Kim Vopni
Appearances
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Is it because you have prolapse? Is it because your muscles are non-relaxing? Is it because of the posture you have on the toilet that's not allowing things to empty completely? So you want to have an understanding of why so that you can then choose the right path to fix it.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yeah, absolutely. And it could be nerves, it could be anxiety, it could be tightness, it could be constipation, it could be low estrogen, it could be dehydration, it could be bladder irritants. There's so many things that can create that inappropriate symptom.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And the strategy you have is, and a lot of people I have go through a bladder diary where they're tracking what they're eating, what they're drinking, how much water they're drinking, how much fiber they're eating, when they poop, when they pee, what the volume is, because they can start to then notice the habits. They start to notice the foods that are triggers for them.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
They start to notice, you know, I don't drink as much water as I thought I did. So dehydration is going to come and play a role. And holding Like you're not using a bladder diary, you just have this awareness, but some people don't. So they use the bladder diary and it says, well, I just went an hour ago. I haven't had any bladder irritants. I haven't had a huge volume of liquid.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
This is an inappropriate signal. So then you step in and you do, you can do self-talk to the bladder. You can use distraction techniques like curling your toes or doing calf raises, doing some pelvic floor activation or relaxation to help calm that signal. And within, you know, 10 to 30-ish seconds, it should ideally be gone. And then you just carry on with your day.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yeah, it's the autoimmune condition, interstitial cystitis, painful bladder syndrome is also another name that's maybe associated with it. And the challenge is it can present like UTIs. It can present because like if you have overactive muscles, it can present from bladder irritants, from low estrogen. So a lot of the symptoms are the same.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And so it's kind of like hypothyroidism versus Hashimoto's. You have to kind of distinguish, is it the autoimmune side or is it something different? And that's where that root cause investigation comes with pelvic floor PT, with a bladder diary, with diet changes, lifestyle changes.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And if with all of that, nothing is changing, it takes a little while to go through the... It's like a process of elimination, a diagnosis of elimination for IC. you want to address all of the other things first. And if it improves, not likely that it is the autoimmune form.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
If it's not, and you've tried everything and you've given it kind of that good college try, then possibly an IC diagnosis would happen.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yeah, estrogen can play a role. It's usually, I shouldn't say, I don't know the statistics wise, but from the younger generation, it's typically not the low estrogen per se, but it could be an improper, a non-optimal vaginal microbiome for whatever reason. So that could be diet related as well. That could be clothing related. That could be all sorts of things.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
But if we have a microbiome, especially this lacking lactobacillus, which is the main bacteria we want, like in the gut microbiome, we hear the conversation of diversity. We want all sorts of different, and there's millions and trillions of bacteria. In the vaginal microbiome, it's not so much about the diversity, it's about having lactobacillus in abundance.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And low estrogen can create a low lactobacillus state. but it's not always just that. So there's vaginal probiotics that can be taken orally or inserted vaginally that can sometimes help. There's supplements like boric acid also used intravaginally that can be helpful for some people.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
But again, you don't want to just throw those in and hope, you kind of want to go through that process, that diagnosis of elimination with addressing the lifestyle factors first. So releasing tension, get evaluated. Is it some sort of muscle tension or is it pelvic organ prolapse? Is it constipation? Is it dehydration? Is it bladder irritants or other things that you are consuming?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
You can do, there's companies now offering vaginal microbiome testing so you can get an idea of the presence and the abundance of lactobacillus and see if that's something that you would want to address. But I wouldn't want to just send somebody and just, you know, just throw darts at the wall and hope something's going to help. You want to go through and make the lifestyle changes first.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yeah, and I look at people, I have people pay attention to their menstrual cycle as well if they're having one. So that's another worry with that population. they may lose their menstrual cycle. But if somebody is cycling and if they notice that they have certain symptoms, they feel more urgency, they feel more frequency, they feel a sense of heaviness.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Now, the uterus itself is more, is fuller, is heavier. It will be managing a greater load just before our menstrual cycle. But that doesn't mean that everybody should feel like they have an urgent need to pee or that they have heaviness and pressure. But people with pelvic floor challenges usually say the week or the days just before my period, things are worse.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And that is that declining and low estrogen state. And that's sort of mimicking and giving us a glimpse into menopause where we are unfortunately not going to rise back up like we do when we're cycling and get back to a high estrogen state. We will be forever in that low estrogen state. And that's where the role of vaginal estrogen plays.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yeah, that is. I haven't seen a lot of that in my community. There hasn't been a lot of people talking about that. Not something that comes up very often, but I do know that that is absolutely something that can happen. And infection can be passed back and forth between partners as well. And if one person's being treated, then the other partner should be treated as well for something.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And also from an estrogen piece, a lot of people say, well, is it okay for me to pass my estrogen to my partner? And I always say, put your estrogen in and on, on your vulva, in your vagina. Like after all the activity has happened just before you go to bed, not that it's dangerous for your partner, but you want it. You want it for yourself. You don't want it to be rubbing off on your partner.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And so with vaginal estrogen, it's so low dose. It's not like little to none is absorbed systemically and the same would go for your partner as well. And so it's not from a safety perspective. We want the benefits of the estrogen. So keep it for yourself.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
The body is so wise and we have to listen to those symptoms and signs and signals. And we're so we live in this world of distraction and we don't always pay attention to what's going on and we have these annoyances and we don't look also for the deeper meaning in those signals, right?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And those sensations, like the sensations or the emotions with anxiety and stress and overwhelm will absolutely can bring on pelvic floor challenges, signs and symptoms can exacerbate. So if you have an existing issue, a lot of people will notice like when they don't sleep well, when they've had a stressful day, their symptoms are worse.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And so again, it's removing us from what is creating that stress, that overwhelm, those anxious thoughts. A woman today on my call was saying, I was on vacation and I could go for hours and I didn't have any senses of urgency. And as soon as I'm back home, I'm back here, what's going on?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And it's sort of like, I know we can't be on vacation all the time, but there's a drastic need of change, there's a drastic difference between this sort of parasympathetic state you're in on your vacation with this constant sympathetic state you're in in your day-to-day living. So how can you blend and get more into that?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Not living in parasympathetic, but get more of that in your life so we can have some sense of balance.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
I'm a personal trainer and I grew up always with a fascination of health and wellness. And when I saw my mom stop exercising, I was asking why. And she said, it's because of your brother and you. So of course, then she kind of elaborated and basically she developed stress urinary incontinence after childbirth. She had chronic back pain. She had a tummy that wouldn't flatten.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yeah. And I just did a, it's not, I haven't posted it yet, but I was filming a video today talking about how, you know, I see Viagra ads in subways, on TV, like everywhere you are, you're hearing about Viagra and it is handed out like candy for men with erectile dysfunction. where are the ads for vaginal estrogen?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So the men who maybe don't have pelvic floor challenges right now, but erectile dysfunction is a pelvic floor challenge, they are getting erectile dysfunction and then they think everything's solved and everything's fine. And they are now looking, many of them, for vaginas. And those vaginas are dry and irritated and it hurts to have sex. So there's this huge disconnect here.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And when you were talking about marriages breaking down, marriages can break down because of pelvic floor dysfunction, because of genitourinary syndrome of menopause. So we need to level the playing field here and we need to have access, equal access and informed, be informed of what's available for us, not just hearing about all the glorious things that are available for men.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And so witnessing this coupled with a childbirth video that I saw in sixth grade, this was just not something I really wanted to participate in. So I grew up very adamant that I was never going to have children, but always had this fascination with health and wellness. So fast forward, I meet my now husband and his sister-in-law allowed us to
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
It should be like, I jokingly say it's an essential nutrient. Like from the start of your menopause for the rest of your life, I really believe that pretty much every single woman would benefit from vaginal estrogen. And there are people who don't know. There are people who ask, like who know and ask, but their doctors deny it because they are not informed still on the updated evidence.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And that just- So bad. Boggles my mind. It boggles my mind. They can hand out birth control pills. They can hand out antidepressants that all have side effects, but- bioidentical hormone therapy, no, no danger. And that's just not true.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
brother and sister-in-law, allowed us to witness their birth. And that was the first time I had seen anything different than what we see in the media. The people with the knees at their ears, somebody telling them to hold their breath for 10 seconds, but you know, that whole thing, screaming, yelling, the drama. And this was the complete opposite to that.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yeah. And I mentioned earlier genitourinary syndrome of menopause. There's now another term, genitourinary syndrome of lactation. Again, that low estrogen state where postpartum, our estrogen plummets and there's the hair loss and we all know. And vaginal estrogen, that's another prime time for the use of vaginal estrogen. And I kind of want to also add to that is Estrogen is one component.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So we benefit from estrogen. We benefit from moisturizer, like we moisturize our face. We can use vaginal moisturizer and also lubricant for sexual activity with or without a partner. And all of them play a unique role. Estrogen is not necessarily a moisturizer. Moisturizer is not going to replace your estrogen. Neither of those are going to act like a lubricant.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So we need all three for different things. Moisturizer is more daily. You can use it multiple times a day. Hyaluronic acid is a very well-established ingredient, but there are other ingredients as well, like shea butter, olive oil. Some people use coconut oil as a moisturizer, but it's more like a, I would consider it more like a lubricant.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
It's more like a reducing friction as opposed to it being a true moisturizer. But taking care of the skin in our vulvas, taking care of our vaginas is so, so important. And when everything is working optimally, we don't think about it and life is great.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
But as soon as there is something not working optimally, because it influences so many things, our continence, our sexual response, our organ support, our core control, our ability to work out, everything is influenced by our pelvic floor. And so if we want kind of that freedom of not being distracted and worried and anxious about, is there a bathroom? Can my partner see it? Am I leaking?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And so that was a really, it sort of planted a seed because I wanted a family, but I just didn't want the effects that my mom had dealt with. So I thought, okay, maybe I'll Maybe I'll become pregnant. Maybe I'll have a cesarean. Maybe that'll protect my pelvic floor. I didn't even know the term pelvic floor at the time.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
You know, all these things. We really need to pay attention to our pelvic floor. And sooner than later, don't wait for there to be an issue to then go and take action. Intervene early, start early so that you can avoid the suffering.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
But it's a promise to yourself too, right? Like when we show up for ourselves, it's a very powerful message to put ourselves first. And so many women do not. And everybody else's needs come first.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And a lot of the people who come to me in my community are now, sometimes their marriages have broken down, maybe not, but they're finally, it's like, oh, the kids have left the house or some people have never even had kids, but now they're retired. And so now that they've had all of these years of suffering and Maybe they've sought some help. They've probably been offered drugs and surgery.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Some of them have gone down that path and the problem is still there or they have a new problem because nobody has told them about how to functionally train and the muscles and how to like constipation is a major one. So many people are struggling with constipation and that sometimes it's pelvic floor dysfunction that's creating your constipation.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
a lot of times it's constipation that's now creating your pelvic floor dysfunction your urgent need to pee the frequency the pelvic organ prolapse so there's so much more than just what people have heard of kegel exercises which we know work but they need to be done correctly and consistently and most people don't do them correctly because they've never been taught so there's this disconnect of again women just kind of being left to go figure out and
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
I just kind of thought of it as my vagina and I didn't want my vagina to break. And that was that, right? And so then the following year I'm pregnant. Now I'm thinking, okay, now I really have to be thinking, how is this babe going to come out of me? My midwives had recommended a biofeedback device to me called the Epinoe, which is from Germany.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And we're going to gatekeep all of these things until you really absolutely hit so bad, then we'll maybe let you have a little bit. I just think that is crazy. We deserve this information much earlier in life. We deserve access to all things that can help us maintain the tissue integrity, the muscle strength, the everything so that we can have a healthy sex life, so that we can
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
run, jump, lift for our bones, for our hearts, for our brains, like do all the things. Pelvic floor dysfunction is a major contributor to people stopping exercise. One in two, like just under 50% of women stop exercising because of their pelvic floor. So we think about the rates of osteoporosis, the rates of heart disease, the rates of diabetes, dementia,
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
especially in that post-menopause phase, knowing that that could have been somebody who's just starting to develop pelvic floor dysfunction in that perimenopause transition. It could be somebody who's started 10 years prior and they've still been suffering. And that's years without reaching peak bone mass and all the things. And I just, it's breaking my heart how many people are now osteoporotic.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
They're afraid to move. They're afraid to do anything. And their life is this small cocoon where they're afraid to leave their home.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And this was designed by a German physician who was in Africa and he was using gourds. Sorry, he wasn't. He was witnessing women using gourds of increasing size to prepare their pelvic floor for birth. And so he thought, well, that's a great idea, but that's not going to fly in North America. So how can I make this more mainstream?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yeah. And that's another kind of like the interstitial cystitis where...
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
it can so many of the symptoms not so much the visible presentation but not a lot of people look at their vulvas so they may be experiencing itching burning pain with sex bleeding which can be genitourinary syndrome and menopause as well and if there's if you're not working with a practitioner who is looking deeper and i don't mean just like deeper into the vagina but just look unraveling all of the layers
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
it could be missed, lichen sclerosis can be missed because again, it presents similarly and it's not something that people are being screened for.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And the other piece that kind of on the same tangent is hysterectomy. So the population who's going through the perimenopause transition, maybe postmenopause, more so before who are dealing with heavy bleeding, some are dealing with fibroids. The three main reasons for a hysterectomy are heavy bleeding, fibroids, and pelvic organ prolapse.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And he worked with physios and midwives and other physicians and created a medical device. EpiNo stands for no episiotomy. So the intention was, can we reduce tearing? Can we reduce episiotomy's with the intention of that's not going to prevent all pelvic floor dysfunction, but it would be playing a role in helping people connect with their pelvic floor before birth.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So if in so many of these women, 600,000 in the States alone every year, And nine out of 10 are for benign conditions, prolapse, fibroids, heavy bleeding. So has anybody looked at the contributing factors to the prolapse, to the heavy bleeding, right?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And so then they get their hysterectomy and they think, well, my problem's solved, not having been told that you have an increased risk now of incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse of what's left, the bladder, the rectum, the intestines. And all those people should be seeing
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
I think all women in general should see a pelvic floor physical therapist at least once a year, but especially if you are going for surgery or you've had surgery, see a pelvic floor physical therapist first, see them as part of your recovery around six to eight weeks post-op.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And your need for all of the things we do, all of the lifestyle, all of the exercise to protect that group of muscles is now even more important because we have the influence of scar tissue and adhesions similar to like a different reason why you would have adhesions. But scar tissue and adhesed skin and tissue can interfere with optimal function. And so I just, that one really drives me crazy.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Those numbers are just bonkers. And that risk of organ prolapse after hysterectomy is even further increased if the reason you had the hysterectomy was for prolapse. Because again, so often that root cause is not investigated. So part of the reason that person developed a prolapse is from a constipation or from
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
chronic heavy lifting with poor strategy, if we haven't addressed that, of course, that's going to happen again and potentially even a greater risk because we now have changed the landscape and we have scar tissue and we've hindered muscle function. No retraining has happened. So that one breaks my heart too.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Reduce inflammation, get better sleep.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So used one, had a great experience. I didn't have any tearing and I thought, well, I'm good. I didn't tear, so I'm fine. And then I still, I used it for my second. And after my second, I developed stress urinary incontinence. And I thought, well, how's that happening? Because I didn't tear. And that was my limited knowledge at the time. And then I started to
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
It's so unnecessary in so many ways. There are times I have a friend right now who she has cancer. She needs to have it removed. And there's no shame in that. That is absolutely a necessary intervention. Yes. But having the awareness of pelvic floor PT ahead of time, pelvic floor PT is part of your rehab, the ongoing pelvic floor maintenance, and also speaking with a surgeon and asking them,
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
if you're taking especially my cervix out, how are you resuspending the top of my vagina? Because that, again, should be standard of care and gold standard that if, especially if your uterus and the cervix is being removed, we need to resuspend. That part of the role of the uterus and the cervix is to hold the vagina up. So if we're taking it out, how are they doing it?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
One procedure is called McCall's caldoplasty, which as far as my knowledge is at this current time, that is gold standard. But I'd Studies have shown it's not universally accepted as everybody doing that. So make sure if you are scheduled for hysterectomy, talk to your surgeon and ask them, how are they resuspending the top of your vagina?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
learn about pelvic floor physical therapy. And a lot of what I was seeing them do was very fitness oriented. So being a personal trainer, I was saying, okay, well, can I apply fitness principles to this group of muscles called the pelvic floor? And that's how things started. And initially it actually was, I started selling that device. I became a Canadian distributor for that product.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yeah. And the pill can contribute to vaginal dryness. And the pill is offered to women with hot flashes and post-menopausal women. And they're denied bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and they're offered the pill. And that drives me crazy. And they're already going to be dealing with a dry vagina. And now you're giving them something that's going to dry it out even more.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And then the pads that they wear are also going to dry the vagina out more. And it's just...
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
We need to apply the same principles we do to any other part of the body. If we want to
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
strengthen a muscle we need to impart a load and we need to it the stimulus needs to be such that it's it's hard so then when we go back and we rest and we nourish our body it has the building blocks to improve and get stronger for next time the pelvic floor is the same as we have type one and type two muscle fibers it's like the rest of the body and so when my my
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
philosophy is we need to first of all connect we need to understand what the pelvic floor is where it is how it works how it works in synergy with our breath with our diaphragm connect with that go through some cueing some imagery to to be able to voluntary voluntarily contract and relax the pelvic floor and then we need to layer that into movement so dr arnold kegel we've if we've heard of something about the pelvic floor it's usually do your kegels
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And a lot of people say, do them at every red light or do them while you brush your teeth, or you have to do 300 a day. And evidence, gold standard evidence would say three sets of 10, 10 second holds done three times a day. And I don't know about you, and I don't know very many people who will take three separate times in a day to exercise their pelvic floor. So compliance is low.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
I started an e-commerce store. Then I started to look at, you know, I was working with mainly pregnant women wanting them to get this device. And I wanted them to have the information ahead of time. So I created a program called Prepare to Push. And it was all about training for birth. How can you reduce the likelihood of tearing?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And also we know that the majority of people do them incorrectly because they've never been taught. They've never seen a pelvic floor PT. No one's evaluated their pelvic floor to see if they're doing them correctly. So we have these Kegels that work when they're done correctly, consistently, no one's doing them, no one's doing them correctly.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And they're also, even if you are doing them correctly and consistently, it doesn't translate into when you're at the gym and you do a deadlift and you leak, or when you're running, you leak. Sitting in a chair or lying down in bed or sitting at a red light and doing your Kegel exercises will only take you so far. We need to train the pelvic floor with movement, being upright against gravity.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
under load with impact. We don't just start there. We have to, like anything else, we have to progressively overload and get ourselves there. The pelvic floor is, as I said, so many women stop exercising because of their pelvic floor, either because their symptoms are, they notice their symptoms more, they think they're making it worse.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Some people are even told, oh, you can't lift anything over 10 pounds because you have a prolapse. which is horseshit, really. That is bonkers to me. And there's no evidence to say that. And there never will be because 10 pounds to one person is light as a feather. 10 pounds to another person is hard.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And so there's never going to be a weight, one specific weight that is too much for a pelvic floor because it's really dependent on that person and that person's execution and that person's training and history and so many different variables. So that is bonkers to me.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And also in the effort of trying to preserve the pelvic floor, now we are putting this person at risk of sarcopenia, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, because we're not exercising, we're not moving.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So fundamentally, we need to first have the knowledge of the pelvic floor, understand what the contributing factors are, what are the root causes of why you're struggling with incontinence or urgency or prolapse or back pain or pelvic pain, painful sex, whatever it is, and change those variables and then start the exercise appropriate for you. And a lot of what I begin with is releasing tension.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So many people have tight pelvic floors and they think, well, how could I leak if my pelvic floor is tight? Or how could I have lack of organ support if my pelvic floor is too tight? It doesn't make Logical sense, but any muscle that is too tight doesn't have good blood flow, doesn't have, there's no circulation. It doesn't generate as much power as it can because it's in a shortened, tight state.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
It gets fatigued very easily. So when called upon, its reaction time is delayed and it can't generate the force to meet that cough, sneeze, laugh, jump, whatever it is. So releasing tension is a really integral and always the first place to start.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Then I saw, okay, well, I'm doing all this work, but now we don't give any regard in North America to postpartum recovery. So then it was investigating what other cultures do around the world. And I ended up forming a second business with two other women. One was a pelvic floor physical therapist that was called Belly Zinc. And we manufactured our own postpartum wrap because a lot of cultures use
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And a lot of people who, you know, they've never even tried it, they've tried some of the exercises and they think, oh my gosh, I can't believe how much tension I have been holding in that part of the body when they've never even paid attention. So we release tension. connect with the breath. We use visualization and imagery because it's part of the body we can't see.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
We can't go to the mirror and flex our pubococcygeus muscle. And there's multiple layers of pelvic floor musculature. We see our external genitalia, but not the inside. So we need imagery and cueing to help us connect with. One of the most popular cues is imagine picking up a blueberry with your vagina and your anus. and then putting the blueberry back down.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And I often will cue people to put the blueberry down as a whole blueberry and not as juice, because again, people think like, because I'm leaking and because I'm quote unquote weak, I need to do like the hardest Kegel I've ever done in my life. So they think of max contraction all the time. Some people will benefit from that strategy.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And it can sometimes elicit a greater relaxation response, but the blueberry is intentional. It just needs to be a gentle- You gotta grab it. Yeah, and lift it up.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And the up is important because most people interpret Kegels as a squeeze and they will often squeeze their butt cheeks- They will squeeze their inner thighs. They will sometimes even bear down and hold their breath. And they think they're doing it correctly, but that pressure downwards or not accessing the pelvic floor, that's the reason why Kegels don't work.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So you pick something up, you put it back down, you repeat that. Then we need to layer it into movement. So we start with something simple like a pelvic tilt or a bridge. Then we're going to get more upright into a kneel, tall kneel, squats, lunges. Then we're going to start to load that. So we're going to do some loaded squats. We're going to do some jump squats.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
We're going to do some barbell bench press. Incorporating, I call it the core breath. So when we're learning how to activate and relax the pelvic floor in synergy with the diaphragm, with the breath, pelvic floor is part of the core. We're using our breath. So I call it the core breath. We bring that into movement.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And now once we get to it, like I do a 28 day challenge, which within that period of time, within two to four weeks, we've retrained the pelvic floor to react at the right time with the right amount of force and people can be symptom free. That doesn't mean we're cured and okay, I never have to pay attention to my pelvic floor ever again. That's the first step.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Now we need to add a little bit more resistance. We need to apply the principles of progressive overload like we do with anything else. And keep doing it for the rest of our life. And people are like, oh my God, I have to do this for the rest of my life. Yeah, you do. Unless you want to suffer. You choose, like choose your heart.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Is it harder to show up for yourself 10 to 15 minutes a day and pay attention to your pelvic floor? Or is it harder to be in diapers, not able to participate in life, not enjoying sex, leaking in diapers in a nursing home?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
abdominal wrapping or abdominal binding as a way to help heal or they say close the body after birth. So we wanted to make that a bit more mainstream. We wanted to couple it with exercise. That was the second business. Then started to go through my own perimenopause, menopause, you know, shit show. And that was a whole other chapter of pelvic floor that I was learning again.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Well, I'm watching my parents age right now. And that is very powerful motivation. Very, very powerful motivation.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yes. I'm just fighting like hell to stay.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And advanced prolapse is a, is a, an independent risk factor for hip fracture.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And I was like, that sounds terrible. Well, and there are some people who just, there's a generation of people who just, who just did that. They're just like, well, you just shove it back up and carry on. And I've, I've experienced prolapse and I definitely found it very challenging to just carry on. And again, there are options for situations like that. There are pelvic, um, There are pessaries.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
There is potentially surgery. Not everybody wants to go down surgery. And I don't want to, like, I want to take the shame away from surgery as well, because it can play a very positive role. It just shouldn't be the first line of defense that people are sent down the path right away.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
We have to look at all of the other conservative things like pessaries, like vaginal estrogen, like PRP, stem cell therapy, like hypopressives. That's an exercise technique very powerful for prolapse, like pelvic floor muscle training, pelvic floor physical therapy, avoiding constipation, all of these things.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And then if you've done all that and you get to the point where it's interfering with the quality of your life, and maybe for this woman, it wasn't, I could tell you very, if that was happening to me and I had tried all the things, I would choose surgery at that point to change that because I'm not prepared to suffer like that, but I'm making an assumption that she was suffering. Maybe she wasn't.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
But Yeah, there's a lot of people that deal with that and put it back up. And I think, I hope somebody's offering you estrogen. I hope somebody's offering you pessaries. I hope you know how to do pelvic floor muscle training and you can make improvements. People have had very advanced prolapse, never completely reverse it.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Once it gets to that stage, you're not reversing that, but you can improve it for sure. And even if you are going to choose surgery, you have to prehab. You have to do all that work ahead of time anyway. So you might as well try it and see what happens.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So it was kind of this business has really followed my journey with pelvic health as well. all of it surrounding fitness to the pelvic floor and how we can optimize not just the movement we do, but the food, the building blocks that we consume, the sleep, the rest, the anxiety, the postures, all the other things that also influence the pelvic floor.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Same sisterhood. 95% of women with low back pain have some form of health enforcement. Yes.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
The other thing with the kettlebell swings is training for power because that's another thing. We lose speed and And we lose more type two muscle fibers, the quick contract, relaxed fibers post-menopause. And so whenever we can train explosively, jump squats or kettlebell swings, like that's a really good way to add power training for your pelvic floor as well.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Project Booty underway.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yeah, thank you. This was a fun chat. Vaginacoach.com is my website. All of my social media channels are at Vagina Coach. And yeah, Instagram is where I hang out the most.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So that's kind of how it started and how it has evolved to where we are now.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So a lot of people will, especially people who have started dealing with pelvic floor dysfunction, will start to kind of unknowingly develop habits that they think are being protective or compensatory, but they end up creating other issues. And one of which is peeing before they really have to. So they're like, well, I'm going to go in the car. I might as well pee. I'm going to go shopping.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
I'm going to get a pee. I'm going to leave my house. I'm going to pee. I'm going to go to my exercise class. I'm going to pee before my class. and you start to pee preemptively, and then that trains the bladder to signal before it's actually full.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So if you're peeing a good steady stream for 10, 15-ish seconds, not saying you couldn't pee longer than that, but that's pretty indicative of a full bladder. So it's about a cup and a half of urine. that would be indicative of a full bladder.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
The bladder can hold more than that if you really know, sometimes you can't and you need to keep holding and it has the capacity to hold, but that would be an appropriate amount of urine to come out when you're going to the bathroom. But if you're going pee and it's like three, five, seven seconds, sometimes stop and start flow, that's an indication of
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
people preemptively voiding, you're getting a signal inappropriately. You're getting a signal when it's not actually full. And that is what is going to then train your bladder to just keep doing that. And it'll start to do it at night and you'll be waking up multiple times a night.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Yeah, it's a great point. So normal voiding would be every two and a half to four hours. And when we sit down to pee and poo, technically, we need the pelvic floor muscles to relax in order for the bladder to contract or the rectum to void. And if we are not relaxing completely, then it can hinder that.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
And there could be, there's always going to be a small residual, like the bladder is constantly filling. So there's always going to be considered normal amount of residual, not a huge amount, but not enough to signal that you would need to go anymore. But so we should sit down, relax the pelvic floor, bladder contracts, pee comes out and it comes to an end and we're done.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
That's what should happen. In people who have tight pelvic floors that aren't relaxing, it may be difficult to empty completely. The bladder is trying to contract, but the pelvic floor is not relaxing enough. There could be residual that's then kept And some people notice that they feel like it's empty and then they stand up and then there's a little bit more that dribbles out.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So that could be tight muscles. It can also be pelvic organ prolapse. So especially if the bladder has shifted out of its optimal position, it starts to bulge in the vagina, creates a little pocket where urine can get trapped.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So that can make for that sensation of incomplete voiding or that stand up and then a little bit more comes out because the bladder then shifts now that it's empty and you stand up and move around. So double voiding is Not what I say that everybody should be doing. However, if you notice that you feel like you have to push to pee, you shouldn't have to push to pee. You should not push to pee.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
If you notice that there's that post void dribble, if you notice that you pee, but it doesn't feel like it's completely empty, you can do a second void, like a double voiding strategy where you sit in empty and then you stand up, do a few little hip circles, tuck, untuck, sit back down, take a breath in, relax the pelvic floor and see what else comes out.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
So that's kind of like that last P that you were told about. So not a strategy I would say everybody should adopt, but it's something that if you notice some of those things, then you can do that. But I would also then go figure out why that's happening. So go see a pelvic floor PT. Is it because you have prolapse? Is it because your muscles are non-relaxing?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Your Vagina Needs Strength Training Too: Pelvic Health 101 | Kim Vopni
Is it because of the posture you have on the toilet that's not allowing things to empty completely? So you want to have an understanding of why so that you can then choose the right path to fix it.