With 2020 having been the most stressful year for most of us, it feels like the start of 2021 is a good time to think about how to stay in a calmer place. It isn’t always possible to lower your stress levels (especially when that stress is a global pandemic) but there are ways we can help our bodies and brains deal with it. The sympathetic nervous system is our “fight or flight” side, fuelling by adrenaline, it helps us be on alert and run away or to stand and fight. We totally need this system but we don’t want it switched on overdrive all the time. If you have been living life on the edge fo ..read more

I don’t normally watch terestial TV, but whilst away I flicked it on to be greeted by an advert about incontinence pants. There wasn’t much of this advert I agreed with, it was normalising incontinence, specifically after having a baby. Incontinence affects 1 in 3 women at some time. Childbirth, menopause, impact sports and getting older all affect our pelvic floor but that doesn’t mean we have to put up with it or pretend incontinence pads are glamorous. Let’s face it, it should not be normal to wee in your pants unless you are unwell or in a nursing home! Yet so often on social media it is m ..read more

Diastasis Recti is also known as abdominal separation. Sounds pretty scary but it is actually very common and some research suggests it happens in all pregnancies, but for some ladies it may heal up before it is noticed. Why does it happen? The rectus abdominals are the tummy muscles that run down the front of the tummy, from ribs to pelvis. I like to think of these are being like a zip. There are 2 bands of muscles that run down with connective tissue called the linea alba in between. When you are pregnant this area has to expand to accomodate the growing baby. This means the tissues and musc ..read more

Modern life is stressful. Fact. One of the questions on our screening forms is “If your life stressful?” I’m always amazed if anyone ticks no. I actually need to change that question as it does not really matter how much stress is in your life, the important thing is how you are dealing with your stress? When we are stressed our sympathetic nervous system is working full on. This is the system that responds to a threat or when something big and scary comes along and the body needs to go into “red alert”. For example a car is hurtling towards you and you need to move, you have a huge deadl ..read more

Running is great for mental health, being outdoors provides fresh air, a new perspective and the pounding of your feet in a rhythm can help your thought processes. However it is also known that the impact of running can elicit symptoms of stress urinary incontinence. That little bit of leaking that you get when you run, or the need to wear a pantyliner/pad is not how our bodies were designed to function and is a symptom that there is a bigger issue. So should you run whilst you leak? A review of 28 studies on continent and stress incontinent women showed the timing of pelvic floor activity in ..read more

So often I hear the phrase movement heals. Whilst I agree with that there is also a point where movement is not the first point of call. There are so many programs out there now and so much advice on what to do if you have a pelvic floor concern or abdominal separation. The over flow of information is confusing and can just add to the noise in peoples head. How do you know who to listen to? How do you know which advice is correct? As someone who has spent a number of years doing advanced study in this area I’d like to share my top tips. I certainly know that a new mum I did not get it right fi ..read more

Since starting specialising in postnatal womens recovery I feel like I’ve discovered a secret sect. An un-talked about condition that is just normalised by ladies and it shouldn’t be. It has become something these ladies accept and life their life around. Why? Often I think life is busy, most of these ladies are mums and when you are a mum you are no longer at the top of the pecking order. The children come first, there is a lot less time for focusing on yourself and you learn to put up with those annoying niggles and problems. Incontinence, leaking and those accidental moments should not be a ..read more

Let’s talk planks. An amazing exercise for building core strength, for working the whole of your body and there is so much you can layer and add into a plank. Also one of the exercises that therefore needs great technique or a lot can go wrong. All too often people are encouraged to dive head on into a full plank without knowing the hows, why’s and why nots. I love a challenge, but I don’t like the planking challenges. Personally I do not see the benefit to being able to hold a static plank. I have a body that rarely stays that still and so far more useful is a moving plank with levers and mot ..read more

I’m not even sure where to start with this post. So I will start with my own experience. I’ve had 3 babies in the past 7.5 years and my youngest is about to turn 2 yrs. With each baby, my own recovery, my own postnatal journey and the care offered to me, has been different. I’ve had 3 babies who have lost weight post-birth, 2 of which required a period in hospital, each baby has had a tongue tie and it’s always been a stressful start in those initial weeks. Now I’m a well-educated, opinionated, determined (or bloody stubborn) kind of girl, which has got me through. What I have been, and contin ..read more

Some people come to us thinking that Pilates is all about the stretch and that they need to be super flexible to be any good at it. Confession, ahem…. whilst we have super flexible people who teach for us and I envy their ability to do the splits I’m not a bendy ballerina. Whilst I totally can work on my flexibility and improve it, I’m also aware that being super bendy is not always a good thing and you can overstretch for your particular body. Yup, I’m saying it doesn’t always pay to s–t–r–e–t–c–h.   Let’s think about that over-stretching: If you are hypermobile or have Ehler-Danos Sy ..read more