How to return to running post-partum with Jessica Marie Rose Leggio

This week I'm talking to one of the most, if not THE most, enthusiastic running coaches and trainers out there;

Jessica Marie Rose Leggio from RunPainFreeNow.com
In addition to having  qualifications and experience coming out the wazoo, she really cares about women's health and injury prevention and that passion comes through in everything she talks about.

In one of the most enjoyable conversations I have had on the podcast, we spoke for about an hour about how to get back into running safely when you're post-partum.

How long before you can start back up?
What are the things you should be focusing on first.
Why muscle activation is at the basis of every good post-partum/rehab program.
Why the psoas muscle is soo ridiculously important, and yet too often ignored by coaches and trainers.
Why foamrolling is the number one thing every runner should do post-partum (but make sure you do it properly!!!)

And much, MUCH, more.

Jessica's FREE webinar www.runpainfreenow.com/free-training

 Her new book; www.runpainfreenow.com/book Even I am getting myself a copy of this, and I HATE running!! This book is guaranteed to be worth it's weight in gold in terms of knowledge

You can find the RunPainFree podcast here if you're an Apple user, and here if you're not.
Below are some of the episodes and things we discussed that are well worth listening to.

Hamstring dysfunction 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/runpainfree-podcast/id1337184561?i=1000443154484

 Workouts hurt you as a runner  

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/runpainfree-podcast/id1337184561?i=1000443154483

 Psoas 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/runpainfree-podcast/id1337184561?i=1000466016685

In the News this week; I took it from the IHCAN editor's note but the paper listed in this Guardian article is fascinating, if slightly depressing, reading. 1 in 10 of all medications prescribed in England are NOT necessary and a lot more medication is prescribed when lifestyle changes would be significantly more beneficial. I don't think this comes as a schock to anyone familiar with the NHS but it does highlight the need for change.

Remember to follow us on Instagram and Facebook for the competitions, wisdom and cute videos.

Visit healthypostnatalbody.com and get 3 months completely FREE access. No sales, no commitment, no BS.

Email peter@healthypostnatalbody.com if you have any questions or comments 
 
If you could rate the podcast on your favourite platform that would be a big help. 

Playing us out this week; By "Jericho" Ramona Woolf

Transcript

Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body podcast with your post-natal expert Peter Lap. That, as always, would be me. Today is the podcast for the 28 November. And obviously I said the date before the music starts so that means I have a guest on but boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. Do I have a guest! A guest and a half, if you will. I have Jessica Marie Rose Leggio from runpainfreenow.com. We're discussing all things to do with how to get back into running safely when you're postpartum when you've had a kid or when you've had any sort of injury. Jessica is one of those coaches and trainers that is so engaging. An expert in her field, and it really shows this is one of the most fun interviews I've done in a while, and I strongly recommend you listen to the whole thing. It’ll be great fun. Here we go.

Peter;

One of the questions I get asked the most postnatal is “when can I start running again?” And I always say, Well, you have to build up to that. So how would you say, as the expert on this particular subject matter, how would you build up to being able to say, go for a jog or go for a run again when you're postpartum? 

Jessica; So the first thing I would look at is where they running before. Were they running pre-natal? That's going to dictate because it's very person specific. I have women who ran half marathons, six months pregnant, seven months pregnant, full marathon, seven months pregnant. So that body is a very different body postnatal than somebody who hadn't ran at all or never ran that level of distance. So that's really specific about that part of it. Also, whether you had a C-section or natural birth, that also changes that as well. So what I would always say is testing when the insides get back to like their original places or close to it. That's what I would say to actually go out and start trying. But for the most part, women who've been active or active their whole life, or pre-natal, because a lot of women actually have to stop running during their pregnancy because it's just not something they can do as avid distance runners, and they have to stop on that. So it's a whole rebuild and you have a totally new body. You have new hip function, you have a whole new psoas issue going on, that really pulls in the spine. So all of those really little factors have to be looked at. And I think the best thing I could say as a one shot answer would be; map your body. Where is your body postnatal? Where are you sitting? Because one answer isn't going to fit all. And I think that a lot of women get into like a black hole, if you will, in that regard by Googling this and then getting this one-shot Google answer, which is probably going to hurt you because it doesn't know anything about you. What's your term was like and all that really does matter. And it's like, generally speaking, it should be six weeks or so, generally speaking. But again, I have women who go right back two weeks later, they're running. And again, it's about how their pregnancy went and how they delivered really makes a huge difference on that. So I don't know if that answers your question, Peter, but I'm not general. I'm specific. 

Peter; I am with you on that, and all my listeners will be comforted to hear that. Okay. Because I bang on a lot about everything needs to be personalized. Everything needs to be completely, utterly personalized because the human body is very complex and …. It's about 90% the same for everyone, right? The whole “wait until you're six weeks postpartum before you do any exercise.” That's about ot right for 90% of the population. Right. But it's a 10% and 10% is more than people think it is. So general advice is sensible for 90% of people. But that doesn't mean that you all have the same trajectory. As in, most people can start exercising six weeks postpartum, but we can't all start with the same intensity of exercise. I remember it was Jessica Ennis Hill, who was like Olympic heptathlete, Olympic gold winning heptathlete. And she got back on the bike after six weeks, and she said that it destroyed her after ten minutes. She said that was just too much and that is someone who won gold. And she said that just didn't work for her. So when you're talking about post-partum and obviously when you say you have to build up a little bit, we're talking about psoas issues and all that sort of thing. So we're talking pelvic floor, right? Just for people who haven't listened to the podcast before, which, to be fair, would be outrageous. But there you go. It's always the first time when you're talking psoas issues and all this stuff. How can women make sure everything functions properly? Obviously, you're a specialist that you look at, and I'm a specialist, but not everybody has access to us. 

Jessica; Totally. Yeah. 

Peter; So how can you kind of feel? I don't know about you, but most people are not familiar with how their body should feel Prenatal

Jessica; Correct. It's really different. 

Peter; So would you say “if it feels comfortable, it's okay for you camp?”

Jessica;  Not really no. 

Peter; Good. 

Jessica; No. Because the body is an amazing compromiser. And so it will do whatever it takes for you to do what you want to do. And that's why I really can't stand, or I get to have a gripe with, people who get angry at their bodies and say, “My body is revolting” when their body is actually protecting them. When you can't do something, it's because the body is like “you're about to break if you do this. So I'm going to lock you up. I'm not going to let you do it. I'm going to give you a whole bunch of pain as like an added shake of pepper on that so that you don't actually move anymore”.

And the psoas is, I've been doing this a really long time, and it's one of the most dominant muscles I work with all of my athletes, let alone women post pregnancy specifically. And it's such a misunderstood muscle, the reason you can't have a hamstring strain or sciatica without a dysfunctional psoas. Period!

So when I have a woman who had an epidural ten years ago and it's like “I still have pain from my epidural”. No you don't. It's got nothing to do with your epidural. There is a ton of dysfunction happening there, and it's got nothing to do with that. And it's from the psoas muscle. It connects your body top to bottom. But for a pregnant woman, it's literally how they don't break their spine. It's what allowing the belly to move out and, like, pull your back and give your low back flexi lumbar, specifically, flexibility. So you don't crack it. So when you're done carrying that baby, it doesn't really just snap back. And to go into the Olympian that you're talking about, the reason why it killed her and destroyed her body, six months after, she had so much muscle. There's a huge misconception with “oh, well, I did it before I can do it after”. No, the more muscular a woman is, the actual harder it is for them to have a vaginal birth. They have a narrow vaginal canal, and they really can't bear down. When you can't bear down. That's an overdeveloped psoas. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's an athletic psoas.  I was set by a truck as a pedestrian. And the only reason I didn't break my back is because my psoas is so densely built and was built in mobility as a dancer that it protected my spine in motion. Where that could be the total opposite for someone who's built their psoas in isometrics like Triathlon, a triathlete or an iron man, or someone sitting on a cyclist sitting on a bike, you're really developing it in that hardcore position. So those are all indicators, including holding a belly that's really pulling on your spine. That muscle is building the whole time you're adding the weight. And so when that weight comes off, there's a lot of readjusting that has to go on there. And that's also the psoas attaches to your hips at your femur, which also widen.

 This muscle is so involved in the entire pregnancy that if you are more athletic, it's going to be even more restrictive after you have the baby. And if you're not athletic, it's going to be overly loose after the baby, generally speaking. For that reason, for someone who's feeling…When you have back pain, which most women postnatal do, when you have back pain, you'll find a position that looks completely uncomfortable to somebody else, but it feels comfortable to you, and you just sit there because you're like,” no, I feel good here. And I'm going to sit just like this crooked”, so that to lend to your question of if it feels good, it's okay. No, it's not. If you have to really manoeuvre your body in a way to fixate a position so that it's not painful. That's a pretty indicator that it's not functioning somewhere down there.

Peter;

Exactly. Again, wonderful, wonderful answer, because it really describes what I always tell people. Muscle functionality is the biggest part of postpartum recovery. It doesn't matter when you're talking diastasis recti or pelvic floor weakness or anything like that. It doesn't matter how wide the gap is, when it comes to diasasis recti, or how deep the gap is. That is, relatively speaking, a minor issue, because everything is related to muscle functionality. If your body is functioning properly, as in functioning the way that YOUR body should function, and that is slightly different for everybody. And I've spoken about joint connections before and all that sort of stuff where. You know my joints and my pelvic floor is built slightly differently from someone else's pelvic floor, even though they’re the same height and all that sort of stuff. But when everything functions properly in the right order, that is where your postpartum recovery really starts. That's when things like diastasis recti, pelvic floor weaknesses, they will be fixed when your muscle functionality is fixed. When you're talking about the psoas and all that sort of stuff. When you're talking about people being able to use their muscles in the right order and for the right thing, in the right position. As in like you said during pregnancy, we all know that pregnancy was all right. When you get really big, you start walking like a duck and it's more comfortable to push your back out almost. And indeed, like you said, your glutes get affected, your hips get affected. Almost I call it switching off, switching off a little bit towards you. So everything needs to be activated again. The first four, five, six weeks that I do with people is all about muscle activation. There's nothing else. Strengthening is all muscle activation maybe. But for runners specifically, because like you said, everybody's different, right? But for runners specifically, what are the things that you say… For experienced runners? Because the only people that say to me that send me an email saying, “when can I start running again postpartum”. They're not new people. These are the hardcore. They run at 05:00 in the morning and they really miss it because that’s their a moment of sanity. I don't understand it, but if that floats your boat, but where would you say the main things for them to pay attention to? Because I take it you work a lot with people who are not pre impulse party, so they're just normal athletes, so to speak. If there is such a thing,

Jessica;  they're all injured, all of them, all of them. 

Peter; Yeah. So they all have stuff to overcome. Where would you say, what is the main thing for someone who isn't quite sure whether they should run or not? What is the one thing they should really pay attention to? Is it pain? Is it running funny? Is it..

Jessica; So I'm glad? First of all, thank you. I very rarely hear somebody ever talk about activation the way I do. So thank you for saying that. Rule of thumb is it's tissue first joint, second muscle is last. So muscle is the last thing you fix on the body, let alone, let alone somebody who's injured or has had some traumatic, which pregnancy is traumatic to the body. So that's baseline for human beings. And that's just even more amplified for those other people. So foam-rolling, releasing all the tension in and around the joints that have now been like, “Oh, my God, what's going on with this body? There's so much adjustment at the joint level. I need to protect the body. Let me lock up mobility”. Fascia literally dictates mobility because it restricts it when it doesn't sense stability. And so when you're pregnant, your body just thinks it's just naturally gumby. And it has all these hormones that make you super flexible. So your body just feels limber and you're doing splits you never did before. And the minute that that hormone goes away, your body is like, “oh, my God, what did you do to me?” So a lot of the pain postnatal is honestly, really what I've experienced have been relatively to that to people just doing so much later, like throughout their second and third trimester than they ever did before because they felt like they could. And so they just strained all these insertions. So the joint and the muscle, muscle is so last on the list to deal with. When I get someone, someone with diastasis recti or anything like that, “I'm like, okay, let's go to the real problem”, because that's not anything. If I don't fix the joint function and the restrictive tissue on the joint function, I'll never get to that muscle. And the muscle I have to go to is the psoas, not your TVA, not your transverse abs. I don't need no obliques. I'll never get there if I don't get deep. So it's so last on the list. 

And so the first thing is to release so foam rolling, which is not invasive. It's not manipulation of tissue. Deep tissue massages are more invasive than this. So basic foam rolling just to, I always say foam rolling is the gateway to the body because it will really tell you where your pain spots actually are. So say, like, your right butt cheek is hurting. When you foam roll, you're probably going to feel your left one worse. And so you really start to feel where these things are coming from. So that's first and then that's going to allow you to see what your joint function is. And then you can activate the proper muscles because the joints and the muscles are going to work together. If the joint is in dysfunction, the muscle will never get a signal to properly support it when it's doing an action. So that has to be addressed first. So that system is really, that sequence is really important to just release everything first. I think anybody who's wanting to really understand where their body is at the first step is honestly releasing, like, basic foam rolling just to get acquainted with your body and where it's sitting now. It's not about, “oh, I don't have the body I had prenatal”. It's about what is the body I have. Now let me work with this, make this better. And I think that's another thing I get a lot with women is like, they're trying to go back, and I'm like, you can't do that. You can actually become stronger than that. So why are you focusing on that? No, we're going to move on from it. You have an opportunity to rebuild at a deep, deep level when you go to those joint levels, which is the only way I operate. I won't go superficial muscle….That’s the easy stuff.

Peter; It does make my life a lot easier if it's just nice and muscle. Exactly. I always go TVA and obliques. I love those muscles, because once we’re there, I mean, my job is almost done, and that makes me look like a magician. But because that's where the fun stuff lives. That's where the results live. So to speak. It's interesting when you're talking about ….every now and again I do this. I just missed what I was going to say.

Jessica;  I talk too much!

Peter; When you talk about hip mobility, especially because that's mainly where I really see it post-natal. Women that were perfectly able to do a deep squats before they fell pregnant are all of a sudden doing hack squats and basically walking around like old men at the retirement home trying to get off the toilet. As in, they just can't drop deep anymore. Right. 

Jessica; That’s the psoas Peter.

Peter; Exactly. And that is the sort of thing that is really a key indicator that all is not well in the Kingdom, so to speak.

Jessica; Correct. 

Peter; And this is why I always said… that's why I was coming to ..FOAM ROLLING Right? I like foam rolling because I know what I'm doing, right? Just for everybody listening. Don't just go onto YouTube and go, “how do I foamroll”. Well, you have no idea what you're looking at and who's qualified and who's not. I always say work with a specialist. You decided to make a 250,000 pound investment by having a kid, throw another grand at the problem and work with someone who knows what they’re doing.

Jessica; I have a whole foam rolling course for that reason. And I get people who, like, a lot of my athletes who work with me. They're like what we do. I don't see people doing that on YouTube or in the gym. I'm like, no, and you never will.

Peter; No, because the way you foam-roll most likely. And I haven't checked out your website. I haven't checked out your website, but I'm guessing. Now the way I used to foam roll before spin classes and all that stuff. So I used to teach, like, nine spin classes a week just for shits and giggles, because I'm Dutch and it's in my DNA and I can cycle all week. But the way I foam-rolled there has nothing to do with rehab foam rolling. It is just my quads up. Get my IT-band going a little bit, maybe the lower back, maybe a bit of glute. It hurts a bit, but it's a lovely thing to do. But that has nothing to do with rehab foam-rolling.

Jessica;  No. And I have injury specific. I have body part specific and sequencing has science. The science is in the sequence. So, I'm anal about most things, but sequencing.. top tier of anal.

Peter; Because the order in which you do things when it comes to any sort of rehab really, really matters, right? 

Jessica; 100%. Because if you do it out of sequence, you can actually hurt yourself, let alone not release it. And I've had that happen many times. I'm like, that's not the order I told you to do that in. And now we have a problem. 

Peter; Now I have to spend a couple of weeks fixing with you, fixing what you broke. 

Jessica; Exactly. More work now. Thank you. 

Peter; Yes, exactly. And contrary to what people believe, I'm not looking for more work. I want my clients in and out of the door sessions feeling better so I can move on to the next

Jessica; . Totally.

Peter;  So when you're talking about. So we start with foam rolling and we start phone rolling in the right order. And like I said, look at the right stuff. I will obviously link to Jessica's website and all that sort of stuff so that you can have a look. Then where do you go? You've done your foam-rolling phone rolling. You're working with someone who knows what they're talking about, or you're looking at videos of someone who knows what they're talking about. What's the next step for you?

Jessica; The next step is to rent.. it's very time sensitive, actually, when you're releasing the tissue, you have, like minutes between releasing tissue and firing muscle. Before the tissue starts to come back together and lock you up again. So that's the only moment you have to get the joints functioning. Let them show you what they can and can do while you're activating muscles. And the first muscle I go to is the glutes. So that is the most important muscle, in my opinion, to the body next to the psoas. It's where your body cancels at zero, which people don't know what that means. It's the midline of your body, so it dictates up and dictates down. If that sucker is not working, no one's working. And so I go immediately and I stay on the floor so I don't come off the floor. I stay on the floor for a bit, and I don't believe in anterior pelvic tilt. I believe it’s hogwash because you can't have that unless you have a tight psoas which is exactly what that is. When you release the psoas you drop the whole body down. So I call it psoas extension on the floor, which someone would say is pelvic thrust on the floor. 

Peter;  Like glute bridges, all that sort of stuff right?

Jessica; Before that, though, like just on the floor, pressing your back down.

Peter; Sorry, yes.

Jessica;  and really, like holding it and coming out and holding it and coming out and then follow with the bridge because you're extending the lumbar part of the psoas and the hip and then you're going to extend the hips. So those two guys are getting it right away, back and forth, back and forth, and then you would go into something like hands and knees and doing a knee to elbow. 

I know some people call it bird dog or whatever. It's knee to elbow, opposite arms and leg, and again, staying on the floor. These are little itty-bitty movements that are extremely hard when done properly. And so those three things twice through before you stand up and even think about doing a squat. Or doing a squat on a couch or a squat on the chair and going slow and taking your time. Correction. And I always treated my postnatal as correction in terms of injury. So correction is slow and controlled. It's not fast. We’re not to do a HIIT workout. We're not doing that. That's not winning anything over here. The slower, the body actually likes that it can actually understand what you want it to do and let it fire. Those are the main things I would do right away. They hit the psoas extension, the bridges and then knee to elbow and then stand up and see how you feel. Like you will always check in, like, the constant check in after you do something because your body is adjusting when you release, you can actually fire things that haven't fired or never knew how to fire. So you're going to feel totally different. And I get that all the time. One of the most common things I get is like, oh, I never felt this muscle before and you can do a million squats, Peter, but if your glutes aren't activating it, they're not going to fire. You're going to use a whole bunch of other stuff that's not even working. So that's where you can have; I call it booty for no reason. You have a butt that doesn't do a thing and you need to hone in and focus on that sucker.

Peter; Yes. And this is what I always talk about. And it's nice to talk to someone who, as I like to say, very smuggly knows what they're talking about because we're on the same page and therefore, yeah, we are on the same page. Because the early stages of any rehab is all about concentrating on the right muscle. And body builders are much better at this. And I hate to say it sometimes; real body builders are much better at this than almost any other athlete is because all they care about is one muscle that they work on.

Jessica; The whole day.

Peter; Yeah. I mean, when a bodybuilder a good body builder, top level bodybuilder does a bicep curl, all they think about is the bicep. They don't care about their triceps, they don't care about their shoulders. They use a small weight because they don't care about how much weight they lift. They use a small weight, and they only care about muscle activation so that they get the most out of a particular muscle so that they, as one of the bodybuilders used to say, they can command it to grow. And in the early stages of postpartum exercise, any sort of rehab stuff. I always say, I don't care if you can do ten squats. If you can do one properly. I'd much rather have that than a wrong one done ten times up, right? 

Jessica; Yes exactly!

Peter; We're not in the Les Mills class. “We're going to do squats for 40 seconds. I'd like you to do as many as you can.” I want you to do one good one. 

Jessica; One good one, please. 

Peter; And then repeat the one good one. That's what I always say. So when I do a session with someone, I don't say we are going to do ten squats. No, we do a squat ten times because that's a completely different thing. I want ten good ones. I don’t want; if you go up and down quickly, ten times.. awesome, I'm not counting any of them. And we're going to do ten proper ones. And it's interesting that you're talking about again that tilt. And they just say you don't believe in anterior pelvic tilt. Of course I do. But 

Jessica; It's all right.

Peter; No, but I completely get what you're saying, though, as in APT is not really a problem if you do things properly and it's very easily dealt with. Right. So when you say “I don't believe in anterior pelvic tilt”, you don't believe that it doesn't exist. But you are aware that there is an issue that can be fixed. 

Jessica; Right. Thank you. Because I say it about a lot of things. And I'm like, I'm not saying you're not in pain with it. I'm not saying it doesn't bother you. I'm saying it's hogwash because it's correctable. Like it's not a thing. We can move on from, there's other things that are legit, that ain't it. Yeah. We can move on from that.

Peter; Exactly. But you're talking about muscular stuff. Like what you're talking about, as I always say. And I did an interview the other day about this. Everything muscular can be fixed with rehab exercise unless you have some sort of muscular neurological condition. Anything fundamentally frozen shoulder pelvic, girdle pain, pelvic floor weakness, diastasis recti, back pain. If it's a muscular problem, it can be fixed by rehab exercise as long as you're working the right muscles at the right time. And that is fundamentally what you're talking about, right. When you're talking about releasing the fascia, then moving into that tilt before moving into a glute bridge,

Jessica; Unloaded.

Peter; which I always bang on about the glutes. Right. Because again, we're in agreement. The glutes are everything. And the glutes take a real hit during pregnancy. As in the functioning of the glutes, take a real hit. This is why a lot of pregnant women suffer from “disappearing bum syndrome”, as I call it, as in; they had one and then all of a sudden it disappears because their center of gravity shifts and they just feel more comfortable to hide the bump. But especially for runners. I think a lot of runners ignore the pre postpartum stuff. Most runners are terrible. Absolutely stonkingly bad at training their glutes, period. 

Jessica; They're terrible at training everything. Yes. 

Peter; Good. They only run usually. Right.

Jessica; Right. Why am I hurt? Oh, I don't know. You're trying to do an actual endurance sport with no prep to it? I don't know. Ask a professional runner what they do all day. 

Peter; Yes. So let's ask you, what you do all day. So we'll move away from the pre-post partum a bit because most of my, a lot of my, listeners have done my program. They have no diastasis recti. They have no inactive, dis-functioning glutes anymore. Right. They put the effort in. I mean, I don't have to deal with it. They just have to show up every day and do their exercises. So what sort of training should anyone who likes to run? So they do five k (kilometers) every day, ten k (kilometers) once a week. Something like that. What sort of training would you say they should do every.. in addition to the running, whether that is for stretching or for strength training or whatever.

Jessica; So I'm a 40 year dancer, teacher, choreographer who will tell you to stop stretching. So that's first. 

Peter; Right, well that’s awesome.

Jessica;. And it's because it's tissue first, joint second, muscle last. So if you have a restricted body, which is tissue, which is restriction, muscle is tightness, you stretch tightness, you press out restriction. So if you try to stretch a restricted body, you strain muscle insertions. Now, a lot of people have psoas issues who are never pregnant. A lot of people have psoas issues. And what happens is because it pulls a tight psoas, from the spine to the femur, right. It pulls the low back end so it gives you that extra curve. When that happens, it hitches up the sacrum. It hitches up the bone ischium. Not to be too technical on here, but there's a bone where all the hamstring is insert, which is up underneath your booty. Well, if your sacrum is being pulled up because the lumbar is being pulled forward, everything attaching up there starts to become spaghetti like. So the hamstrings become fully extended, like a completely stretched rubber band. And so majority of people's butts don't work. So let's put it all together; Glutes that don't fire they have a default muscle. That's the hamstring. Well, the hamstring is fully extended because the psoas is pulling on most people, especially people who sit all day like they have that terrible posture. It hitches everything up. And so the glutes now can't fire because they're in a position, by structure, that will disallow it. And so whenever you're running, it's 2.2lbs of pressure per step. So you're building muscle, the entire run and anything over 1 mile is considered distance running. So you're building muscle and you're conditioning that behaviour, even in dysfunction, you're conditioning muscle and you're building muscle in that behaviour. So your body becomes accustomed to this situation where all these bones and joints are situated and the muscle just say,” okay, I'm going to build around this”. Then we have this. I call it misappropriated muscle, where muscles in places it shouldn't be and it's not in places it needs to be.

So the biggest thing for a runner to do is again, get the restriction off, stop stretching because you don't know where you're restricted. So get the restriction off and then activating the glutes, because once the glutes fire, then everybody else shows up. But I really do operate at the joint level. Muscle is very superficial, and everybody feels like they're getting a great old deep workout. Wonderful. I'm going after joint function. So that's great. I'm glad you feel your butt. That's awesome. And I want you to feel it. But I need to make sure those hips are functioning, and the ankle is functioning and the ankle and the foot and the hip are synonymous in terms of movement. So a lot of runners get lower leg injuries, but it's because they have hip dysfunction. And I always say anything from the knee down is a hip problem. And this is even more again amplified for a woman who's had kids. And I have several of them right now who are years beyond post-natal. And because they're so athletic, it let them go really long. And now they have legit torn hip labrums and they have really bad hip pain. They have some bulging discs issues and stuff like that, or they've broken their foot and it's all going back up to that psoas. It's that sequence; It's the releasing of everything, getting the glutes fired and then basic joint function. So I don't load anybody with bands or anything because I'm very functional and functional movement specialized. So I don't load anything for about two months because body weight is enough load. I need just to see that's enough for me. And then you want to go run right after. So it's your prep work and you go run right away. So you would do foam rolling. You would do activating a couple of loaded exercises like “loaded”, meaning “body weight”, like a very basic squat on a chair or I wouldn't even do, like, a step up at all. I'm very specific with basic things. And then you would go out the door and go run and let your run tell you what you just did at the work. So the grit happens before the run, not on the run. So that's what every runner should be doing at least four days a week and indefinitely before every single run. I don't care if you're running 1 mile. That's what you need to do. You're setting yourself up. 

Peter; That's an interesting approach, because it is similar. It sounds similar because I used to train, let's say, more athletic clients rather than just pre and postpartum. I still have one or two athletes, and they tend to be like football players and all that sort of stuff. They mainly come to me for core training. And the reason they come to me for core training is because much like the glutes, and I count the glutes as part of the core right?

Jessica; Yeah,  It’s front and back. 

Peter; Yes. And just for people thinking that they're coming to me for ab training. No, they're coming to me for core training, and they're coming to me to be a split second quicker off the mark when they're twisting and turning. That is why they come to me. But again, it sounds very much like you're saying “you train for function”. As in; you release everything, you activate the right muscles in the moment, and then you immediately go out to do the thing that you just warmed up for. If you just wait a day, as in, they see you on a Monday and on the Tuesday, they're going to go for a run. That doesn't really matter what you did on the Monday anymore. 

Jessica; At all (laugh)

Peter; It helped a bit, if we're going to be positive about it. They spend an hour with you so therefore it must have done something, but fundamentally, their body has gone back to the old way of doing things. 

Jessica; Correct. Right. Because repetition is needed and nothing is more conditioned than daily life. So you're one day a week of doing this to how you live your life. Sit down, cross your leg, what bag you wear on, what shoulder? What leg do you lead up the steps with? What arm do you move over then what do you hold your kid with? There's nothing more conditioned than daily behaviour. So you have to combat that on the side with this prep work. So it is part of, I always say life is a sport, so you have to condition it or it's going to start to break down later. So, yeah, it is about doing it right away and going back out. And my athletes know, the first thing I ask when they text me and they're like, this happened on my mind. I'm like, “Did you do the work?” First question. Did you do the prep work? Yeah. Okay. Now we can talk because we're not going anywhere. If you didn't do the work, we need to know right away. Did you do the work? Because that's what prepped you up. And if you didn't do that, you're feeling what happens when you don't do that. 

Peter; And that is exactly what you mentioned earlier on when you're talking about working with people who are 10, 15, 20 years, post-partum or have never had kids or anything like that. The body is amazing, right? The human body is phenomenal. It will allow you to get away with stuff for a long, long time. I've given this example on my podcast before I remember that in my teens and twenties, I could be as active as I want and I could eat whatever I want and all that sort of stuff. In my 30s, I changed careers and became a PT. By the time I was 42, my right knee was so incredibly sore all the time that I finally thought “I'm going to see a physio” because as I said beforehand, I'm of a certain generation and I'm a white guy and therefore I don't need to see a doctor. I just need to stretch it out a little bit, do a couple of more squats, it'll go away. We'll sleep it off, right? And as I tell my clients, you don't do as I say, don't do as I do. That's just not how the human body works. If you're in pain one day in a joint, that's not going to magically go away the following day or the following week if you just keep doing what you're already doing. So I saw a physio. I saw a massage-therapist because he was better than the physio I saw. Because the physio that I saw, which was an NHS physio, I said to them, I think my problems in my glutes because I'm not an idiot. I was a PT for a while, right? I kind of know what I’m doing. And they said, no, you have a lot of play in your patella, which is a kneecap for those of you listening.

 I said, oh, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. The patella is supposed to move, that’s what it’s designed to do. So I saw a massage therapist in Kirknewton, a guy called Gareth and he's phenomenal. And he said to me, no, you have a dysfunctional hamstring, you Jackass. That's literally what he said. He said, your hamstring is just not functioning properly at all. Correct. And it took him two sessions to fix up. So it cost me about £60, which is like $90 or something like that. So cheap as chips. And I was walking around with pain for years. 

Jessica; Wow

Peter; That is just because I am stubborn, and I ignored what my body was telling me for absolute for donkeys. And this is why I always said, if you do one thing once a year instead of getting your blood checked by your GP or something like that. See someone who knows what they're talking about, as in not myself. When it comes to this sort of stuff because I only do pre post partum stuff. But see someone like Jessica once a year to just go, “is everything functioning the way it should?” That's what you should spend your money on once a year. We get it for the car. 

Jessica; We talk about that check engine light a lot over here. We do. 

Peter; Everybody ignores it. Yeah. 

Jessica; And the thing is, with the car, though, you can buy another one. You can't buy a new body now. And it's crazy how that's so like, looked over by everybody. And it's like, you really get one chance at this. And I deal with pre and post-op for replacements. It's still not the same. I don't care how titanium it is. It's not the same. And they're going to get the other one soon. So we'll just keep going until we get the other one. I have hip surgeons that often refer to me and say, “See if you can fix them before I give them a replacement”. And it's because surgeons respect mobility specialty It is a very high specialty in that regard. And so I appreciate that. I'm happy to say I've been able to correct every single one of them, and they don't need hip replacement. 

Peter; That is the astonishing thing when working with somebody like yourself; Nine out of ten times. And this is what I always say. I have a lady that I work with. Jess Thrower, and she hangs out on all the forums for me. I don't do social media and she goes on to diastasis recti forums, and she sends me stuff and it makes me cry a little.

Jessica; Yeah, I'm with you on that. 

Peter; And she then talks to these poor, poor souls who are just there looking for support. But they all get advice and I always think that's different; Support is not advice and advice is not support. Especially from a lay person.

Jessica; That's a very good differentiation. I need to use that. I'm going to use that.

Peter; Because that really matters. Diastasis recti as a thing, as a muscular condition. And when you're talking about most knee and hip pain and all this sort of stuff does not require a surgery. That is an absolute last resort

Jessica; It should be a lot absolutely last because it's a Band Aid to the real problem. And most surgeons know that. 

Peter; Yeah. Most surgeons that I've worked with are like, yeah, I've had referrals from plastic surgeons with regards to diastasis recti surgery surgeon. And they say, “Pete can you just make sure these muscles function first because otherwise I'm stitching weak stuff together”. I'm paraphrasing. 

Jessica; You know what I have to say, though? Europe has such a forward thinking about this than America. I'm going to tell you that. And when I got hit by the truck, I read medical journals for fun. That's what I do. And so I always ran and I was a master trainer. I was a PTA at the time. I was functionally specialist at the time, and nothing was working. And the back surgeon and one of the top, I'm in New York City and one of the top back surgeons here one of my hospitals here. I said it was in my head and to go read a book and refuse to give me an MRI only for me to pay for an MRI and find out that all five my lumbar discs were hugely bulging. And I was like, oh, I guess I know my stuff and you don't. But I didn't start running to the end of my correction distance, and it made my body feel like the solidification to all of my correction. Finally. And I was like, let me just read into this. And I was reading that doctors in the UK were prescribing running in lieu of surgery to their back patients in 2011, like, a long time ago. And I was like, yeah, I physically feel why they would do that, like, 100% because you don't ever want back surgery, like, ever. And I've had women who've had postnatal and have had fusions. And I'm like, for what was the logic of how this was going to fix? Because you're still in pain, and it's crazy to me. But over there, you guys are so much more forward thinking in that way. 

Peter; To be fair. And I will just very quickly have a pop at NHS here. France and Germany are so much better than the UK when it comes to postpartum stuff, because they actually pay for six for six or ten or twelve physio sessions for anybody who's postpartum. 

How awesome is that? How awesome is it, for frere. It doesn't cost you a penny. And I was stunned. At least over here, giving birth doesn't cost you anything. Whereas in America, I believe it's $4,500 on average, even with insurance, you're down $4500 just to give birth. So you're not even looking at physical health care and all. 

Jessica; I've seen bills upwards of 30 grand for delivery. Yeah, it's insane, but it's a quality of life. And I think you guys over there just do a little better.

Peter; We’re a little bit better, until you guys elect Bernie

It is interesting when you're talking about protecting off the joints and especially mobility and all that sort of thing. I mean, we should start this much earlier in life, right? We should start this when we're young and all that sort of stuff. In an ideal world that's what we’d do. Obviously, when we're in our teens, we're invincible and therefore we don't need to exercise. We don't need to stretch. We definitely don't need to stretch if we’re guys. 

Jessica; Totally 

Peter; Stretching is for girls everybody knows this.

Jessica; Exactly

Peter; But What would you say your top thing to do that anybody listening to this thing now should do. As of today, four times a week. Like you say, you take 510 minutes a day to do X-Y-Z, or even if it's just pick up a phone to a professional.

Jessica; Yeah. No, I'm going to lean into the foam rolling because it's so basic. It's the fastest way to prevent an injury. And the quickest way to get injured is to not foam roll or foam roll. It will always tell you where your body is at, and it's quick. You just do it at your house. You can get down.. roll, get acquainted with your body again, see what your body needs, and then give it to it, and then go out for a walk. You could do it all in 30-45 minutes, soup to nuts. To be honest with you, I have a ton of pregnant women that we do a of lot just releasing towards the end of their third trimester. So just to keep everything releasing and making sure that when they're done that they have something to work with and it's not too much of a strain and nothing is straining. So yeah, I would say I'm going to lean in on the foamrolling because that's the easiest thing to do cool without being like, so crazy. 

Peter; So obviously, that brings us to the next question. The next obvious question, because you've been on Amazon recently. Everybody has, you looked at foam rollers? Yes. Am I buying the big blue thing that also is going to help you swim better. What am I buying?

Jessica; The black one. High density foam roller. The colours matter when it comes to foam rolling. 

Peter; Trigger Point?

Jessica; No! That's all marketing. That is all marketing. No, because there's no give. So the foam roller gives into your muscles where the hollow ones press like a pipe. Very different if you want to kind of “go into it”. And I only am a fan of the foam roller stick and a golf ball. Pretty much it with me. So all the other stuff is again, my favourite word hogwash. It's all a waste of your time and money, and you really don't need so much. You need people who know what they're talking about and a couple of tools, that's really all you need. And so the black, hard, solid foam roller, the basic one on there. It's $20 because it's up behind you on my screen because I send it out regularly to people on Amazon. I'm like, here's this link. Go get the right phone roller. When people go to my site after they come in and they fill out the application. They actually get told, go get this phone roller. Yeah. Because I'm glad you asked because that's very specific. That black foam roller is the only one, any other colour is a waste of your time. 

Peter; Yeah, because that's the thing, right? I mean, everybody starts to buy the blue one because it's nice and soft and gentle. And then we switched. Then you have the more bodybuilder type, the athletes, the boys, basically my age, they buy the ones with the big spikes on them. And they really suck, by the way, just don't buy those things. Then you have the pipe, which is I think the Trigger Points are the most popular ones, right? And they have people that buy the little spiky balls. And of course, nobody knows how to use those things.

Jessica; Oh and don't use that Psoas tool, it's complete crap! Have you seen it? 

Peter; No, I've not come across this yet.

Jessica; It looks like it could be a phone stand or something. It looks like a goal post. It's this big. Don't ever send me this again and ask me for this. Nothing should be pressing into where your ovaries are, and your intestines are, like nothing should be pressing in there. 

Peter; That is pretty solid advice most of the time to be honest. 

Jessica; None of that business. Don't go buying a psoas tool. Please. You can do it with the foam roller. I actually have a whole psoas sequence on how to release it. You can do it and it's better that you do it so you feel it not press it out and think you're busting something inside that’s an organ.

Peter;  I'm looking at this now. The “psoas release tool” £60, by the way, from people with £100, $100 to throw with a problem. Jesus, that's horrible.

Jessica; Isn't it?

Peter; But it's being held up by a martial arts girl who's very strong and therefore it must work. That's the rule of marketing that looks absolutely for anybody listening. I will link to the foamroller. Jessica, that's the one you buy. Yeah, cool. So we're foam rolling and we're doing our thing and we know our body is working properly and all that sort of stuff. How much strength training do we need to do? Really? Let's just knock this one out into park.

Jessica; So you can't load a dysfunctional body. Sure, if you load a dysfunctional body, you're going to build dysfunction. So I pull everybody out to build them back up to it. So even if someone's coming to me and I mean early on in my career. I always use this as a baseline, but it's like without question for someone who's injured and definitely postnatal. But yeah, you need to again strip everything down to clean and then get into strength training. But the strength training aspect would be; it would be releasing, doing full foam rolling, activating the right muscles and then you're going to load them all in one session. But I would lean more with, like, bands; functional strength training, like mobility, strength training. So in motion. So you're building in that plane and you're building in that movement pattern. Walking lunges done properly are exceptional for a runner when they're done properly. And if you're in knee pain, you're not doing them right. Just say no. Clear flag. You're not having good form on that one. So you do need to do strength training, but it's the last thing to do. One of my favourite own podcasts that I have is how workouts hurt a runner. And it's one of my favourite, and it's because people are like “I'm in pain. Let me run to the gym”. No, and I'm a strength coach. I love tossing kettlebells, but you can't do it if you're all jacked up because you're just going to make it worse. And I love when someone's like, okay, I'm just working on fixing my hip. So I'm going to do upper body work. No, actually, it's all connected. We're not doing that. So. Yeah, you want to strip that clean? And if you got a solid baseline and you're feeling good, you should be strength training at least three days a week. At least three, four. I don't go less than four to be honest with you, but, yeah, I would say at least three to be nice. 

Peter; Yeah. No, that sounds very reasonable. And it is exactly like what you said. Everything in the human body is connected. There isn't a single physio that will tell you anything different. As in the amount of shoulder pain that I've seen. That is actually back pain, as in caused by problems in the back. There's nothing to do with the shoulder. Lower back is quite often. I mean, most postnatal lower back pain has nothing to do with the back at all. It's completely irrelevant. 

Jessica; 90% of all back pain is referred hip pain. Yes. Hip dysfunction and hamstring dysfunction are one of the first two things that are on every single. When I'm with somebody and I'm taking my notes, it's the first two things I find I list as their problems because what they come for and what I fix are two very different things.

Peter; One of my clients, Nicola, she said that… her review of me was “As long as you trust the process, you will get results”. And that is what it's about. You don't pay me to fix what you think your problem is. You're paying me to make your pain go away. 

Jessica; Correct. 

Peter; And that is a completely different beast. If I'm telling you to do walking lunges or I'm telling you to do glute bridges and you come to me with back pain. You think you should be doing Superman's and Lat pulldowns and all that sort of stuff. Just listen to me. It’s that old saying “if it doesn't work first time, try doing what your personal trainer told you to do”. 

Jessica; Exactly. Like we actually studied this. Like, do your job when you're at work. Let me do my job. Everything will be great. And then people don't know; the IT band. It goes to the opposite shoulder. The pattern is from left shoulder, right hip, right knee. I think people think it's just outside the knee and the hip. I'm like, no, it's all the way across. And there's a big old X across your back. So did you really roll your whole IT band? I don't think so. 

Peter; No, we only just roll the side a little bit, and that really hurt and therefore it must be fixed.

Jessica; Yeah, I did a course, the top ten most common run injuries from my own data and number nine is shoulder injuries. And a lot of runners. I wrote, pain and shoulder pain is one of the top ten. They have no idea. 

Peter; And I bet you almost any money. But if they went to someone who didn't know what they were talking about, they would tell them that it's because you make the pumping action when you're running.

Jessica; Oh, God, Peter, listen, I cannot with that. That's one of my pet peeves. Like when someone's like you shouldn't. I'm like, that's how humans move. What do you mean? Who told you not to do that?

Peter; “But that causes shoulder injuries, everybody knows this” (Sarcastically)

Jessica; You know what it is. I video…on my TV. When I see professional runners running, I video it because they all move properly. And I'm like, “look at them. They're moving their entire body”. Novel idea, move. 

Peter; And you really see in all runners. And this is why I like the Olympics. It's the only reason I like the Olympics because I'm Dutch and we suck at anything but the Winter Olympics that nobody cares about. But they're all relaxed when they're at the top of the game. And we really see this as sprinters, they're all relaxed. If they're Michael Johnson, who's the fastest man on the world, he still is. I don't care what Usain Bolt says, which records get broken, but he always says it. “If you're all jowly and just relax, you'll be much faster than when you have a lot of tension”. Yeah, because all that matters for the athlete and will end on this happy note, all that matters for the athlete is moving the right muscles at the right time. And when you're running, you don't need your jowls. You don't need your jaw to tense up, and therefore it should be relaxed. It is exactly what you were saying. If everything functions properly in the right order, you won't be in pain. 

Jessica; You won't be. And your body will tell you if something is wrong because your body knows it's not where it's supposed to be. So, like, a corrected runner is a prevented runner. A corrected athlete is a prevented athlete. I would say whenever a new sneaker comes out, I'll put it on and within 20 steps I'll know if it's a problem because my hip will tell me right away, and I'm like,” no, not approved”. So we're not doing that. But a functional body is an efficient body. So you use everything better. So you're not exhausting one system when not using another system or one muscle without doing the other muscle. So you just feel better. And the run isn't gruelling.

Like anybody who's like, “Oh, running. It has pain. I have pain when running”. Then you're in pain because you have a problem in your body, not the run. The run had nothing to do with it, that's you. So fixing you is important. 

Peter; The amount of people that indeed say to me that I don't fix runners, right? I'm in a completely different side of the field. There would be no point in having you share your wisdom because I've done 50 hours and then I would have done 50 hours on it myself. But the amount of people that come to me and say “I can't go for a run anymore because I have X-Y-Z issue.” Their solution is then to run less and then to build up their run again. The solution is hardly ever getting on the phone or getting onto the website. Finding the person that says “This is what your problem is. And let's fix the problem”. Right. If you can't run 3 miles, you also can't run 1 mile. I'm writing saying that right? 

Jessica; Right. If you can't stand on one leg without falling it for 30 seconds, you can't run without pain. 

Peter; No, exactly. Running long distance is almost always mind over matter. As far as I'm concerned. If you can run 10K, you can run a half marathon. You just can. It's just whether you decide to keep going or not. 

Jessica; Yeah, 100%. 

Peter; When you can run a half marathon, you can do a full one. 

Jessica; Just get what you want to do. 

Peter; However, if you can't run 3 miles, that's also means going the other way back. It means you're not running 1 mile properly. Otherwise you would run to three. If you cannot make it to 3 miles, you should get onto your website, or someone else's website, to speak to a specialist in this stuff. Like I said, don't get in touch with me. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. If you come to me with a running injury…I can activate your glutes and I can do that stuff, but it's not what I do. So I’m not the guy to speak to and I always think invest with the experts, right? 

Jessica; No, I agree. And thank you for that. And thank you for..specialty respects specialty. So I respect your level of honing in on that very specific need that women actually do need and they do need to know that they can control their body. Postnatal prenatal in the whole midst of everything. I think there's this idea that you don't have control over your body, and that's not the case.

Peter And that's exactly what you said. Post-natal; You'll never go back to your 20 year old prenatal self you just won’t. But we can make you a stronger, almost better version of what you used to be. 

Jessica, YES, and more efficient!

Peter; So many people injury-prone people. And like I said, I've had my share of injuries. Post injury, I am much more aware of what my body should do than I ever was pre-injury because I didn't need to think about stuff. 

Jessica; You move different after you have an injury, you move different in life. 

Peter; But also when I talk about diastasis recti, separation of the stomach muscles, most women don't know what the core should feel like prenatal because they never given it a minute’s thought! Most women don't know what their hips should feel like prenatal because it never occurred to them to think about it. And then postnatal is a problem and you fix it. “And this is how it should work. And now we become aware of what my body does, what my core can do, and I can strengthen up the right”. But the amount of people that tell me they're stronger in their core postnatal than they are prenatal is astonishing. 

Jessica; That's awesome. 

Peter; And especially when you talk about the glutes, when you talk about the Glutes, where you say, let's build the glutes off properly, the amount of women. I'm not talking Kim Kardashian sort of style aesthetic glutes, but women that say “I can bounce a quarter of this thing now”.

Jessica;  I say that all the time, Peter. I do. I say it all the time. I have spouses thanking me all over the globe for their wives new booty. 

Peter; Yeah, exactly. We don't need to buy the filling. The $5.99 filling. You can just put the effort in. That is my little rescue scratching on the door to tell me that's a good point of time editing this stuff out. Is there anything else you wanted to mention Jessica? 

Jessica; No. I really appreciated the conversation. It's nice to speak to someone who thinks quite similarly. So thank you for having me on it's been a pleasure. 

Peter; It's been a delight. Obviously, I will link to your podcast and all that sort of stuff on that happy note, I'm a push stop record.

Which is exactly what I did. I think you'll agree with me that Jessica is one of those people that I can at least listen to all day. She has a tremendous amount of knowledge. She genuinely cares about passing on all the knowledge that she has to other people, which is, of course, exactly what we built HPNB on. Right? So she built https://www.runpainfreenowcom. Remember the now that's the important bit, so to speak. It's wonderful talking to people like that. We have a slightly different approach in the way we work, but also we have slightly different goals, right? With regards to postpartum training and all that sort of stuff. I just love listening to someone who's really on the ball, who's got a ton of experience and who's willing to basically give that experience away for pennies. If you go to her site, you'll find that it's cheap as chips. I will link to absolutely everything. She has a free webinar, which is awesome, which you should definitely check out. She has a new book coming out. Like I said in the podcast subscription, I'm getting a copy of it and I don't even run. I hate running with a passion that is unrivalled. I'm also not postpartum, but I'm still getting the book because it's guaranteed to be worth it's. Weight in Gold. She also has the podcast, The Run Pain Free Podcast. Pete, you should know this from the top of your head…. I know the run pain free podcast, right? I will link to that. I will link to three episodes. One is on Hamstring Dysfunction, Workout hurts you as a runner, and one is about the psoas that we spoke about a lot, that she spoke about a lot. Over the next week or so I will try to get a hold of her stuff with regards to foamrolling and all that sort of stuff.

I think the important thing when you're talking to people like this is that you can tell that she knows what she's talking about. She's not one of the bullshit artists that are also working in the postpartum field. There's a lot of them, but I always say people that know what they're talking about, you can kind of spot them, right? I've done, like 50 hours on diastasis recti, or something like that. Jessica has done so much about postpartum running and injury rehab and all that sort of stuff that you can kind of just get a feel that you're working with. You're talking to a real expert there. Like I said, I love having people like this on. If you're listening to this and you’re thinking “Oh, Pete, I’d like to come on! Peter@healthypostnatalbody.com and all that sort of stuff. If you're an expert in your field, that doesn't necessarily mean you need to have a PhD. Speaking of PhDs, I think the one episode two weeks from now is going to have that's going to be the microbiome one with Dr. Yug Varma, which will be great. Next week. We're doing another dietitian, a plant-based dietitian podcast, which will be awesome. So I'm very, very lucky. The next two or three weeks, there's some great guests on, and then I'll waffle to myself over Christmas probably.

In the news this week. There's an in the news this week, nothing much from media other than more COVID horrible sort of news. But one of my clients reads the Integrative Healthcare and Applied Nutrition magazine. There's an interesting bit in there, which she passed on to me. Simon Martin is the editor of this magazine, by the way. And he's hilarious. I absolutely love this guy because you can basically just send the frustration dripping off the pages whenever he writes his editor’s note, it's hilarious. 

There's a new report that came out that said; 10% of all drugs prescribed by GPs are inappropriate or pointless, in the words of the Guardian, and he's saying “we're surprised the figures isn’t higher!”. And more scary that 15% of people in England are taking five or more drugs a day, and around one in five, as in 20%, of all hospital admissions in over 65 are caused by their prescriptions adverse effects. And the new report advises that in order to stop potential epidemic of over prescribing, it might be a good idea for doctors and pharmacists to pursue medicine’s optimization. It's called, which means ensuring that the patients have the right medicines prescribed at the right time and the right doses. And as he says with an exclamation mark, “what an amazing novel idea!!” Exclamation mark. While another recommendation is, potentially, a game changer; culture change to reduce the reliance on medicines and support shared decision making. “Yes, please…fewer drugs”. An example of this according to the report would be a patient being given a medicine to reduce their blood pressure when changes to diet and lifestyle would be more appropriate for them.

(exasperated sigh) Oh god, this dude and I… Simon, I feel exactly the same way on this. I'm not saying I agree with everything it says “integrated health care and applied nutrition” stuff. There's a lot of stuff in there that you definitely need to read through properly. And then you can easily say to yourself, certain things don't make sense, right? The Low-carb researchers article in here, for instance, it's one that I've dealt with before. The problem is, of course he's completely right. A lot of the medication that we are given in the UK are over-prescribed in the west are covering up symptoms. And if you look at antidepressants, I know people have been on antidepressants for years and I'm not talking about heavy doses, manic…for people with manic depression or anything like that. I'm talking about people with anxiety and depression that have been given medication for absolute donkeys (ages). And the one thing that they haven't had is counselling and all that sort of stuff. And until you deal with the root cause of this stuff, you're painting over the cracks. 

If you get blood pressure medication, but you still eat like a five year old, you're eating very unhealthy food all the time. Your blood pressure is never going to improve naturally. Medicine, in my humble opinion, wherever possible, should only be taken for the duration it takes you to deal with the actual problem. If you have a terrible, terrible lifestyle with regards to diet and sleep and stress and all that sort of stuff, and you take medicine to combat that lifestyle, combat the effects of that lifestyle. You kind of do it the wrong way around, right? If you keep that lifestyle up. Like I said, I see this quite a lot; People get sick because of accumulative terrible lifestyle effects. They get sick, then they get medication prescribed to them, which makes them feel better and then they continue doing the thing that made them sick to begin with. No, the point of getting the pills is that you're going to change your lifestyle whilst not being in pain and not being encumbered by pain or depression or anxiety. But it gives you a chance to deal with the shit you should be dealing with. And if you have a terrible diet, for instance, or you don't exercise, then it's time to change your diet and eat healthier. Start exercising, right? This is where diastasis recti, and all that sort of stuff, I keep coming back to that. You do not need surgery for diastasis recti. What you need to do is get your exercises done. In 99% of all cases. I know there are extreme examples that I'll know no doubt get emails about, but that is the point. If you suffer from depression, you should not be on antidepressants for years and years and years without also having some form of counselling. At least on the side. So that you can potentially work through all your shit and deal with it. And again, this is not for extreme cases and all that sort of stuff. I'm talking about the milder cases. I'm not telling people to ditch their medication immediately. I'm saying in due course ideally you should. Anyway, that study is out. I will see if I can find it or that report is out. I will see if I can find it. If the Guardian reported on it, I'll be able to find it. No problem at all. More than one in six people, 15% of people, now take five or more prescribed drugs a day… Five or more prescribed drugs a day. That's a lot right. One in 14….7% of eight drugs or more.

Dude that is just, it can't be right. There's a problem there that we need to fix. Anyways I will link to the report. Apparently, the government has completely accepted all the recommendations from the report. So hopefully something will get done. I doubt it, but you never know. Anyway if you're suffering from it, in the meantime, if you think “I'm taking a lot of pills here, Pete”. I'm not saying cancel the pills. I'm saying change your lifestyle first and then hopefully come off the medication. Anyways here’s a new bit of music, that’s me done for the week. Peter@healthypostnatalbody.com As always; if you have questions, comments. If you would like me to cover anything, if you're an expert in anything like that thinking “Hey Pete, you haven't done anything about this in a while”. Then give me a shout. Peter@healthypostnatalbody.com and I'll be back next week. Bye now.