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Your Pelvic Floor Health Shouldn’t Dictate Your Fashion Choices

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Your pelvic floor health shouldn’t dictate your fashion choices.

REWIND

Let’s start from the beginning.

I am not a fashion expert, nor am I claiming to be one! But you can tell a lot about what’s going on with someone’s pelvic floor based on their fashion choices in a workout.

I’m also seeing fitness professionals saying mom jeans or high-waisted leggings can CAUSE pelvic floor issues. Is this true?

A RESOUNDING NO!

Let’s unpack these two things.

One is saying you need to base your fashion choices off of your workout and the other is saying your fashion choices are causing physical problems. Neither are true.

I saw a post saying the high-wasted pants cause downward pressure that can cause prolapse. That’s an wildly oversimplified understanding of what causes prolapse.

And this is where the fallacy is. In postpartum, moms are told to wear high-waisted compression shorts for support and then are told NOT to wear mom jeans because of the compression. GIVE ME A BREAK!

Don’t try to take my high-waisted pants from me!

We aren’t talking about corsets or waist trainers (this isn’t Bridgerton). We’re talking about pants, people.

When you hear these voices saying things like this, immediately be wary. Our bodies just aren’t that delicate and if they were, we would have lost our organs a long time ago. We have multiple layers of systems to make sure our organs don’t just fly out of us at the first sign of pressure.

The second thing we need to address is the line of women in black leggings waiting to use the bathroom “one last time” before double unders in a workout. Heck, they’re probably all wearing panty liners, too.

Letting your workout dictate your fashion is bad enough, but If you’re skipping workouts because you don’t want to deal with the impending leakage, that’s a sign you need to see someone to help you with your pelvic floor health.

I can’t guarantee 100% of people will have 100% improvement, but we can probably make things a lot better for you. You shouldn’t be avoiding exercises because of your pelvic floor health.

Yes, you can go with black pants and a panty liner, but wouldn’t it be nice to not have to plan your fashion choices around your workout?

If you want to assess yourself to see where your deficits are, check out my free Return to Run Readiness screen. If you’re ready to DIY, I have a quick mini-course to help you Return to Impact course to help you take the first steps.

Bounce Back after Pregnancy

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A fit pregnancy will help you bounce back after pregnancy.

Lots to unpack here, but let’s keep it simple.  Yes, it’s a great idea to stay as active as you can during pregnancy (for you and the baby).  Yes, it’s important to have a plan and support team to return to exercise postpartum.  But let’s be clear, where are we bouncing back to and why is it so important that we constantly guilt moms throughout this entire experience?

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I’m 100% sure I didn’t bounce back after either of my pregnancies.  It’s pretty hard to bounce when you’ve unexpectedly been in the hospital nearly a week, did the better part of a vaginal delivery only to end up with a C-section and every appendage is so swollen that you have to send your mother in law to @target to get underwear with leg holes large enough to accommodate your swollen thighs.

Nope. No bouncing back.

Even with the perfect pregnancy/delivery without complications, why are we so anxious to bounce back?  I have no desire to bounce back to a time when I wasn’t connected to my body and had a distorted idea of what post-partum looked/felt like (even after working with post-partum moms for nearly 10 years!)

Bouncing implies a rush, a quickness.  Post-partum is anything but that.  Days are long and nights are longer.  You see other moms casually pushing a stroller, clutching their non-fat mocha latte- trust me, there are tired eyes under those sunglasses.  The mom that returned to CrossFit before the 6-week postpartum mark, unless she’s seen a pelvic PT (and I have friends who have returned early but they got checked first and were being monitored), she may be ignoring leakage with her doubleunders, afraid that if she stops going to the gym she’ll have no outlet for her stress or connection to who she once was.  We can do better to support our moms.

If you’re not bouncing back, then where to?  How about reality.  Kids are progressive resistance.  Just getting them out of the house to go for a walk is an endurance exercise in of itself.  Find your deep core while finding your community.  One of my very closest family friends is a mom who I met at mommy baby yoga when our boys were 4-5 months old.  The family moved a few hours away but we’re still close.  Trust me, you’ll need that support.  The best part is, when we’re all together now, we move.  We ski, we run, we paddleboard and swim.

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We only get to do post-partum as often as we have kids.  See it for what it is, an opportunity to give yourself grace, and intentionally find the pathway back to wherever you’re going that works for you.  Plan for it to NOT go according to plan.  The baby weight may stay a little longer than you thought, your abdomen might feel like a hollow cave or your descending organs may be a parting gift that your child decided to take along with them during delivery.  Support each other.  Get educated.  Get help.  There is a better way.

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Dr Carrie Pagliano – What Does A Pelvic PT Do?

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Get prepared to feel pumped up! In this episode we talk to the amazing Dr Carrie Pagliano (DPT) about- her story (why she became a pelvic health PT and her work with the American Physical Therapy Association)- what a pelvic health PT actually does- what an assessment might look like with a pelvic health PT- what kind of treatments may be offered- how physical therapists can get more involved in working in pelvic health.

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