the exercise itself. How do you pick the load? And they're like just stunned mullets. It's like, you know, all the gear and no idea. It's like all the same thing, but like all the theory, no idea. Yes, it doesn't rhyme as much, but yes, gear and no idea. We can we can work that one. It sounded really good in my head when I said it, and then I was like, oh, actually, it doesn't rhyme. But um totally, totally, totally agree. I think we were um at the ESA conference recently, and I fortunately saw a lot of this. Oh, yeah. There's some really incredible academics out there and like incredible research happening. And we sat in lots of these presentations where it was very research heavy, which is great. And there were lots of academics in the room, so I'm sure they loved that side of things. And it was 45 minutes of the research paper, and then they had maybe five minutes to talk about how to maybe apply it. And then when there were questions being asked, or like even the information they were giving us that was supposedly practical. Yeah, that was not practical. Yeah, we're like, give me the sets and reps, and like what actual What does high volume mean? Like we did high volume exercise. Oh, okay. Like, what what was that? What is high volume? Is that every day? Like is it aerobic volume? Yeah, yeah. So it ended up leaving lots of questions. That could have been like volume of reps, like 30 reps. Yeah, not volume of sessions or volume of load across the week. Yeah. We're clearly thinking about the same lecture that we're in and having this light bulb moment right now. Yeah, we're both like, this is so not helpful for us. Yeah, it was just but so much good theory, yeah, so much depth. Yeah, not great depth of knowledge, yeah, great depth of knowledge, yeah. Which is um also interesting because I went and asked, like who picks the topics and how do they come about with the content and does it get checked by people? Because ultimately I check everything that comes through the education portal because I have this is the expectation, yeah, and I want it to be like that. So, like, are you actually producing this as an educator? So I thought, oh, surely they'd be doing something like that for an the ESA conference. Anyway, the brief is actually like if it's research heavy, it needs to have some practical application because we have clinicians coming. And I was like, oh, it's really nice to see that they actually are adding that in the brief required, yeah. And then I was like, I feel like the problem isn't that there's no practical application. It's like I actually don't think they know how to teach practical application, what a clinician actually wants to know. But even some, yeah, but even some clinicians don't know how to translate into like what is that in terms of practical application? Yeah, like I think there's this missing piece of actually teaching it to someone. And so you obviously do a lot of education. What yes, what do you think practical application actually looks like? What are you telling these people that are coming through the education process? So much from what is the actual exercise prescription? And I don't mean three days a week, moderate intensity, whatever. I'm like, okay, we did the treadmill for this, we did this RPE, we did this much time. We then had a little bit of a break in terms of like moving on to some education, and then we did this machine, and we chose this machine because of this reason, and we did this many reps and this many sets, and this was the feedback that I gave the client in regard to how we would progress it. Then I asked them how they felt. Like, yeah, so it's not just like this general case study of like, I had this client with this condition and we exercised twice a week. She saw me twice a week at moderate intensity. It's like actually, yeah, okay. She turned up at 10 o'clock, and this is what we did every minute from there. Yeah. So, like the mentorship program, for example, every case study in that has the whole 12-week program block or even longer for some of those case studies, but most of them I worked through. And it has every single exercise, every single set and rep and the reasoning why we've chosen it for that person. Yeah. And then the next section is the client came back for their review and reported these things. Like this did not work for me. I had a hard time with adherence. I was sick during this week. This one worked well. I don't really know about this exercise. Okay, why did I put then I changed the program to this for those reasons? These are the sets and reps I did. This is the reasoning why. Like these are the different cues that I use for those exercises. Like the actual like how to do this. Yeah. Even in terms of the education that you give the client. Like when I teach someone who's a clinician about how the pelvic floor works, that is not how I teach the person who wants to know about why they've got pelvic floor symptoms. Yeah, the client versus the clinician. So, like a question that has come up, well at least came up probably a lot earlier. My first probably mentorship delivery was like, So, what do you tell the client? Like, how do you explain it to them? So I'm like, okay, this is the practical application of this theory for the client. Yeah, this is how you do it as a clinician. I think it has to be that. That's what yeah. Like for me, it's like what can I actually use tomorrow with a client? And like, is that sometimes I find uh someone will give me like a little analogy that they use, and I'm like, I love that. Yes, like I want to know how I explain this to the client. Like, tell me those. Yeah, I want to know, like, okay, I'm gonna do this exercise for this reason. Yeah, uh, what can I actually use in the clinic tomorrow? It's almost like languages, you know, when like someone's like teaching like language, but you have to then think about it from it's just like solid, but like if I'm learning a language, I've got to translate it into English to tell someone else. Like it's like the same thing. Like it's like the clinicians are learning it in a clinical language, and you've got to translate that into like client language. But it's like yeah, knowledge to application, yeah. It's like a whole different thing, yeah. Yeah, no, I don't know. I don't know why my brain went to the art languages, but I was just thinking about how you explain things is different terminology. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, is this a also potentially a problem of people not wanting to share it? Yeah, or not feeling confident to share it. I definitely think that's the case. I think people are too scared to share from a mind perspective, yeah. Do they think like they're not confident enough in what they're doing themselves? Maybe, maybe that, or they I still think there's still some like I don't want to, I want to like keep this to myself because it's it's mine, it's how I do things. It's like we've talked about the IP behind all of this. Yeah, like your exercises and the way you deliver it and the way you queue an exercise is is your intellectual property in a sense. Yeah, 100% it is. So like giving that away to other people to use is quite a scary thought. And I would say I had that, I would have felt a bit nervous. Like I was like, oh, I'm giving away all everything that I actually do. This is what I worked really hard on. Like, I'm really like other people are gonna start learning it. Yeah, but I'm like, we don't make any change in our industry and actually help people if we don't share the actual application of this. Yeah, well, it comes back to the fact that right now, the way the industry is, our biggest competitors are not other EPs. Our biggest competitors is people not knowing what we are, yeah. Or they're going, the EP didn't do help me very much. I'm gonna go see an osteo. Yeah. Or well, so if I can help if I can help you to be a better EP by sharing my exercise prescription, then we help more people, right? Yeah, they start to see more value in us. Yeah. Because we're yeah, 100%. I feel like all these conversations that we're having are just so connected. Yeah, everything is so interesting. Like the human body. Yes. That's why we're good at it. Uh apologies for uh I can't control the things that she says. I feel like that's the best address. Yes, well, um if you're looking for something with more practical application, this is something that we are gonna bring to the people. Oh, we're sharing it. Yeah, we are sharing it. We're not sharing it because we're not game keeping. No, we're not. Oh, I know. I mean we're sharing that we're doing it. Like uh we're telling people that it's happening now. Lunch in the control room. We can't go back on the name now. The control room. That wasn't a closer. She loves it. I love it so much. Anyway, lunch in the control room is 30-minute PD sessions, 20 minutes of no fluff practical application. Practical application. Like, I'm not telling you what endometriosis actually is. Yeah, I'm not defining the condition. You can go on Google, you ChatGPT can tell you better than I probably can. There's no statistics on that. I don't care about the numbers. There's yeah, no, yeah. We are telling you, okay, this is not a talk on osteoporosis. This is red flags for osteoporosis. This is what are the T-scores? What are your cutoffs? How do you change your exercise prescription? What are you doing with your prescription? Practical application. You hang up the call and you can actually take it into your next client then and there. Yeah. And there's no weird interpretation of like, oh, this paper said this, so like what does that actually mean for me? Yeah. We're just gonna give it to you. 20-minute gold mine of information, 10 minutes to ask questions, perfect for your lunch break. So uh there'll be a link in the show notes and on our socials to join the wait list and it'll be weekly. Get in the control room. We are the funniest. That's right. They're like, no, you're not. Everyone stop listening to us right now. Um, anyway, we're excited. There'll be like like you said, a couple of like that was a good topic to explain. We've got heaps of topic ideas already that we want to. We basically planned the whole year. Yeah. So it's happening every week. It's a lunch, a lunchtime thing. So you can have your lunch, sit with us, have a quick chat, go back to doing whatever you want to do. Um, short, sharp, to the point, we're gonna do exercise libraries. So, like, so once a month is gonna be an exercise workshop with actual exercises. We all want more exercises. Yeah. So if you're sitting there, like, what else do I give my client for glute meat? How do I do that? Yeah. How do I progress and regress it? How do I know when they're ready to do it? Thank you, man, in the control room. Take control of your PD. So, speaking of, it is time to take control of the week. Take control of the week at the end of every episode. We give you one concrete thing to do for you to take control. Um, this one's a good one. Yeah, it's join the wait list. Sign up now. And uh yeah, we're actually really excited about this. So uh yeah, join the wait list. We'll let you all know about when it's live to actually enroll them when we're kicking off. But for now, it's a wait list and you will hear from us. Take control. Thank you for uh bearing with us today and our crazy antics. If you resonated with this episode or any of our others, please like, subscribe, share with your networks. We really appreciate your support. Thanks for being here. We'll catch you on the next one. Bye.