The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The route to successful postpartum recovery with Physical Therapist Hallie Yanez
This week I am delighted to talk all things postpartum recovery with the amazing Hallie Yanez. (@hallie.yanez on the old Instagram where you cool kids hang out)
We discuss many, many things;
From giving birth and early recovery to running and everything in between.
What Hallie's approach to postpartum recovery looks like.
Why "You can go back to exercising" isn't actually that useful a phrase.
How long can you expect your recovery to take, and what that looks like.
and much, MUCH, more.
You can find Hallie in all the cool places and you should definitely connect with here there.
As always; HPNB only has 5 billing cycles.
So this means that you not only get 3 months FREE access, no obligation! (which is what most postnatal "programs" charge you £100 to buy)
BUT, if you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS! That's $50 max spend, in case you were wondering.
Though I'm not terribly active on Instagram and Facebook you can follow us there. I am however active on Threads so find me there!
And, of course, you can always find us on our YouTube channel if you like your podcast in video form :)
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, comments or want to suggest a guest/topic
Playing us out this week "Devil on your shoulder" by Cira Grandi
Hey, welcome to the Hellfire Plus Native Body Podcast. If you're plus Natal Nature Peterlap. As always, it will be me. This is the podcast over Havia. And I want to say the 23rd. I'll say the 23rd, 23rd of November, 2025. And uh today I am talking to Hallie Yannis, who is a uh PD, a doctor of physical therapy and a fitness coach for months. And we are talking basically all the stuff that you know. I'm gonna call this episode I told you so. We're talking all the things with regards to her approach and where her and my approach overlap and all that type of stuff. How how you should plan your recovery, how she likes to work with people, how you know the the difficulty some people have in exercise exercising postpartum. The road back to not you know, the the road to a stronger, confident body and all that type of stuff. Uh and we'll go through loads of loads of myths, and we'll go through loads of exercises uh with regards to exercise methodologies that we're talking about why she does certain things, why do certain things, and all those sort of things. So if you're at all interested in postpartum exercise, this is kind of uh the episode for you. So without further ado, here we go.
SPEAKER_04:So I'm a mama three now, but after I had my first, I discovered there was quite the disconnect between having a baby, healing times of tissues, and getting back into exercise appropriately and safely for a postpartum woman, as well as like fueling our bodies nutrition-wise. Uh, you know, we care so deeply for the baby, and the baby is going to appointments every couple of days, but the mom is treated a couple of days in the hospital and then at her six or eight-week appointment. And then after that, it's like, okay, see in a year, unless there's any issues. And even at that appointment, I found there was really, they didn't steer you in one direction or another to exercise or nutrition or anything. And you feel lost. Um and, you know, coming as a doctor of physical therapy background, I knew more so what like I needed to do to take care of myself and return to exercise appropriately. But because of this disconnect, I made it my mission to help as many women as I can learn about their postpartum bodies, how to take care of them exercise and nutrition-wise, and how to start feeling like themselves again. Because I truly believe like you can't get lost in just being a mom. If you truly want to care for an individual, then you need to also take care of yourself.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, for sure. So you're already a PT or uh physical therapist. The the terms overlap a little bit in the UK. So I know in the States, PT means physical therapist. In the UK, it can be personal trainer or whatever, right? It's not it's we we have a slightly different, but so for everyone listening, you know, I like to clarify you're you were already a physical therapist before you became a mom. You didn't drive into that. So so what was the biggest because I take it, I mean, of course, you you go to PT school, so I as I like to call it, and and and you study a lot of this stuff. What was you think the biggest knowledge gap you found that you had between actually, you know, you study for four years, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, seven, seven and a half.
SPEAKER_03:Well, there you go.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Um, I think the biggest disconnect is, you know, look at someone who has like an ankle surgery and they're told, you know, you can't put weight on this for four weeks, and then after that, you can put 25% of your weight on it and then 50% and slowly progress from there because there's certain healing times that you have to follow within the tissues, whether it's like a ligament or a tendon. And, you know, after you have a baby, um, so many of your tissues are damaged. And there's no, we they tell us not to follow any strict healing times as far as that goes. It's, you know, you can they say you can jump right back into exercise 100% and you can go for a run, but the extra stresses on those tissues, like your body just isn't ready for that because you know, six weeks, it's not enough healing time at all.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, it's it's so so because because that's kind of what what what I found. What I what I kind of thought to be true, turned out to be kind of hokum. And and when you think about it, especially with regards to running, running is kind of the standard that everybody wants to get back into, right? It's the kind of I used to run before I fell pregnant and during pregnancy, and that is the goal for a lot of people out there. Um but we kind of forget that running is is impact exercise, it's relatively high impact, and the pressure on the core and the pelvic floor is significantly more than this, say, during walking or during even resistance training and all that type of stuff. So it tends to get missed a lot. So when you go for your six-week checkout and the hey, you ask the doctor, can I get back into exercise? They usually go, yeah. And there's no quantifier or or the or the qualifying answer beyond that, is there?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So we have to kind of ease back into exercise, right? And and in an ideal world, and I always say this, people will work one-on-one, one-on-one with with a play of 124 specialist or PT, just someone who focuses on on the postpartum uh the post-partum side of things. So, where do you start with people? Because I always think this is a fascinating question to ask.
SPEAKER_04:Well, and I think part of the disconnect too is like you're essentially told to not do anything for zero to six weeks. And then at six weeks, you're told, yeah, return to exercise, return to what you have been doing as long as it feels okay. Um so for me, I like to start with at about one week postpartum, and that's really just with like gentle, gentle breathing exercises, maybe like a five-minute walk, you know, in the morning and a five-minute walk in the afternoon. And then from there progress. And, you know, essentially for like the first two weeks, you're kind of doing the same, just few breathing exercises to help really reconnect your core with your pelvic floor and progress your walking a little bit and then continue to progress um deep core exercises into more like movement, functional-based movement, you know, um, like breathing and squatting or breathing and performing like step-ups or something. Because a lot of these moms, too, that we see they have other kids. So they are, you know, taking care of other kids while simultaneously trying to heal and take care of the baby. Um, so I really like to do functional progressions while incorporating your breath and your um deep core to kind of get all of that working again. And then from there, you know, really start with light strength training, supporting the muscles again. And then once you can handle all of that with no pain or leaking, then you progress to higher impact things and then eventually progress to running.
SPEAKER_03:So now the obviously, how long is a piece of strain question that we always get asked, how long will that whole process take?
SPEAKER_04:Well, nobody's gonna like this answer because everyone's different and it depends, right? Um but I think as I think pain and dysfunction is the biggest thing that you have to look at. You know, if you are progressing like pretty smoothly with no pain and you're not like leaking or anything like that, then you may be able to progress a little bit sooner. Um, but I always like to give you know women at least 20 weeks until we kind of start like higher impact exercises. Um, you know, some may start a little bit sooner, some may be a little bit later, but yeah, that's kind of what I find is the sweet spot.
SPEAKER_03:I I am completely with you. And the reason I like to ask other people this is because people don't believe me when I tell them. Because it's not the answer they want. So they're not like, give us a second opinion. Well, there you have it. I mean, and 20 weeks that that's not I mean, that is assuming everything is all right, like you said, you're not bumping into any in any issues. Um, I I I always tend to quantify qualify that with the with the you know, assuming you had a decent enough birth, uh decent decent labor, no complications and all that sort of stuff, then 20 weeks is roughly what you're looking at. As soon as there's any complications, oh you can push it out by ages, yeah. Um that that that that can take a long time to um to then get back to sort of sort of square one, because obviously we can't go back to the beginning. So how how how do you deal uh we can't go back to before pregnancy, after pregnancy, right? That is just not a thing. Um how long um sorry, there was a question in there somewhere, but I just can't for the life. You know, when when you get to my age, you forget um so when how do you deal with people? This is the question. How do you deal with people that say because a lot of people don't know how they felt before falling pregnant? What normal felt like they just knew they weren't in pain, but they didn't know about whether they had any level of dysfunction or not, right? Stuff just didn't hurt because they didn't think about it. So, how do you deal with connecting people back to their body, so to speak? Um, you know, to get that connection right and get people used to feeling the way things should be feeling rather than what they might have been okay with the whole time.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so I think too, it's sometimes people tend to like push off the pain. So maybe if they were experiencing symptoms when they were not pregnant or something, they just didn't notice them as much. Um, and now maybe pregnancy and having the baby has sort of emphasized the symptoms more. But I am a really big visual learner. So I like to show people kind of, you know, what we're working with as far as the core muscles and even the pelvic floor muscles. And then there's a lot of research behind touching the muscle that you are supposed to be engaging in working and having it activate even a little bit more, the mind-to-muscle connection and having your brain kind of learn to reuse those muscles. So I think hands-on, those are a couple of the big pieces that I like to incorporate um to kind of help people understand maybe where they're having the disconnect or where they were having the disconnect, and something that we need to work on.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, because that that's the one bit that I always always find that if if if you place your hand on something, you automatically draw more attention to that bit, right? And and especially in the beginning, and this is where a lot of people I've been getting a lot of emails recently about people getting frustrated with like with like the postpartum recovery program that that kind of hangs off the back, way, way off the back of this little podcast. It's it's they're like the focus is so much on the muscle rather than the movement. If you know what I mean, as in I don't care about you going up and down during a squat. Really, it's almost completely irrelevant to me. What matters to me, and uh if you can bounce up and down 10 times, that doesn't necessarily mean you're using all the muscles the way I'd like you to use them, and it's a really frustrating way to exercise for a lot of people, right? Because people like to run a mile, but they don't want to think about each and every step and each and every muscle contraction. And so, how do you convince people? It's not convinced people, how do you guide people to that that this is the new form of exercise? And in my opinion, yes, it may well be boring, but we're gonna have to do this for a few months. What what are your steps on that?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think that's tricky too, because I also run into the same problem. Um, but I think slowing them down a little bit and having them feel it and maybe understand the concept that like quicker or faster is not always better, and slowing it down is actually gonna help you be able to connect all of this. And then I think another thing is, you know, laying the foundation. So they're laying the foundation for things that they really want to be able to do. And I think they have to understand that picture of laying the foundation, and this is gonna get you to lay that foundation to things that you want to do in the future. You know, it's similar. I heard someone say it once, like similar to kind of like building a house. Well, if you don't have that base or that foundation, then you know, things are gonna fall through the crack. Then I think kind of just have to have that conversation with them.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so and and uh I'm I'm I'm of course I'm completely on board, right? So it's how how far do you usually work with them? So as in for me, for instance, I have my very specific this is the point, and once you're kind of ready to go do your own thing again, I will happily say bye-bye, go back to whomever you used to train with, or go back to doing your own thing. I don't work with tend to work for people for years, uh, unless they are like returning, right? After a couple of, like you said, it tends to be that if they have one, there might be a second child or third child and all that sort of stuff. But up to what point do you usually uh work with people, or do you work with people for a longer period of time?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, because I also incorporate a lot of nutrition coaching into my clients, and so generally it's like four four months to a year, um, kind of just based on how they're feeling in their bodies, how they're feeling, you know, with nutrition-wise and things like that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, cool. Because the reason I'm asking is that I found it when you're talking about the foundation, not not this like bang on, right? So we built the foundation and then I ship them off to some people I work with a bit longer, but most people I ship off to go back to their team of professionals, right? Especially, especially athletes. With athletes, you can you only have I only do the post-parton bit. I'm not a tennis person. I know nothing about tennis. I can hit a ball to save my life. I've tried, and it's just not for me. But I can get someone better at postpartum, I can get them back on the strength and conditioning path, so to speak, even though I don't do again, I don't do the strength and conditioning element of it. But for so for them, the goal tends to be very clear, right? The goal tends to be I want to go back on the tour. And for anybody listening again, and I always say this when I talk about 10 players, I don't coach anybody on like the WPT tour, other than the people that are doing the caravanning and all that sort of stuff. So these are not top 10 in the world players, these are just people that also happen to be on the tour slaving and grinding away and all just in case people are thinking I'm coaching Wimbledon winners, I don't want to give the false impression. Um but it's it's because so they have a really clear goal. They want to go back to playing tennis, or they want to go back to playing football, uh soccer, whatever they want to do. For normal people, as lay people, as mere mortals who are not elite athletes, um the goal is usually a bit more vague, right? It's usually I want to be able to do the things I always used to do. Um and then what is what you used to do is usually yeah, I can enough, right? I sat and watched Netflix, but no, I can I can watch a Netflix special and not be myself. That's kind of a goal, right? Um that that but to get past that. So how far how do you convince people um that convince people bring them on board? How do you get the buy-in from people that this whole process does take easily, easily takes a year in some cases?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think that can be hard. Um, because people also don't want to wait a year, right? It's all about like the bounce back mentality. Um, but I think for me, one of the biggest things I do is, you know, what type of mom do you want to be for your kids? Do you, you know, in order to do some of the things that you want to do with your kids or carry your child up and down the stairs without getting out of breath, you know, and without even having pain to be able to do that, you need to go through this process. And a lot of times I hear I want to be strong for my kids. Well, and that can mean so many different things. Um, but and you want to be like an active participant in your life, or maybe, you know, just kick the soccer ball around with your kids. And so a lot of those things that you want to do in the future, yes, you can get there, but first you have to be able to lay this foundation and establish this space and then build off of that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And where do you then tie in the nutrition element of that? Because that is something that, because again, I do very little nutrition other than eat well because I'm not a registered dietitian and I've got some nutritional qualifications, but you know what they're like. Half of them are terrible, right? Half of them are just eat your veggies, and and that's pretty much all I'm allowed to say. Um, I think it's not my so, but how do you tie the nutritional element in with your uh physical therapy element?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so usually I will start nutrition as soon as I start working with someone. Um, because a lot of the moms are breastfeeding and they don't know that you're supposed to have like extra calories when you're breastfeeding. Those should be coming from carbs and fats. And you want to have, you know, good aspect of protein if you want to start rebuilding muscle postpartum and everything. Um so that's kind of how I tie everything into it. Um, and you know, I'll meet people where they're at. Maybe they don't want to track their food, but I can show them what like balance plates look like. Maybe people do want to track their food, so I can give them specific goals to aim for as far as like protein, carbs, and fats go. Um, but I think it's just so important because we're like we're not really told that you are supposed to eat be eating those extra calories, you know, if you're breastfeeding. Um and people are often scared of that because it's extra food, right? But um so I try and educate them on that your your body needs this, you're using food as hue or food as fuel, but it's also gonna help heal your body from everything that you've just gone through as in pregnancy and delivering a baby.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, because because that that is usually the huge bit that people forget, isn't it? It's the we know, for instance, I think instinctively people tend to know that when you recover from an injury, you need to look after yourself, right? We kind of know that you know it's kind of gets discussed during the anti-NATO classes that you know when you're breastfeeding, you need to eat a bit more for the baby, right? It's always anti-NATO classes tend to be, and this drives me off the wall by the way. Um anti-NATO classes tend to be baby-centered classes rather than mom-centered classes, right? So you get told, well, if you're breastfeeding, you need to eat a bit more. And that means that parents who don't breastfeed for whatever reason tend to think that they don't need to look after their nutrition as much because giving birth is not seen as injury recovery, and it in my humble opinion, it really should be. Because, you know, it's a car crash. Let's be honest, it is traumatic on the on the body on all levels, right? So the impact of it, so you need to look after yourself, um, and at the same time, then so they then tend to ignore themselves a bit because, like you said, what you said earlier, the focus is all on the baby post part, and the doctors don't give any sort of nutrition advice other than you know, yeah, look after yourself and then go away. So where do you tend to where do you tend to start on that with regards to someone comes to you and says, because you start much earlier than I was. I don't tend to see people dead before five, six weeks, right? So you you see them a bit uh earlier on in the recovery process. With regards to food and and nutrition element, especially focusing on the nutritious element of it, is in making sure you get enough. Because what you're saying there, especially with regards to carbs and fats and all that sort of stuff, that kind of goes against everything, especially women. I've seen some of your Instagram feeds, and it is special. Um because Instagram things are the girl, right? Because of the healthy dust natal body. So therefore, I get a lot of recommendations from from that side of things from the algorithm, and it is carbs and fats are really low on the list of things to eat, on this, um, as in that women get recommended to eat, if you know. So, how do you overcome that that stigma almost that those two macronutrients actually have?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so I like to get a baseline of what a woman is eating when she comes to me. So um, more so like a caloric baseline. So just have her either write a food diary or kind of track everything that she is doing for a week straight if she can. Um, that way I can see if she is, you know, in areas where she may be deficient. Um, and like you said, most often it's in the carbs and the fats. So a lot of it has to be educating them on why they need those macronutrients and what they're gonna do for her body, especially if she is breastfeeding, because if you tend to see a dip in supply, that's because you're not getting enough carbs and fats. Um, but you know, when you are incorporating those carbs are gonna give you energy and kind of just like dumbing it down for them. Carbs are gonna give you energy to have to play with your baby and keep up with your other kids. If you have other kids, you know, bats are gonna help with your hormones and kind of start balancing all of that out um postpartum.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So do so so do you find that there's a lot of do you regularly get put because I get a lot of pushback, right? As soon as I say carbs are good for they're like, oh, but ketones, right? Because that is my feed is full of ketones right now. And again, drives me absolutely up the wall. You you you respond to one carnivore post, and before you know it, your your feed is all carnivore uh little stuff. And there's some carnivore mums out there, believe it or not, um, who for any listeners listening, we don't listen to those ladies. But it's removing that gaining that extra knowledge, it's it's is of course or giving them the extra knowledge is huge. But you're still fighting a billion-dollar algorithm, right? A billion-dollar industry. So, do you find you get a lot of pushback with that, or is it actually, you know, what people are quite willing to listen because they're just buying into the expertise?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so I think it's it's two different sets of women. Um I each fall in under each category. Um, I do get a lot of pushback, and you know, but then once you can get them to buy into the process and actually see, like, yes, those are actually really helping me. And even showing future or like former case studies or former clients that I have worked with, and um providing that education as well does help, but it is so backwards because for so long we're taught, you know, carbs are bad for you, don't need carbs, like fats aren't good for you, things like that. Um, so just providing that extra education and showing them like social proof of individuals that I have worked with does help, but that's not to say, you know, they're gonna hit their carb goal every single day, all the time. It takes, you know, trusting the process and getting there and even slowly starting to increase it over time. I'm pleased with that as well.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, because let's be honest. I mean, with regards to food, the margins are huge, right? As in you don't have to get it right every time, unless you're like an IFBB pro, you really don't. It doesn't matter that much. Oh, it's up 10% now. Who gives a crap? 10%, right? It's it's you make that up tomorrow, right? The the the the body is phenomenal in that a lot of the stuff that we need actually gets stored, anyways, right? Most of the all the fat-soluble vitamins and all that sort of stuff, over consume one day, awesome, but they'll still be there the following day if you're going to be a bit short. Um and I know for water-soluble vitamins, that that is different because you peed them all out if you have an excess and all this type of stuff. But most people that eat their fruits and veggies have to put that in there. Most people that eat like an adult get enough vitamin C and all that type of stuff. Uh, I know very few people that are chronically short of vitzi. Uh because no one lives on a houseboat anymore, no one gets scurvy anymore, right? That that is just not that's just not what I so exercise-wise, where do you speak? So we've done the we've done the to go back to that because a lot of people will be listening to this on, yeah, it's all fun and game speech, but you know, I'm listening to this for the exercise element. Um so you've done say the first three, four, five weeks, and people are okay with their breathing stuff, and there's there's some connection between the pelvic floor and the they kind of know what stuff should be feel like when they're breathing. Do you use uh diaphragmatting breathing or the core breath or anything like that or whatever you call it?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, 360-degree breathing. Yeah, 360 degree.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, awesome. Yeah, everybody has kind of a slightly different name sometimes for what they're doing. Um but the 360, that is one of the people will know that I'm not a big fan of diaphragmatic uh breathing, but it's simply because it's too high up for me. Um I I like to like what you said. We need to make sure we work on everything and not just small bits of it. Um so where do you start with exercises?
SPEAKER_04:Do you do oh no, I was just gonna say, um starting, so once you have, you know, more so the breathing and things kind of down pat, go into body weight, functional exercises. Mentioned the functional exercises previously, but body weight always start with body exercise body weight exercises, you know, maybe throwing in like some light bandwork, definitely focusing on strengthening the hip muscles, the glutes, the core, because all of that is going to play a huge role into your core and public floor strength as well. And then kind of just slowly progressing from there into dumbbell work and then even progressing into barbell work after that.
SPEAKER_03:So we're starting with the glute bridges and all that type of stuff.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, glute bridges, body weight lunges, yeah, all that sort of thing, spots, all the sort of stuff, fit to stand, step up.
SPEAKER_03:Because again, the reason I'm asking, because I get asked the question a lot, right? Why is there so much glute work in in a postpartum recovery program? People because with the best will in the world, and I wish I didn't know this word, but a lot of postpartum uh workouts are if you add weights to them, they're almost like booty builder workouts. Do you know that horror horror horrible term, all the booty coaches out there that you kill Kardashians bomb? Like it's and people sometimes mistake what you're trying to do post Python with that type of booty builder type stuff. That's not at all what we're going for, right?
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_03:So it's um so we're starting with with with all that stuff, with uh the glue bridges, and how how are you for uh Uh isolating and targeting specific muscles. Right. So you you're big on the functional movement, and so am I, right? There's a reason. There's this. It's not a gotcha question, but what we've seen for a while within postpartum recovery is oh, you really need to focus on the TVA. Or you really need to focus on this particular muscle. And we're almost starting to isolate muscles rather than look at how basically, like with a bicep curl, how hard can you squeeze the bicep rather than how well can you actually move from A to B whilst using all the muscles and how muscles work together? So how much isolation work do you do you do you actually do with people?
SPEAKER_04:Um that's a tough question, but I mean just not at that, yeah. Yeah, not a time. I like I said, I do like to do more of the functional work and kind of incorporate all of the movements because very rarely, especially for a mom, is she specifically isolating like any muscle.
SPEAKER_03:Um yeah, yeah, no, but you you you're you're quite obviously you're quite right. I did the reason that the reason I asked is because just we saw that trend for a little while online. It's in when I say I see a trend, it's all it's all stuff people send me, right? Uh I don't tend to be active on on social media a tremendous amount, but then they're like, Oh, Pete, do I need to work on my TVA? Right? Because just for for instance, for um for uh the the diastasis or diastasis, however you want to pronounce it, right? For a long time it was oh it was the width of the gap. That's that's what really matters. You need to narrow the gap, you need to narrow the gap. Then it became the depth of the gap, right? And that's all the focus was on. And then it became muscle activation, and muscle activation was absolutely everything. Now I'm much more in the muscle activation gap, to be honest, of those three. I think they all matter, right? Right, because that is how the body works, but okay. Um and that, but then for a while during the during the muscle activation bit, it became all about for some people online, it became all about oh, you need to activate your TVA. Like that that is that is where you need to say, Oh, your breathing needs to be about the TVA, all your movement needs to be about the TVA if you just do the TVA stuff. And I find that approach personally rather restrictive and reductive, and like you said, it's not functional at all, right? It doesn't help you move the the the the baby from A to B and the toddler and the travel system from the car to to the floor, right? Unless we train those functional movements. So so how does that so how much because again we can go a bit too far with this stuff, um but how how much how often do you replicate the movements that people make in daily life with regards to because I've seen that as well, actually, you know, pretending that they're moving a weight from the side of them to the front of them and put it down? Or do you stick to the you know, we'll do some we'll work across all into motion, but we're not actually going to copy moving a kettlebell around.
SPEAKER_04:No, I will copy, you know, doing day-to-day motions because I think that's so important, especially for moms as you know, are healing one, but also to maybe caring for extra children. Um, moving the car seat, gosh, those things weigh like 25 pounds. And then they just get heavier as the baby gets heavier, and then even like carrying bags of groceries while holding up the baby, or um, you know, baby wearing your baby, and then also like getting on the floor and playing with a toddler, all of those things you have to be able to one activate your muscles appropriately and two move through the entire motion. So you also have to focus on the mobility that you need to do those.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, absolutely. I I'm again I'm completely with you. Um I'm I'm I'm not shifting like 20 kilogram kettlebells from over there to over there, but we need to be able to replicate that movement so that at least in my opinion, we know what that's supposed to feel like. Right? Again, it it's something that I very much found a lot in the beginning, is is the uh when when I started this like 10, 12, whatever years ago, um is that if you don't know how your body's supposed to feel throughout a movement, you have no idea whether you're doing it right until you hurt the following day. Right, and then you're like, ah, probably did that wrong. Old man back problems are a huge example of that. And then I can lift stuff and I can work in the garden all day, and if I don't pay any attention the following day I'll wake up and get ah and if I just paid a bit more attention during the movement, or I was working with someone that taught me how these movements should feel, then I'm not going to be in bed the following day. So um cool. So we're we're there, we've we've we've done we've done the movement, we're eating alright. So now we have the issue that I think a lot of PTs uh bump into with their clients. How often do you tend to see your average client? Is it like a one a week, two, three times a week?
SPEAKER_04:Uh two to three times a week.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, so that's regularly. So you don't have a lot of uh like adherence issues, I suppose, right? Because if you see someone two, three times a week, then do do you give them exercises to do at home?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Or just keep your brain.
SPEAKER_04:It depends. Usually, uh, maybe like to do one to two times at home.
SPEAKER_03:Right, cool. So it's because that is again, it it's it's part of the the mindset, like what you mentioned earlier, because mom always puts herself at the bottom of the tree, so to speak. The exercises are one of those that get forgotten, get get that forgotten about a lot. Simple or CB is at 10 o'clock, it's bedtime. Oh my god, I've done my exercises, right? And and and that then becomes a thing, especially I found with people that I only see once or twice a week rather than three times a week, like we're good, right? I can I can but once or twice a week. So, how do you help people schedule that in and help prioritize themselves?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I am a huge person on routine. So, you know, if you have a workout or you have a workout that needs to get done, you schedule that in like an appointment. Write it down like you would have a normal appointment. I educate a lot on time blocking your days, you know, schedule what you can where you can. And then also, you know, book and you know, as a mom, your day is going to be it may be chaos. You think it's gonna go one way and it's gonna go 100% the other way. But if you can have set like morning and evening routines and it like bookend your days with a morning routine and an evening routine, that's gonna set your day up for so much more success. And then also you're gonna wind down a lot easier and set yourself up for a better night of sleep. So personally, I like to do like my workouts and stuff in the morning. So that's a part of my morning routine. I know not everyone is like that. Um, but I like to try and have them establish like a set routine and then also work on like time blocking. I think also the other thing is the other important thing is, you know, it's you don't have to have like the all or nothing mindset, you know, maybe your exercises take 20 minutes and you only have 10 minutes here. Do what you can in those 10 minutes. That's gonna pay off a lot more than just totally skipping the exercises overall. So I think that's another big thing that I like to educate on as well is you know, something is better than nothing. And as a mom, we really have to adopt that mentality or else we we're just gonna be here waiting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the perfect moment will well, I mean, the same with the perfect same for people wanting to fall pregnant, the perfect moment won't will never be there, right? It's it's just not going to happen. Um, there's always going to be stuff to do. So, so you how long do your home routines, as in the exercise you give people to do at home, how how long do they usually take ballpark? 10, 20 minutes?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so if it's just in the beginning, you know, 10, 15 minutes, if it's more so something where we're we're really working on progressing strength, and this is more of like, you know, this is gonna be your set workout, and you're kind of further along in the program, then it would be around 30 minutes.
SPEAKER_03:See, because that's all really manageable, and this is what I always tell people as well, right? It's the we don't need for for rehab, and let's be honest, early postpartum is just rehab exercise, right? You don't need to spend hours doing it. Yeah it is not like when you see, you know, in in the in uh the when you see rehab being done in the movies where physio spent hours trying to get someone back to walk and all that type of stuff. That is not what normal uh rehab needs to look like for a post-part for for most people. Um and indeed as long as you're consistent with that type of stuff, especially I find the breathing really works, is that because that is just uh you can do it. Do you know what I mean? It's not even in the beginning, you need to get the hang of it, and it's a bit annoying sometimes, but after that, you can do it whilst driving your car.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I was just gonna say I I have a breathing series that I offer moms to do, just like while you're driving.
SPEAKER_03:I find the the I found one of the best things for early postpartum uh women, the breathing in the car, when they get that feeling of the activation back, that mind muscle connection back, so to speak, they'll notice it when they take a corner at slightly higher speed. Do you know what I mean? As in, and I drive like a boy, as in I drive I stick to the speed limit, but I my my head, according to my wife, my head moves as I drive, as I take a corner, right? I can be Jensen Button or something like that. But like I said, at reasonable speed or don't speed. Um, but it's you feel it, right? You take a corner, your center of gravity shifts, therefore, by definition, your core should be feeling something. And I find that when women practice, when mums practice their breathing in the car, they get it like that. They get it really, really quickly. Um and yeah, like like I said, it's that is just uh the breathing bit. I was and feel free to disagree with me at any stage. I find personally, and I tell everybody this the breathing bit is the most important bit you can do for the boss parts of the car.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_03:Um that is the foundation of absolutely everything you do. Um simply because it teaches you to exhale properly during exercise. Right? I don't know how often you come across this, but most people that I've come across, if they they tend to hold their breath when they start lifting a heavy weight, right? They do a little alfalfa thing and and do just breathe through it, right? That's the thing we're trying to avoid. I want you to the intense squats, exhaling on the effort, exhaling on the way up. That's that's how I want you to do it. Um and teaching, I find it makes people perform their movements better if they learn how to breathe properly.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah. Perform your movements better. You usually can like lift heavier and you're just moving better throughout the movement if you can nail down or get down the breathe.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, see, people are not the only one who says it because there's bodybuilders listening to this who disagree, because not bodybuilders, powerlifters. Because you know, they hold their breath for absolutely everything, because everything is PR for them, right? Um, but it's but it's for normal people and for athletes as well. Um because I've worked with someone or two football uh soccer, uh soccer football uh type players that they tend to tense up as they're setting off, and if you teach them to relax through a turn or through a particular action, they are simply quicker. Right in the same way that the sprinter is completely relaxed for like a hundred meters, right? When everyone listening, if you listen, if you're watching the Olympics next, and I don't know when they are 20, 26 or 28 or whatever, uh, or just any any sort of sprint race, go on to YouTube. I keep forgetting that YouTube is a thing, so that people can just go online, go on to YouTube, watch a hundred meter sprinter, see how relaxed all those guys and girls really are. The ones that finish the jam jowls are all bouncy and all that. Everything is loose, everything is loosey-goosey, and those they're all running ridiculously quick because they are relaxed, they don't run fast when they're tense, because you simply can't use the right muscles at the right time for all tense, right? Yeah, I'm not nuts, right?
SPEAKER_04:I'm not making no no, I I agree with that.
SPEAKER_03:See, and this is what I this is what I always like to tell people. Is if you if you if you can learn to relax through your daily movement, like what you're talking about, if you can learn to breathe through it, if you can learn to breathe through you know, one of the most often heard complaints that I used to get was I pee myself a little bit when I get up off the floor after playing with my child. Or I need to roll over, you know that whole rolling out of bed thing that you need to do early postpartum that well, I need to get up that way off the floor after playing with my child, playing with my kid all the way. I pee myself a little bit. It's predominantly just because you're not exhaling on the way up. It's in it's the buildup of internal pressure that is causing that. It is not let's say anything wrong with you. Should you be able to do it? Yeah, sure. And that's something that we need to work on a bit. But make it easier for yourself, just exhale. Just make a point of exhaling, just make the old man noise as you get there. Yeah, it's fine. As long as you're exhaling through it, you'll likely not have any sort of issues with leakage and all that type of stuff during the movement. So the breathing bit is is uh just just key of of it's is the thing that you always do on your days off if you don't have time. Oh yeah. The day off. Was there anything else you wanted to touch on? Because we covered quite a lot of uh quite a lot of ground there, I think.
SPEAKER_04:I don't think so. I think you know, it just it's important to not rush the process and not you know understand how your postpartum body is working and how to fuel it. And um you took nine months to create that child, build that child. It's not you're not going to bounce back and pour into yourself a little bit too, because if you want to be able to care for other people, you need to be able to care for yourself as well.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I I I always I always say this that if you don't look after yourself, it will it is the single greatest disservice you can do to your child, and I'm exaggerating a little bit, is not looking after yourself. Right? It is it is so essential for your own for your own and your child's well-being. That if you can find the time to work with a professional, if you can, if you can swing it, let's be honest. A lot of people can't afford it. But if you can afford it, great, if it's valuable for you, great. If not, there is an order to things. I've discussed these things before, you know. You can work face-to-face with people, do small group stuff with people if you want to, not large group stuff, that's different. Um, then because that's usually cheaper. If you can't afford that, there's some good online programs available, um, with with guidance. I don't mean just leave it that just don't just leave it to it. But then below that is the following good people such as yourself on on Instagram and all that type of stuff. And way, way, way, way, way below that is following random workouts on YouTube.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03:That's the last thing we do. Yeah, pretty much. Maybe even yeah, that it might even be below asking your friends on what they did, uh, to be honest, because it's that's terrible. So look at the professionals um and and go with them. Cool, yeah. On that happy note, I will press stop record here, and press stop record is exactly what I did. Thanks very much to Hali for coming on. Um I absolutely love that. Uh I love that conversation, and I love her approach and all that sort of stuff. You'll you'll find her on the gram and all that sort of stuff. The gram, that's what the cool kids call it. Isn't that what the cool kids call it? I think so. Uh Insta or the gram. What do we call it? Peter at healthyplostnatable buddy.com. You know, um yeah, I will I will link to everything we've discussed and and all that sort of stuff. And you can, like I said, I will link to all her handles and all that sort of fun thing. So yeah, thanks very much to Hali for coming out. I love it when when professional people don't know what they're talking about, are willing to give up an hour or so of their time to uh to talk to a little old me, uh, especially when the people don't genuinely know what they're talking about, right? Um that's it for this week. Peter at healthypostnatalbody.com. If you have any uh questions or comments, next week we'll do from the vault and then I'll have another interview coming up um that I've already recorded, and I can't remember hopeful handbags. That that's what's coming up on oh man, you're gonna you're gonna love that episode. That that is that is I mean, yeah, two weeks from now we're crushing it. Crushing it in that episode. Um anyways, that's it for me. Here's a new bit of music. You take care of yourself. Bye now.
SPEAKER_00:Started off with one mana.