292. The Truth About Exercising While Pregnant with Gina Conley

Pregnancy is a powerful journey—and your fitness can support you every step of the way.

In this episode of Reshape Your Health, we talk with Gina Conley, founder of MamasteFit, to uncover the real truth about working out before, during, and after pregnancy. If you’re confused about what’s safe, unsure how to stay strong through all the changes, or overwhelmed by recovery after birth—this episode is for you.

We explore why neglecting fitness during pregnancy can lead to unnecessary pain, poor posture, and longer recovery times. Gina shares why core strength, breath work, and pelvic floor training aren’t just “nice to have”—they’re essential for a smoother pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum healing.

You’ll learn the surprising ways fitness impacts your baby’s position, how to prepare your body for birth (whether vaginal or C-section), and what most people get wrong about postpartum recovery.

Don’t miss this conversation—it could change the way you prepare for pregnancy and beyond.

Resources From The Guest

>> Gina’s Website

>> Gina’s Instagram

>> Gina’s YouTube

>> Gina’s Podcast

Resources From This Episode

>> Insulin Resistance Diet Blueprint - https://www.zivli.com/blueprint?el=podcast

>> Free Low Insulin Food Guide - https://www.zivli.com/ultimatefoodguide?el=podcast

>> Join the Zivli Program Waitlist - https://www.zivli.com/join?el=podcast

>> Test Your Insulin at Home - https://www.zivli.com/testing?el=podcast

Have a question? Email us at: support@zivli.com

Transcript

Hey there and welcome back to another episode of the Reshape Your Health podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Morgan Nolte, and the timing of this episode, at least for me right now in this season of life is perfect because we are talking about fitness before, during, and after pregnancy. And at the time of this recording, I'm almost 35 weeks pregnant. It's going to air on maternity leave. And I'm excited just to have kind of a...

an interview that's kind of focused on this season in my life right now. And I know many of our listeners are over 50, over 60, but maybe you have a child that is pregnant, definitely share this interview with them because there's a lot of misconceptions when it comes to working out during pregnancy. And I don't know about anyone else's experience, but mine is more so like being pushed to take it easy.

Push, like have the extra cookie. It's for the baby or it's for breastfeeding. Breastfeeding. I think that just openly talking about health during pregnancy has been really empowering this third go around. So I'm excited for today's interview. My guest is Gina Conley. She's the founder of MamaStay Fit, which is a perinatal fitness training company located in Aberdeen, North Carolina. MamaStay Fit supports women throughout their pregnancy, birth and beyond.

as one of the only training facilities exclusively serving pre and postnatal fitness training clients in the United States. So Gina has her master's in exercise science and is the author of Training for Two, a book about how to use prenatal fitness to support a strong and pain-free pregnancy as you prepare for birth. Gina is a birth doula who has supported over 200 in-person births. She combines her experience as a fitness trainer and a birth professional to create

comprehensive programs that support her clients from conception to birth and through the postpartum period. Gina is a military spouse, an Army veteran, and a mom of four. Gina, thank you for your service and your sacrifice for our country, both actively and as a spouse. One of my dear friends is a Navy wife, and so I know that comes with some sacrifice.

And it's just such a cool calling that you have too, just to be able to support women in this special season of their life because, you know, it's a whirlwind, especially this time. So I would love for just to kind of start on, what can women be doing to safely exercise throughout pregnancy? there's...

Gina, MamasteFit (02:33)
Yeah, absolutely.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (02:48)
There's just a lot of messaging around like, take it easy, be careful. Like, are there some real risks to exercising during pregnancy or are there more risks to not exercising during pregnancy?

Gina, MamasteFit (03:00)
So I think a lot of folks take the better safe than sorry approach when it comes to prenatal fitness. know, women weren't really included in research studies until the 90s. And so this is like a newer thing that we're even beginning to really understand. And so the kind of approach is, well, just don't do anything and better to be safe than sorry. But you can actually be sorry if you don't exercise because there is a lot of benefits for both you and for your baby.

Some of the misconceptions with exercise during pregnancy really revolves around the safety of it. So is this going to impact my pregnancy length, such as will this cause a miscarriage? Will this cause preterm labor? In addition to like, this impact my baby's development? Will it negatively impact their baby? My baby's development caused them to be too small. Will my workouts suck all my nutrients to my muscles and send to my baby? And so there's a lot of fear involved with exercising. And I think there's a lot of like old wives tales and like

old misconceptions that have kind of been pushed on us from like medical providers at one point. And now there's kind of they're updating their information as well. But it takes time for people to kind of get get up to date with things. And so I know for me, like with my second pregnancy, we had a miscarriage and my mom made a comment of like, ⁓ maybe it was you were exercising too much. And I was like, well, that's not actually the case. And so

I'm gonna start by addressing the common myths associated with prenatal fitness, and then I'm gonna touch on what are all the benefits, because there are a ton of benefits, both for the mom and for the baby. So the first myth is, does this cause miscarriage or will it cause preterm labor? And the answer is no. And this has been repeatedly demonstrated in research that it does not increase your risk of miscarriage. Miscarriage unfortunately happens due to chromosomal abnormalities. So there's nothing that you did to cause it, and there was probably nothing that you could have done to prevent it either.

And so it's just one of those tragic things that happens to one out of four women. And so when we put this additional burden of guilt, maybe you did something that caused it, it's just really not helpful at all and ultimately not their fault. The next thing is gonna be, is it gonna cause preterm labor? And I think this might be a misconception because if someone is in preterm labor, the prescription is typically bed rest, like don't exercise, don't move to try to prevent things from progressing because movement during labor can absolutely help to facilitate the process.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (05:11)
Great.

Gina, MamasteFit (05:19)
However, movement does not cause you to go into labor. Like it can help labor when it begins, but there's no movement that's necessarily gonna put you into labor. But if you have a pre-existing condition, then yeah, like exercise may not be conducive for you. So the reasons that exercise may be harmful is if you have a pre-existing medical condition where exercising is not recommended for you, this could be like you have respiratory issues, like cardiovascular issues.

like uncontrolled thyroid issues. So if you have a pre-existing medical condition where exercise is not recommended, it's gonna continue into your pregnancy. If you develop a complication during your pregnancy where exercise is not recommended, where you probably just need to go to the hospital and get induced, such as like severe preeclampsia, like you're in preterm later, your water is broken, those would all be reasons that I would say like you probably don't need to work out, you should go see your doctor.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (06:08)
Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (06:11)
And then if you develop complications where like your cervix is maybe dilating way too early or it's really short when it shouldn't be, like maybe you have multiples. So there are conditions during pregnancy where exercise may, the benefit of it may not outweigh the potential risk. And these are conversations to have with your medical provider. If they're saying like, hey, you you got a lot going on. Maybe we don't, we probably shouldn't exercise. Like they're probably coming from a good place. Now, if you are a low risk pregnancy and there's nothing really.

like nothing wrong with it. It's pretty safe to exercise. I would say there's really no inherently dangerous exercises for anybody. Like you can lift weights, you can lift heavy weights relative to you. You can go running if you want, like you can go walking, you can do your normal aerobic classes, but we wanna be mindful of fall risk. So is there a risk of falling during this workout or during this exercise that could potentially be harmful for you or for your baby? And then paying attention to the environment. So if it's it.

really hot? Are you like dehydrated? Like is this is this maybe not a place that a normal person like doing jumping jacks in a sauna? Not where I would recommend your workouts during pregnancy. I would also not recommend that to a normal person.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (07:20)
Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (07:20)
So just paying attention to your

environment and being mindful of how you're feeling during workouts can be a really good clue, but you can lift weights, you can go do cardio, you can swim. Like there's so many workouts that we can do during pregnancy that are incredibly beneficial for us. And there are ton of benefits for exercise, both for the mom and for the baby. And so I'll start with the mom and then I'll talk about the baby, because a lot of folks don't know all like the really cool things that are going on with our baby.

I know for like the clients that come to our gym, they're very motivated to do things knowing that it's helping their baby. And so I really love sharing all that stuff. And so for the mom, one, you're probably gonna be more comfortable throughout your pregnancy. So kind of the common aches and pains that folks may have during pregnancy, you may not have. So you may not have as much low back pain, you might not have pelvic girdle pain, like you might not have pelvic floor issues, your back is probably not gonna hurt, like you're gonna feel much more comfortable during the journey and it's gonna help you enjoy it a little bit more.

Obviously pregnancy comes with some sort of discomfort like there's really no overcoming that but you don't have to be in pain during your pregnancy and so you can use exercise to help be more comfortable. It's gonna decrease your risk of developing complications especially towards the later end of your pregnancy so it could help to decrease your risk of developing creatinopathy which is a blood pressure issue. Hypertension which is another blood pressure thing, gestational diabetes by like 30 to 40 percent which is pretty significant.

And this is just going for a walk like two to three times a week. Like that can decrease your risk pretty substantially. And then if we add in a little bit more exercise, like the benefits only increase from there. Obviously like we don't wanna work out like 14 times a week, like there is a limit to it. Be reasonable with it, but exercising can help to reduce your risk of developing complications.

which could result, if you do develop a complication, it could result in a labor induction due to medical necessity. It may result in a cesarean birth. So it could increase the interventions required for your birth, which could impact your birth outcomes and how you can heal postpartum. So reducing those risks is like incredibly beneficial for pregnancy. It's also gonna really positively impact your placenta development, which I think a lot of folks don't know. So if you exercise in the first half of your pregnancy, especially like that first 20 weeks,

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (09:08)
Great.

Gina, MamasteFit (09:31)
which the first trimester is sometimes a little bit rough. So if you can't, it's okay. But really emphasize it in the second trimester. This can create a bigger placenta to be more voluminous, so a bit larger, it has more functional capacity. And so this is probably a big reason why it decreases the risk of preeclampsia. It decreases the risk of your baby having IUGR, which means your baby is way too small, which is usually related to the placenta. And so...

The placenta exercising the first half of your pregnancy is gonna help to positively impact the development of it, which plays a huge role in your baby's development. And so really cool things that go on with your baby is their resilience to stress is significantly increased if you're exercising throughout your pregnancy. It's probably due to them being exposed to controlled stress from your workouts that just makes them a little bit more resilient to it. They have more nervous system development. They have more brain development, like so their cognitive function is increased.

And this kind of goes into their first year of life. So they have improved language skills. They have improved motor skills, gross and fine motor skills. Like they are like starting to babble a little bit more. They're crawling a little bit earlier. They're more resilient to stress during labor and in the postpartum timeframe. So there's a lot of benefits to our baby. Their blood volume is increased like from if they're working out when they're born, they are sometimes maybe like a little bit smaller, but their heads and like their torso is the same size. Their arms and legs are just like a little bit leaner.

So they have more muscle mass to them too, which is like pretty cool. So there's lots of benefits both for the mom and for the baby. Really the only big risk is if you're doing workouts in like unsafe environment. So it's like super hot, it's really humid, you have no water. That would not be great. Don't do anything in a sauna. Like hot yoga maybe like sit by a window, I guess, if you want to do that. And then if you have any sort of pre-existing complication, then exercise may not be safe. But other than that,

It's a pretty safe thing to do and you're really not limited with what you do. The biggest thing is finding something that feels good for you and your body that you enjoy, that's motivating for you to do and you don't have to go crazy with it. You were like, we're just looking for 150 minutes a week of exercise. This can be like three times a week. This can be like four times a week, really just aiming for like 20 to 30 minutes, like every day if possible of like a moderate intensity exercise is going to be really beneficial both for you and for your baby.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (11:51)
Yeah, and I think it's important to note that it's okay if it changes. Like I'm a regular exerciser, have been my whole life. And the first part of my pregnancy, he was sitting so low in my pelvis and the traditional weight movements that I would do like Bulgarian split squats or lunges or stuff that might cause tension on like the pubic symphysis really hurt for like days after.

And so for me, it's like, really listened to my body and I modified whatever strength movements I needed to, to be able to continue doing it. It's like, don't, you know, don't just stop because one movement hurts, but like do some experimentation and see what movements feel better. The other thing was walking really hurt during that timeframe. So we got a stationary bike so that there wasn't that downward pressure as much through that pubic synthesis. And that felt great. I got a walking pad. I was kind of curious.

I usually stand at my desk a lot during the day and then I walk at like two miles an hour once walking didn't hurt anymore. Like once he kind of moved up, guess out of my pelvis. Is that considered exercise to you or is that more mobility since it's like not really in that moderate aerobic zone? You know, it's definitely light.

Gina, MamasteFit (13:05)
say it's still beneficial. Overall daily movement is still really great for you even if it's not at that moderate intensity level, but then incorporating some movement that is a little bit higher intensity. What we're looking for with moderate intensity is you can speak like a sentence before you get a little bit winded. You still got gas left in the tank, but you're working hard. You're like, all right, this is a good workout.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (13:11)
Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (13:30)
If I was doing like a slow walk at my desk, like I would still count that as movement. So if you don't do a workout that day, but you walked at your desk for an hour or two, like that still counts to me, like increasing your overall like steps during the day, just your overall movement during the day is really important as well. Cause we're not just, you know, doing our 30 minute workout and then sitting at our desk for the other like 15 hours of the day. Like if we're moving throughout the day, that's incredibly beneficial as well.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (13:34)
Yeah.

Yeah, I'm huge on blood sugar management. I've noticed the walking pad was so good for that. Just getting movement throughout the day. Like I didn't work out yesterday, but I walked four miles at two miles an hour over two hours throughout the day in like 30 minute intervals. And that feels really, really good to my body right now. I think, can we speak a little bit more to the mental health impact of exercise during a pregnancy? Because for me, work and exercise are like,

the two best things for my mental health alongside like my spiritual practices. But I think that that's a commonly overlooked thing. And I know that mood changes are very, very common in pregnancy. And I'd love to hear some experience postpartum as well, like how exercise has positively impacted people's mental health.

Gina, MamasteFit (14:48)
So like I was saying before, when we are exercising during our pregnancies to include into the postpartum period, it usually decreases your pain. And if we are not in pain, we tend to be in a better mood. And so that's something that's like really impactful during pregnancy and especially in the postpartum timeframe is if you feel good in your body, it's a lot easier to be in a good mood. Like if walking hurts and just doing daily functional movement hurts, like trying to meet the demands of your day.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (14:48)
Thank

Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (15:15)
hurts, then it's going to really impact your mood. so I think that's like, just physically, that's something that's so impactful for your mental health. It also gives you an opportunity to kind of surrender as well. Because like you were saying, you're going to need a modified during pregnancy, like you're not going to be doing pre kids pre pregnancy workouts throughout your entire pregnancy, like you will at some point need to modify.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (15:29)
Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (15:38)
And so when we are learning how to surrender to what our body needs and letting go of our ego, that is really going to serve us really well throughout our day. When we come with unexpected things, it's going to really serve us well during our labor. It's going to serve us really well in motherhood because children have opinions on how they would like to do things. And things don't always go the way that you hope. And so if we kind of have this feeling of giving myself some grace and kind of accepting whatever my experience is.

we can get that from our workouts during pregnancy. And I think that's something that really carries over and is not always like recognized because usually it's, okay, what movements can I do for my pelvic floor, for my pelvis, for like, for this, for that? It's like, well, there's also a mental aspect of it as well. But I think the biggest thing with pregnancy and postpartum is when we are moving our body intentionally.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (16:21)
Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (16:27)
we are gonna feel better in our bodies. We're gonna be able to meet the demands of our day, which is gonna improve our quality of life and therefore improve our mood and just how we generally feel. Like it sucks to have to pick up your baby when your back hurts or like, I had this like weird shoulder thing, cause I slept on it weird and like trying to like grab my baby all day was like really irritating. And I don't know about you, like when I am just in like chronic pain, I am just not a pleasant person to be around.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (16:40)
Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (16:52)
And so if that was my everyday in pregnancy and that was my everyday postpartum, I would be in a horrible mood. My mental health would significantly suffer. In addition to when we exercise, we have a lot of feel good hormones that get released. Like that stuff is gonna help us feel good as well.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (17:07)
I like to think of it as training to give birth. I really want to have a natural childbirth. I've had two. And the other thing I wanted to talk about was, there's a lot I want to talk about. You know, does that, you said I was interested in the stress resilience of the baby because to me, when I'm doing weights, when I'm actively doing things that I don't want to be doing that feel hard for my body, I'm like, well, labor is going to feel hard too, Morgan. So this is just kind of like your pre-labor training here.

And so sounds like that the baby is getting that benefit as well, right?

Gina, MamasteFit (17:36)
See?

Absolutely, so they're like the blood that comes to them and like their heart rate and stuff is not significantly impacted during our workouts, but they're still feeling some of that stress. This is exercise induced stress. So it's in a controlled environment and it really impacts them during labor. And so there is a hormone that we release when we are lower on oxygen and we need some more support. And babies have lower levels of this during labor compared to babies that have moms that didn't work out. And so this is a sign that they are more resilient to stress. They're not.

deoxygenated, they're not feeling stressed during labor, which is going to be really beneficial during the actual labor process. Like one of the reasons that we have emergency cesareans is because babies are no longer tolerating it. And that's not to like blame anybody for it. But if your baby is more resilient to the demands of labor, and let's say you do have to be induced or you do have a more complicated situation, they're going to be able to handle it a little bit better, which I think is really, really beneficial.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (18:37)
Yeah, I agree. I wanted to dig into strength training a little bit. So pre-pregnancy, I would try to aim for like eight to 10 reps, five to 10, like a higher intensity. And then I was just curious, do you recommend going to a moderate intensity? Do you recommend people stay at a high intensity? Just personally, I try to do like 12 to 15 reps just because that's what feels best for my body from a recovery standpoint at this point.

I've noticed that backing off on the intensity reduced any like, you know, the pelvic pain I was talking about. I've noticed muscle recovery takes a little bit longer during pregnancy. So backing off on the intensity helped with that. But what are your general recommendations for people who are already lifting at a pretty high intensity pre-pregnancy? Like should they modify anything? Should they just listen to their body? What do you suggest?

Gina, MamasteFit (19:33)
So my general recommendation during pregnancy is to kind of go for like a strength endurance like rep range. And so this can be anywhere from like six or eight to like the 15 or 20. So it's kind of a big range, but we're gonna be decreasing our load pretty significantly. And so this is gonna allow you to still lift weights, but at a lower volume, because if you're only doing like two to three reps and you're at 70%, that's gonna be like way too easy. Like you're not gonna work out in.

But if you're doing 70 % at eight reps, that's gonna be much more challenging, but it's gonna be at a low that is manageable for you. So when we're doing our lifting movements with a barbell or with our heavier weights or our main lifts, we do about six to 10 reps. And then the accessory work is usually about 10 per side, 15 per side. This is where we get the higher numbers, because these are more like our body weight exercises or resistance band and lighter weights. And so our accessory work volume is gonna be a little bit higher.

Our programming overall, the volume is very high for it because we're in more of an endurance kind of mindset right now, because there's a lot of endurance demands during pregnancy. Like we've got postural changes that are happening. Like we need the endurance to maintain an upright position and then going all the way into labor, like we need endurance to maintain an upright position to support our labor process. And then that is going to carry over to the postpartum as well, which I think a lot of folks, when they think prenatal fitness, I think pregnancy and birth.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (20:37)
That's true.

Gina, MamasteFit (20:54)
and they don't realize that it actually is super helpful postpartum as well. Like whatever you did during pregnancy is still gonna be there for you after the fact. Sorry, I like lost my train of thought.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (21:03)
Yeah, and when you say like,

well, you said high volume, I think is the word that you said. Can you explain that for people that might not be familiar with that terminology?

Gina, MamasteFit (21:13)
So higher volume just means you're just doing a lot more reps than maybe you normally would or what you may consider like, so like a lower volume programming, I would say it would be like something anywhere from like three to five reps per exercise. Higher volume for us is like the overall number of reps that you are doing is the number is much higher than like a different program. So for us, the lifts are gonna be like eight to 12 or eight to 10 reps and then accessory work is like 10 to 20 reps.

But this is going to be over three rounds, three or four rounds. And so there's a lot of repetitions that are happening, but the weights are going to be much lower than they were pre-pregnancy. so typically what I recommend for my lifters in the first and second trimester, we're looking anywhere from like a 70 to like 80 % effort level with our weights. And this will look different than pre-pregnancy. So it's not 70 % of your one rep max. It's 70 % of what you feel today. And so...

What we're looking for with the round is as you do every exercise, you're maintaining really good form. You're not compromising in your form. You feel very comfortable during it, but you feel challenged. By the last rep, you're like, I maybe got like two or three more, but then I need to, I'm going to need to put this bar down.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (22:21)
That was my question.

Yeah, I'm like, okay, are they doing six to 10 to failure or to fatigue? Because it sounds like I'm training at a pretty similar load is what you would recommend, but I'm doing more. I'm doing like 12 to 15 to like that muscle failure where it's like I could maybe do one more, but maybe I should back off a little bit. Is that what you're saying?

Gina, MamasteFit (22:45)
Yeah, I would say like leave it to where you can do maybe like three or four more. But you're on the right track though. You're on the right track. You're still challenging yourself. And it sounds like you're still maintaining really good form, which is the key thing that we're looking for is as long as you are maintaining really good form and you feel very good as you do the movements, like you don't feel like I'm going to be this bar is going to fall off my back. Like I need to bail.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (22:49)
Okay.

Gina, MamasteFit (23:07)
Like as long as you're not reaching that point, we're usually at a pretty good point. The reason why like the form is really important during pregnancy is we have a lot more movement happening within our joints. The way that we stabilize is different. The way that we manage pressure is different. And so we cannot lift at really heavy loads relative to you as a person, like during pregnancy, because the way that we...

can manage that is much different than pre-natal or pre-pregnancy. And all of the extra joint and stress on our joints, like if we're lifting with poor form, is potentially gonna cause injury more likely during pregnancy than outside. And we don't wanna be injured during pregnancy if possible. It's not a good time to be like trying to rehab from stuff. So as long as you're maintaining good form, you feel challenged, but you think you could do a few more reps before you would need to bail. And then this is where adding in accessory work can be really helpful. So we do like little supersets in our workouts.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (23:31)
because you're poor.

Gina, MamasteFit (23:57)
to make it a little bit more endurance focused, but still getting the challenge of lifting, where it's like 10 squats and then you do 10 step ups, and then you finish up with some sort of banded exercise, and then you do that three times. So that way we're limiting the rest, so we're increasing the endurance, but we're still getting the strength training within it. And then we can also add in a little bit of accessory work. Because something that is really common with strength workouts is everything is very front to back. So we're...

very much in this sagittal plane when we're doing squats and dead lifts and everything is just kind of moving in this direction. But for our hips to open and to create space for our baby, we also need movement that is rotational. We need movement that is lateral and side to side. And so we can have our strength movement that's that front to back, but then we can add in the accessory work that has the rotation, that has the lateral movement to help support the mobility of our hips and the mobility of our pelvis to support our lever process as well.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (24:49)
Yeah, I think the abductors, so people who aren't familiar, like the abductors was kind of the side glute muscle. And the traditional things that I would do to work that, like some single leg stuff, it just hurt my pelvis too much. So I started doing like banded clams. I didn't know if there were any other accessory exercises that you would suggest for hip rotation specifically.

Gina, MamasteFit (25:12)
so I, if somebody is dealing with pelvic pain, something that I really like to do is to really increase activation of the inner thigh muscle that really helps to stabilize the pelvis. And so I'll have them do like a staggered stance or like a split squat position where like the, the feeder are in different positions, but just kind of playing around with how wide they can go depending on comfort. And then I'll add a resistance band that's kind of pulling their front leg outwards. So they have some inner thigh activation.

And then as they do their lunge, they're gonna come down and they're gonna rotate belly towards the thigh to find internal hip rotation. And then they're gonna come up to find external hip rotation, or they can just maintain the internal rotation as they go up and down. We found to be really successful to keep our clients pain free as they are doing single leg exercises, they have pelvic pain. But if you are having pelvic pain with spreading the legs apart, which is pretty common if you have like front pelvic pain.

we can think about how can we work these muscles in a way that feels more manageable. if standing and doing lateral band walks where you're walking side to side is like, that's not happening, especially like a single leg planting and like pivoting movement is usually not great. Well, maybe we move down to the floor and we try a fire hydrant on all fours and see if adding two more points of support helps. If that's still not like, nope, like laying down on your side, doing the banded clam shells. But if spreading your legs at all is really painful,

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (26:18)
Right.

Gina, MamasteFit (26:34)
I would put the band around my thighs and I would do a hip thrust where I maintained my knees being like in one position the whole time. So there's no like abduction happening, but we have that resistance. Yeah. So kind of like a bridge or a hip thrust. either back is elevated or down on the floor. So we're still working that side glute muscle, but we don't have any of the spreading of the knees that is sometimes really painful. so when it comes to managing pelvic pain or keeping us comfortable while we're

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (26:43)
like a prince.

Gina, MamasteFit (27:01)
lifting during pregnancy, it's all about just modifying. so things that I would do to help modify is can I increase the support in this movement so that I can be more stable? Because if we are unstable or we feel unstable, we're going to clench and that's going to change, that's going to cause compensation patterns and we don't want that when we're lifting. So can I increase the support? So if you're doing a squat, for example, and your back was kind of hurting, can we squat down to a box instead, add some support, decrease our range of motion?

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (27:11)
Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (27:30)
Can we hold onto rings or onto like the edge of a chair to squat down so we have some support with our upper body can help us a little bit. So those are some like it can we lower the weight would be like the next thing that I would modify. So can I increase the support in the movement? Can I maybe decrease the loading? And then the last thing I would do is change change the angle of the push. And so this is like a big one. If I was pressing overhead, but I felt like a lot of like abdominal coning. So the center of the abs kind of pushing out a little bit more, which is a

pressure management compensation pattern. If I was pressing straight overhead, seeing lots of coding, okay, let me come to a seated position. I'm still seeing a lot of coding. Let me change the angle. So instead of pressing straight overhead, I'm gonna press kind of 45 degrees in front of me and see if that helps. Yeah, like a.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (28:14)
like a shoulder press, for example, like,

yes, and or I could like get on a bench essentially and do. Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (28:20)
Or do it in Climb Press instead. Yeah. Or even

like a Banded one where you're kind of pressing like, like a landmine press. You're kind of like here instead of directly over. Yeah.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (28:29)
yeah. I like

forward instead of straight up. So.

Gina, MamasteFit (28:33)
Yeah, so sometimes

we just have to change the shape but still think about what is the goal? Like what am I trying to achieve with this movement that I could achieve in a shape that is better for my body? So there's lots of modifying like when it comes to pregnancy.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (28:48)
It is, and I'm a physical therapist. I'm not a women's health physical therapist, but like I have a lot of exercise physiology and personal exercise experience. you know, even I get stumped sometimes I'm like, how can I modify this movement? I have a couple other questions on core pelvic floor. There was one more, but of course, you know, pregnancy brain, forget it. so, you know, from a core, I know it was giving myself grace, like,

If you're used to living, like lifting really heavy weights, there's almost this like fun egotistical component of like beating yourself every time. You know, like how much can I squat today? How much can I bench today? But a really big thing that allows us to be able to lift heavy weights is core strength. And when your core muscles are stretched out, they are not going to be contracting efficiently to be able to help you lift weights. And so I think

just giving grace to like, okay, my legs are still strong. My body is literally just changing shape and I cannot tolerate the same load or resistance as I could when I was not pregnant and my core muscles were aligned properly and not stretched out. So I think giving yourself grace is important. But what are some of your favorite core exercises? Because that was a mistake I would say made with my first pregnancy and then a little bit with my second.

was not training my core enough. And then after I gave birth, I like tried to contract my abs and there was absolutely nothing there. It was like they were paralyzed. I'm like, gosh, I have some work to do. So I'm trying to incorporate some more things, but what are some of your go to core recommendations for women?

Gina, MamasteFit (30:26)
you

So I think there's

a little bit of reframing that needs to happen for a lot of us of what we think of when we think of the core. It's not just floor-based ab exercises that, you know, the little eight minute ab like circuit. I think I did that with like, was it P90X or something like when I was in like college. So we need to kind of reframe what we think of when we think of core exercises. And typically during pregnancy, like lots of abdominal flexion, so like crunches and sit ups are probably not gonna be very conducive for us. Like probably not my rec...

of adhesion. Anything that is going to put a lot of strain on like the front abdominal muscles, I would probably not recommend. But we have to remember that our core is more than just our six pack abs. It is the entire core, like it isn't your entire torso, which is going to include like your pelvic floor, your side obliques, your back muscles, like your inner thigh muscles can be included within your core. And so there's so many muscles that are a part of helping you to stabilize. And so if we think about what is the

of our core, it's to anchor movement on. And so I want my core to maintain its position as my arms and legs do things, as I walk, as I pick up something. And so if we can kind of reframe what we think of when we think of core exercises, this is really gonna expand what we can do. And so during pregnancy, it is absolutely important to train your core. We should not completely avoid core exercises. I've heard that as a myth of don't do any ab exercises or you'll destroy your core.

But we need to, again, reframe. My core is not just my six-pack muscles. It is the entire core canister, and we're focusing on maintaining our position. So the three types of movements that I would be incorporating to focus on core training is one of the anti-movements. So I am resisting movement with my core as my arms and legs do things. And so this is where lot of banded exercises can be really helpful. So like a payoff press where you have a band attached to your side and you're kind of resisting a rotation can be helpful.

Farmer's carries are just holding weight and walking and maintaining an upright position. Especially one-sided can be really helpful or having two different weights can be super helpful. Bear crawls where you're essentially just crawling on the floor but keeping your hips level like bird dogs. All those different movements are gonna be really helpful when we're focusing on just keeping our core's position. And all of these again are core exercises. Like it doesn't have to be sit ups and crunches.

The next thing that we're gonna incorporate is rotational movement. And now there is some myth that you should never twist during pregnancy, which would make you be in tons of pain if you never twisted your spine. Like that would not be a good time. The reason why this is a myth is I think it came from yoga maybe. If you do like a super deep compression twist where your belly really presses into your thigh, it's gonna detach your placenta, which is not true. It would just be really uncomfortable. there's a lot in there to protect your placenta.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (33:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (33:20)
Just doing like a single twist is not gonna do that. But a deep compression type twist would probably be really uncomfortable. So I would not recommend that. But you should absolutely be rotating your spine and like twisting within your hips as well. Like within reason, I would not go to like my red in any of these stretches just because you do have a little bit more flexibility during pregnancy. But we wanna incorporate rotational movements. So these can be like chops or like diagonal pull downs. We're kind of like twisting in the upper body.

I would say like Russian twists where like your legs are kind of off the floor. I would not do that because that's really abdominal like flexion focus. But those can be like two really great exercises that we incorporate where you're either pulling down and across your body, you're pulling up across your body, or even just rotating from side to side with like a band is like a really great option. Yeah.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (33:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good, like scanning, that's a good one. That's a good idea.

Gina, MamasteFit (34:11)
The last thing is gonna be a hip extension exercise where we maintain our torso position. So these are our squats, our lunges, our dead lifts. Like these are all core exercises as well. And to make it a little bit more challenging, we can just hold weight on one side. So we can do a one-sided squat. So now I have a little bit of anti-lateral reflection that I'm avoiding as I go up and down with my body. And so this would be my hip extension focus exercise that is anti.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (34:19)
Mm-hmm.

Gina, MamasteFit (34:34)
So those would be like the three types of core exercises that I would incorporate. Something that I'm resisting movement, I would say like a plank would be like an anti, but I would probably like move away from that by like third trimester just because most folks are experiencing a lot of coning in that. I'm going to incorporate rotational movement. So kind of twisting my body from side to side, either with an up and down rotation or a side to side rotation.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (34:49)
Hmm.

Gina, MamasteFit (34:57)
I typically find like a standing position, a half kneeling or seated position are gonna be much better than like supine ones for this. And then hip extension exercises where I'm maintaining my position. So like a one-sided squat, lunge, suitcase, deadlift, those could all be really, really great core exercises. Cause we do want a strong core to one, help stabilize during pregnancy. We also want a strong core to support our baby's position. One of the things that contribute towards like malposition for babies. So they're either a breach or

they're in a funky position is sometimes the belly is very pendulous. So it kind of really falls forward because the abdominal muscles are not strong enough to kind of pull the baby in. And so this may contribute towards a breach position. This may make it really hard for a baby to engage into your pelvis. And so having a strong abdominal wall is really important to supporting their position in addition to helping with pushing. Like the pelvic floor does not push the baby out. It's the abdominal muscles and the top of the uterus. And so if we have a strong core to kind of like squeeze and push baby down, it'd be like,

like if you have your tube of toothpaste and you're squeezing from the sides, like the toothpaste comes out, like that's your core doing that. So we do want our strong core to support us there. In addition to the postpartum, like you said, like everything that we do during pregnancy is helping to support us in the postpartum timeframe in a body that feels really different and new. And if we have these movement patterns and we have this neurological connection from pregnancy, it's gonna be much more accessible in the postpartum as well.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (36:19)
guys.

Yeah, the neurological connection is important because, you know, just learning how to do these movements, connecting the breath to the movement, that's all neurological. And the research has shown that like those early strength gains are more like neuro gains where you're like, okay, you're getting muscle memory, your nerves and your muscles are firing more efficiently together. So I a hundred percent stand by that. What about some breath work? That's something I don't know that I did a ton of in my first two that I'm trying to focus a little bit more on now.

But to me, that feels like a really good core exercise to like hands and knees, like almost like a cat cow exercise. Do you have any favorite like breath exercises for, you know, either hip opening or kind of coordinating the breath with the core, anything like that?

Gina, MamasteFit (36:59)
Mm-hmm.

So diaphragmatic breathing, where we're coordinating our breath to movement, is like the deepest core exercise that we can do. We have different layers to our core, and diaphragmatic breathing is one that really helps to activate that deep layer. And if you can coordinate how you breathe to how you move, you'll be doing a core exercise during anything that you do, and it helps to really enhance your stability. Yeah, and it's also a really great exercise to do postpartum as well. It's like one of the first core exercises that you can do.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (37:28)
I'm doing that right now. Yes.

Gina, MamasteFit (37:37)
So if I was gonna incorporate my breath to my movement to help stability, to help activate my core a little bit more, typically I'm gonna be breathing based on my orientation to gravity. And so if I was gonna do a squat, for example, I would inhale to kind of feel everything expand. And so this is energetically lengthening my abdominal muscles that they can then recoil back in. So it's kind of gathering power. I'm gonna inhale to lower down. This is helping to stabilize my spine.

And then as I come up, I'm gonna exhale to kind of lift everything up and in. So now I have pressure and muscle activation working together to help stabilize my core. And so this is kind of, if you are familiar with Kegels at all, or if you've heard that word before, this is how I would incorporate a Kegel if I ever did it into my workout routine.

So I'm inhale to come down and then as I exhale to come up where I have the harder part of the movement, I'm gonna exhale to kind of lift up in that pelvic floor, which would be more of that Kegel type movement or that activation movement. I would not just do Kegels just by myself, like just sitting here like Kegel to the beat, like please don't do that. A lot of us have very tight pelvic floors, especially very tight back half or pelvic floor.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (38:34)
Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (38:48)
the majority of people do not do a kegel correctly. And so if you have a very tight pelvic floor, it is gonna be very challenging for your baby to pass through. It's also probably gonna contribute towards more pelvic floor issues, such as incontinence, like prolapse, like just discomfort within your pelvis. It may be contributing towards pelvic pain. If your pelvic floor is so tight and clenched that it cannot function, it's really gonna impact how you stabilize as well, because it's the base of our core canister. So if I was gonna tell you a movement to not do during pregnancy, I would say don't do kegels, just like...

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (39:09)
Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (39:17)
repetitive squeezing, it's not really beneficial for you. But we do want to learn how to move our pelvic floor with our breath. So if I'm moving with gravity, so I'm lowering in the eccentric part of my movement, I'm going to inhale. So I have that stretching in the eccentric movement of my breath. And then when I'm in the harder part of the movement, our movement against gravity, I'm going to exhale to kind of lift up and my pelvic floor, have that kegel pull baby to spine. And this is going to help to increase muscular activation to counter increased pressure from exertions.

So those would be like how I would coordinate it within an exercise. And now you can do this in a more relaxed position as well to like really connect with your breath and with your pelvic force movement. So you can do it in a supine position. If being flat on your back is not comfortable, like a seated position, like tabletop position is gonna have more anti or more gravity to it as well. You could do it in a standing position. But we're just thinking about, okay, I'm inhaling. I would target more of like the inhale to the backside of the body. So feel like your ribs expand.

like your back expand into kind of like the back half of your pelvic floor. And then exhale, think kind of lift up in the front half of your pelvic floor, whole baby to spine. So that's kind of, it would be kind of this like almost like circular pattern as I'm breathing. A lot of us during pregnancy and even beyond tend to have much more compression in the backside of our body, which can impact how our diaphragm moves. And so if we think inhale to breathe into that space, it's gonna kind of stretch it.

But then for a lot of us, the front half of our pellet floor has more length to it and the belly maybe has more length to it as well. And so if we're kind of pulling that in, activating it, it's going to help strengthen our core or the abdominal muscles especially. So you can absolutely do just breath work as your core exercise. You can incorporate that breath work into all your movements to really enhance the activation of our core. And it can also be like the first thing that you do postpartum to help rebuild your core, to reconnect with your core after birth.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (41:07)
Yes.

Yeah, that is the first thing that I do is just breath work. Like that diaphragmatic breathing, trying to get the muscles to activate with my breath and then just slowly, slowly, slowly working back into things. I wanted to ask you like, when do you recommend women start exercising after birth? Like I know for me, it felt like immediately like baby's out. Okay, I'm doing my breath work. I'm going for a walk. But like a lot of people will say wait six weeks or something like that. What do you recommend?

Gina, MamasteFit (41:37)
So I think that you can absolutely begin to reconnect in the early postpartum. So like the breath work, mobility, like we don't want to just be like perfectly still and like just exist for six weeks. Like six weeks is too long to do nothing, but it's also too short to like rush back to the gym and like start doing our normal workouts again. So we have like a free early postpartum recovery course that kind of guides people through like the first month postpartum.

And I would recommend gentle breathing, just reconnecting, like reconnecting that mind-body connection again. Where's my pelvic floor? Where's my core? Where's my body? Now that I don't have a baby in here anymore. Doing gentle mobility. So like lots of thoracic mobility, lots of hip mobility. Just we get kind of stuck in positions after we have little babies, because we're just kind of snuggling them. And we get stuck a lot. And you're like, my back really hurts. And so doing some gentle mobility, feel more comfortable.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (42:10)
Yeah.

Cheers.

studying a lot. Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (42:28)
I would say around like the week or two week mark going for like walks can be really great. So the first week I would say try to stay off your feet as much as you can. That may not be realistic for everybody. For those of you that are listening, if you have a daughter that is giving birth and she wants you there, I would go to her house and like help her so that she can just rest in bed. That's like the best thing that my mom did for me. So if you can be off your feet as much as possible the first like five-ish days, that's really great.

because this is where this is our initial inflammation healing phase. In addition to this is where the placental scab is going to come off and there may be like a little bit increased bleeding around. It's anywhere from like seven to 14 days that happens. Once that happens going for like short walks, I would say like 10 minutes, like five, 10 minutes, like we're not going to go run a marathon on a week postpartum, but going for walks just to get some fresh air, get some sunshine, like move. would push baby in a stroller over baby wearing at this point just to kind of decrease the load on my body.

but if you want to baby wear that's fine too. And then we can start incorporating like gentle core exercise. And I'm talking like you're on the floor, just one arm is like extending overhead and you're keeping your position. We guide folks through like these really gentle core exercises and it's a free program as well. offer it as a thank you to all of our followers. But yeah, and then once you kind of hit like four to six-ish weeks, maybe 10-ish weeks, your bleeding has stopped, you're feeling like, all right, I feel like ready.

We're also at a different level of tissue healing at this point. The tissue maturation is starting to become a little bit stronger around like the four week mark. This is when we can start to incorporate like more structured exercise. So before this was just kind of like go with the flow. Now let's start incorporating like structured workouts again. And they may only be 10 minutes. Maybe it's 20 minutes. Maybe it's 30 minutes. Maybe you have childcare and you can do a whole hour. So we're gonna kind of ease into it at this point and think like you're.

a brand new work, like brand new lifter, brand new exerciser, you're on ramping into this program, and we're going to kind of ease into it. And so we have a postpartum program that just slowly guides people through this process. It's still challenging, but it's very manageable. We've been training clients in person that are pregnant and postpartum exclusively. We don't do general population programming. And so like, we just kind of like walk folks through that process, but you're going to think, can I find really supportive positions to reconnect with my body as I start to move?

like a little bit more challenging and then just slowly adding on to that over however many weeks. So it's not gonna be pre-kids, pre-pregnancy workouts right away. It's gonna be slow. I find that the more intentional you are with this process, the better. You're gonna heal faster. If you rush it, like you tried going back to the gym at like two weeks postpartum, you go back to the gym and you're starting to like really crush the weights right away, you're probably gonna have more issues. Like I've worked with some really high level athletes that were like Gina.

I'm just gonna go back to my workouts and then at month four postpartum they're coming back to work with me because they're like, just kidding. I rushed it and now I have to start all over again. So yeah.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (45:25)
Does that increase the prolapse stress?

So if you go too hard, does that increase the risk of prolapse, like uterine prolapse, for example?

Gina, MamasteFit (45:38)
I think so. I think it can cause a lot of issues for you. It can make it harder for your diastasis to heal sometimes if you are moving in a way that is really inhibiting that healing. It's potentially not giving your pelvic floor time to heal. It's similar to like if you like sprained your ankle and then you like rested for a week and then went back and then like you hurt your ankle again. Our tissue is still in a healing phase. And so if we're doing too much too soon, we're going to injure ourselves and then we're going to start all over from the beginning.

I think a big thing with approaching exercise during this perinatal timeframe during pregnancy and the postpartum is a lot of reframing what our goals are. For me with my first baby, I was an army officer, I identified as an athlete, this was who I was. And when I didn't have my workouts, I was like, what is my, who am I? Like, what is my value now if I can't run fast or I can't lift heavy weights? And so it's about reframing what is my goal right now. My goal is not

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (46:15)
Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (46:35)
to go to the CrossFit Games. I mean, it never was to go to the CrossFit Games, but my goal is not this like huge athletic feat. It's to move through my pregnancy to support my birth, to support me postpartum. It's to move through my pregnancy to be comfortable, to feel good in my body. So that's my goal right now. My workouts are gonna look different because that's where I am. I am not any less valuable because I don't lift as much weight. I'm not any less valuable because I don't run as fast. Like who am I?

I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody during my pregnancy. I'm just trying to feel good for me and for my baby. So we can kind of reframe like what is my value in regards to my workouts. It's really helpful during pregnancy. And then that carries over postpartum. Hey, I really want to get back to lifting. It's been a year. Like I haven't been able to lift the weights that I want to. Like I'm so excited to get my body back to feel like me again.

And it's hard to be patient in that process. It really, really is. But I really encourage our listeners and their children to really consider being patient with the process, because it's gonna be very helpful long-term. When you take your time and you're very intentional with the recovery, you're gonna feel much better in your body and you're gonna get back to that stuff that you really want to much quicker than if you rushed the process in the beginning. And I've worked with so many clients over the years who

have rushed it and then they come back and they're like, I'm still dealing with all this pain and discomfort and I'm like, let's work together. Let's figure it out. And so there are resources out there for folks. It's a little bit of reframing that needs to happen. It's like, think about what our goals are for this phase during pregnancy, during the postpartum. Right now for me, I'm just trying to meet the demands of motherhood. I wanna feel good for my body, in my body, as I take care of my children, as I move through my day.

Like I think maybe I'll start training for a marathon. I don't know. We'll see. But I'm thinking about what my current goals are and it's okay if it doesn't look the same as pre-pregnancy or pre-kids. This is a phase of my life and I just want to feel really good at it and I want to help other people feel really good in theirs too.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (48:38)
Yeah. And I think for me, a mindset shift is like, you had an injury, like, you know, for, for me, it's like, okay, baby's out. I'm back to normal. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Your pelvic floor and your core have had an injury, like you said. And so I, instead of treating it as like, okay, I'm going to hit the ground running and get my body back as fast as possible. It's like, I'm going to allow myself to heal because for after my second one, I remember it three weeks.

I don't know if it was three weeks or three months. It was three because I like did like a run walk for three miles. And I was like, I think I feel a little bit of prolapse. That was probably too much. And it was almost like this little scare of like, oops, you need to back off and be very mindful about retraining your core and like re strengthening the pelvic floor and getting that in place first so that you can.

you know, run so that you don't have incontinence so that you can lift heavier weights. But like, I think that'll be my focus coming out as like rest and repair, work on the core and the pelvic floor. And then like you said, just comfort and mobility, like that stuff feels so good when you're sitting a lot, breastfeeding circulation, just like there, there can be some swelling. So just like the gentle walks, I'm really excited for it, but I think I'm going into it with a better mindset than ever this time.

Gina, MamasteFit (49:57)
Yeah.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (50:06)
when it comes to the rest and repair. It's not an excuse to do nothing. It's like you're still doing things. You're just being intentional about what you're doing and why.

Gina, MamasteFit (50:13)
It's just, it just looks different. I saw

someone explain it once that you have four to six weeks that you're healing from birth, which is planned trauma. Like we are either having a vaginal birth or a C-section, but the first four to six weeks is we're healing from that event. And then the next like year is healing from pregnancy. Like pregnancy does a lot to our bodies. There's a lot of tissue change that happens. And so while you may not see the same signs of birth still,

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (50:33)
and

Gina, MamasteFit (50:40)
you are still recovering for several months after pregnancy. And the biggest thing is the tissue healing timeline is very slow and it's very long. And if we rush it, it's really gonna impact us long-term. Like it's really gonna impact us long-term. Like, so please take your time. You don't have to be small to be happy. Like you can feel good in your body.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (50:43)
Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (51:02)
And it's yeah, your kids are not going to care if you fit back into your jeans at six weeks postpartum. I don't even wear jeans anymore because why? Like they will not care.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (51:12)
I have a few more questions for you. So the first is, know, for me, especially really getting ready for birth, what exercises would you suggest for creating space in the pelvis for baby to come out and like being sure that pelvic floor can relax?

Gina, MamasteFit (51:29)
So we have a free birth prep guide that I'll send you as well to see that you can do over the next few weeks. But with our birth prep guide, these are the exercises that I would recommend someone do if they're gonna do nothing else to help support their baby's position, to create space within the pelvis and to relax their pelvic floor. So it's six movements within it. The first thing that we're gonna incorporate is during pregnancy, we have some common postural tendencies. So there are certain positions that we like to be in just based on how we're kind of balancing ourselves.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (51:32)
Yeah, that'd be great.

Gina, MamasteFit (51:57)
And one of them is a very extended spine. So we're kind of arching in our back as belly kind of pushes forward. And this is also gonna kind of tilt that pelvis a little bit more forward as well. And we tend to favor more external hip rotation. So toes are pointed out a little bit more. We're just making more space for our baby. There's nothing wrong with this posture. It's just how we're kind of shifting the way that we stand. But with this posture comes with some muscular imbalance. And so the backside of the body tends to get very tight.

the back half of the pelvic floor tends to get very tight and our ability to find internal hip and pelvic rotation becomes more challenging. And these are all movements that are important to creating space within our pelvis. And so in our birth prep circuit, we start with some back expansion exercises. So you're gonna find a really rounded position and just kind of breathe into your back space. Anytime somebody has back pain or just like.

they have like shoulder pain or something is going on with their back, we bring them into a back expansion exercise, either all fours, standing, like, there's so many different positions that you can do. The next thing is gonna be lat release exercises. So can we just release the muscles in the backside of our body? Like that's gonna help you find a more rounded position and then releasing the hip flexors as well so that we can bring that pelvis more backwards. All of those movements are gonna be really helpful to helping you find a more tucked position, which is gonna help baby enter into the pelvis.

in addition to make finding internal hip rotation easier because our rib cage position and our pelvic position is really gonna influence how you can move your hips to create different types of space within the pelvis. The next movements are gonna be hip shifts, which are we're bringing the belly a little bit more towards the thigh. And so it's, if you think about like a bowl on top of like a pole, it's kind of like your pelvis is kind of rolling around on that femur head. We're thinking like, can I bring that pelvis more towards my hip?

This is going to stretch the posterior pelvic floor, it kind of shifts the tailbone a little bit towards the other side. So stretch that back half of the space. For our clients that have like tailbone pain, ass side joint pain, low back pain, back there pain, a hip shift is like super helpful to kind of releasing some tension back there. Like if someone has like issues with constipation, if I'm standing in line at Disney World for too long, I'll do a hip shift to like help release my back.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (54:06)
I know.

Gina, MamasteFit (54:08)
They're like a crowd favorite in our gym. We incorporate two different types of hip shifts in the circuit We have it all fours one which is a little bit more supported and then a standing one But both of these are gonna help to create space in the lower part of our pelvis where you may encounter more late labor stalls In addition to releasing tension in the back half of our pelvic floor where a lot of us tend to hold a little bit more So those be kind of the exercises that I would be looking at. Can I release my back? Can I release my hip flexors?

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (54:25)
Thank

Gina, MamasteFit (54:34)
And then can I find more internal pelvic rotation to release tension within the pelvic floor? So those would be like my, like, if I was going to do nothing else, that's what I would do.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (54:44)
Yeah, email that

to me so I can start doing all of that and be sure that. Thank you. I'll use it. All right, a couple more questions to wrap up. I've had two natural childbirths, so I haven't had personal experience with the C-section, but would your recommendations for recovery differ if someone's had a C-section versus a vaginal birth?

Gina, MamasteFit (54:48)
I'll send it to you right after this.

So all birth is birth, so whether you had a vaginal birth or a C-section, I would still consider you postpartum. But C-sections are a major abdominal surgery, and if you labored and then had a C-section, that is gonna be really different than a scheduled C-section. If you pushed for like four hours and then had a C-section, that's gonna be really different to heal from. you can also have a more complicated labor with a vaginal birth, like if you had postpartum hemorrhage, for example, that could really impact your healing as well.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (55:18)
Yes.

Gina, MamasteFit (55:34)
So the main thing is if you had a more complicated birth, so either a hemorrhage or a C-section, your timeline is going to be a little bit extended. You're probably going to be close to like the six to 10 week mark before you're really returning to exercise. Now I have had C-section clients that feel really good at the four week mark and they want to start structured movements and I'm never going to kick anybody out of the gym. But I would say in general, most folks are closer to like six to 10 weeks before they resume like structured exercise.

But all the beginning stuff is really similar. We're focusing on diaphragmatic breathing. We're doing some gentle mobility. With the C-section, the biggest thing is we sometimes get very guarded where we get like almost like hunched over because we're scared to stretch the incision site. And so a really helpful thing after a C-section is to learn how to extend again and stand up and kind of stretch gently like the front side of your body again and feeling comfortable there. So that can be like really challenging.

Another thing that can be really challenging with the C-section is if you have to cough, sneeze, laugh, pressure against the incision is going to be very painful. So having something like a belly band or something that applies external compression can be helpful, not something that restricts your breathing, but just some to give some counter pressure can be really nice. And then if you do have to increase pressure suddenly with laughing or sneezing or coughing, placing your hands against the incision can help you feel like things aren't just going to bust out.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (56:43)
Mm-hmm.

Gina, MamasteFit (56:55)
So those would be kind of like the main things that I would do differently after a C-section is focus on trying to stand up and should be straight again, maybe stretch, find a little bit of an extension again and feel comfortable there and then learn how to splint in case you do have any sort of, you'll probably cough at some point after a laugh at some point after you give birth. And then just be patient with the timeline. It's gonna take a little bit more time. In addition to we're gonna incorporate more mobilization work as well, scar mobilization. So around

From when you give birth, whenever you feel comfortable to around three weeks, you could do desensitization around the scar. So this will be like using your hands, your different types of textures. I would avoid like temperature stuff, so hot or cold, just because the sensitivity of those tissues are a little bit different. So you may not recognize that something is too hot or too cold, but you can use like a makeup brush, a Q-tip, like some soaks, different types of fabrics around the site, which is gonna help you kind of reset.

like the sensation there. And so if you're having issues with like numbness or having issues with like sensitivity, if we can kind of over-stimulate the system, it essentially resets itself and can be really helpful for that. Once you hit like three weeks, you can start to do work like on the actual incision with the desensitization. So like the Q-tip on the incision, obviously being mindful that you're not like hurting yourself or anything. It should be very, very gentle work. You're not moving tissues at all. You're literally just touching the skin.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (58:13)
Good night.

Gina, MamasteFit (58:19)
Once you hit three weeks, you can also mobilize or actually begin to like move the tissue around it. So not directly on the incision yet, but we can start doing like little circles. We're kind of moving like the different fascial layers around. So your skin layer and then maybe like a little bit deeper than that. And then once you're kind of like six to 12 weeks, we can start to mobilize on the actual scar. And so this is gonna be really, really important if you've had a cesarean birth similar to any other surgery.

when we have tissue that's being surgically cut like that, we need to mobilize that tissue. And this also applies if you had a perineal tear or like a episiotomy, like mobilizing the pelvic floor tissue is gonna be really helpful as well. So that's kind of like what I would incorporate that's different within that first like few weeks postpartum. For our C-section clients, once we make it back to a structured exercise, we incorporate a lot of rotational work to the front.

because the C-section essentially severs the fascial line through the front side of our body known as your anterior oblique sling. So it's like your chest, your oblique into your opposite inner thigh. So it kind of makes like an X across the front side of your body and that gets severed right where your baby was born. And so there's a lot of reconnection that we have to like rebuild through there. And so a lot of that rotational work that we do during pregnancy, like the pull-downs that are diagonal, the upward chops, the...

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (59:19)
Mm-hmm.

Gina, MamasteFit (59:35)
side to side rotation work, we're incorporating a lot of that into our C-section recovery program to help our clients reconnect. And we've had a lot of success with helping folks be like, I couldn't feel my core for seven years and I did this and now I feel so much better. So just incorporating like that rotation work to the front is super, super helpful for C-section as well. But other than that, all the other exercises are the same, just like the initial time is really different. And then a little bit more emphasis on certain types of movements is like really beneficial.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (59:59)
Mm-hmm.

Gina, MamasteFit (1:00:04)
⁓ so yeah.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (1:00:05)
I'm excited to try those core ones. I haven't done that and I will. And the other exercises that you're going to email me. Okay, last question. I have a friend who's pregnant. She's very, very petite. Do some people just have like a pelvis that's too small for vaginal birth or like, can you mitigate that somehow?

Gina, MamasteFit (1:00:26)
So there is really unlikely for you to have like your pelvis be too small your baby be way too big for you like we tend to not grow babies that are too big for us. The only reason why your pelvis may be way too small is if you had any sort of like childhood injury that impacted your pelvic development. So if you had like rickets or like you were in like a severe car accident that like your pelvis was like all fused together. Those would be things that could maybe make your pelvis a little bit too small.

It's important to know that during pregnancy, the mobility of your pelvis significantly increases. And so the diameters and the space that you can create during pregnancy and labor is significant compared to outside of the phase of life. A different pattern can kind of change the shape and the orientation of your pelvis to help make more room for a baby. And so a lot of folks sometimes think that the pelvis is like this immobile bone. just like a tube that baby just kind of squeezes through.

There are different joints that attach it and like, it's not like your hip joint, but that moves, it creates space, there's increased diameter. they see this in research. So your pulse is gonna be more mobile. The next thing is your baby's head is a shape shift, it shape shifts. It doesn't just like, it's not a watermelon just like shooting through. It's a little skull that's not fused and so it kind of smushes and cones. And I'm sure you've seen your baby come out and you're like, what is that? That's why they put the little hat on the baby when they come out.

But your baby's skull shape shifts as they move through. So they're gonna kind of fit and squeeze and make it through. So we've got two things really working for us where your pelvis is very dynamic and it increases space based on the movement that you're doing. And then your baby's skull is also very dynamic and it smushes and fits through the space as it needs to as well. So I am not a believer that somebody's pelvis is too small. I'm not a believer that your baby is gonna be too big for you.

I'm a believer that sometimes we have mobility issues that we can be working on during pregnancy to help increase the space of our pelvis. And so, like I talked about with those birth prep exercises, if you have a really hard time finding a rounded position and you have a really hard time finding internal rotation, it's gonna impact the space that you can create within your pelvis. If your pelvic floor is super tight, it's gonna be really hard for your baby to pass through.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (1:02:32)
Yeah.

Gina, MamasteFit (1:02:36)
And the next thing is, is your baby aligned to that pelvic level? And so if you think about like a square peg with a square hole, if I put the square as a diamond and I try to put it, it's not gonna fit. And I'm gonna be like, this block is too big. When really all I needed to do was turn it and then it's gonna fit through the hole. It's the same thing for our baby. If they're not well aligned to the pelvic level, they're not gonna fit. And there's different movements that you could do during labor to help them kind of rotate to find a better position. So we become a square peg to a well aligned square hole.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (1:02:46)
to

Thank

Gina, MamasteFit (1:03:06)
So yeah, if you're small if you're big like whatever your size is I don't believe that your pelvis can be too small outside of extenuating circumstances like you you had an issue like an injury or an illness as a child that impacted your pelvic development and Unless you have like uncontrolled gestational diabetes your baby is probably not gonna be too big for you There are people that have birthed like 12 pound babies vaginally with no tearing like that's not super likely but that's not a common thing that happens but

I had a friend that gave birth to her baby in her bathtub that was over 10 pounds. It was a planned home birth. So you can give birth to large babies. You can have small babies that have harder times fitting through the pelvis. So baby's size is not a great predictor of whether or not they'll fit. Your body size is not a great predictor. If your provider does an assessment with you on your back with your hips super wide and they're like, your pelvis is really small, that's not a great predictor either because the pelvis is dynamic. Movement is gonna change the shape.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (1:04:02)
Yeah, it's so cool. I could talk to you forever. But can you let people know where they can learn more about you and your services? And thank you for indulging me in some of my personal questions as I can prepare for birth and, know, cross our fingers, everything goes well.

Gina, MamasteFit (1:04:06)
Yeah.

Yeah

So you can find us on Instagram, can find us on YouTube at MamaStayFit for both of them. So it's like namaste but with an ⁓ at the front like mama. We offer tons of free resources there. We have like a bunch of freebies and stuff on our pages there as well. We have paid courses. So we have childbirth education and pre and postnatal fitness on our website at mamastayfit.com. I have my book Training for Two, which is a great resource, great, great baby shower gift, I think.

I would highly recommend it. In the book, there's tons of exercises, QR codes to videos. So if the pictures aren't clear enough, you can watch a video where I walk you through it as well. So we offer a lot to help support folks throughout this timeframe. And yes, that's where you can find us.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (1:04:44)
yeah, that's good idea.

Thank you. I appreciate you coming on the show and you're just a wealth of knowledge. So I'm excited to check those resources out and do the preparation exercises you're going to send me.

Gina, MamasteFit (1:05:12)
Yeah, absolutely.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (1:05:13)
All right, thanks. Have

good rest of your day.

Okay, we'll cut it off. That was great. I have to sniffle again. on. I just had so many questions for you. So sorry I kept you longer than I intended.

I'm going to stop the recording here.