Sara Reardon
Appearances
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
No, we definitely see young people, young men and women. So I would say in the female population, it's unfortunate because for women, we often think like, well, it's after you have babies, you have pelvic floor problems, or it's when you're in menopause. But there are so many young women who have painful periods, painful sex, urinary leakage, and they don't know where to go to for help.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
They're not even seeing a gynecologist yet. And so they're learning about us on TikTok and social media and YouTube because they're looking for answers, right? But I think for men, if you have an issue as a young man, it's likely not a hormone issue and it's likely not a prostate issue. Those are issues that come on later in life. It could be muscle tension.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
It could be which muscles affect nerves, right? Muscles affect connective tissue. They affect relaxation. So different things like a hard time urinating or starting your stream, feeling like you can't empty completely, feeling like it's burning when you urinate, pain with sitting. pain with bowel movements, hemorrhoids. I mean, all of these things are pelvic floor related.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And if you've gone to see a urologist and they've ruled out infections and you still have symptoms or you've taken antibiotics and you still have symptoms, your pelvic floor should be assessed.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
You know, I think exactly the way that we're doing this. I think, you know, bringing it to people themselves, I feel like a lot of medical information, it was like gatekept behind physicians. And maybe we're lucky enough to be in a city with a physician who maybe knew about pelvic floor therapy, but it was still a last resort.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Like, oh, we've done all these tests and we can't find anything, then go. And then you've suffered for months or years. So if you have an issue with anything from pelvic pain, painful sex, bladder leakage, frequent urination, sexual dysfunction, pooping issues, I'm like, just go see one. And we'll tell you if there's no pelvic floor component, we'll be like, sorry, we're not finding anything.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
But more often than not, there is. And if there's other issues like an infection or you know, something else more pathological going on. We collaborate with other physicians. We refer out. I mean, I work with acupuncturists, dieticians, nutritionists, personal trainers, psychotherapists. I mean, hormone specialists, like we're just one piece of the puzzle.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I don't think that we can always solve everything, but I think we're a piece of the puzzle that's often missed. And by the time people reach us, they're like, why didn't anybody tell me about this sooner, right? Now they've suffered for months or years and their quality of life has changed or they spent gobs of money on treatments that were ineffective.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And so I think it just needs to be brought in earlier. I think medical providers need to ask the questions. We talked a little bit earlier about sometimes people are uncomfortable talking about this, and that means medical providers are uncomfortable. And I'm like, get over it. Our job is to help the patients.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
You know, I wish I could take credit for it. So I am a physical therapist by training. I have a doctorate degree. And then I specialized in pelvic floor physical therapy. And when I was after graduate school practicing, I would get together with my girlfriends and their families every summer and practice.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And if you don't screen for these issues by asking about peeing, pooping, sex, menstruation, birth, hormones, then you're missing a big picture here, a big piece of the puzzle.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Totally. And I think that to your point, one, I mean, I am a woman. I have two kids. I'm in perimenopause. I have had my own issues. And so people are like, how are you so vulnerable? I'm like, if I'm asking other people to come see me and talk to me about these really intimate parts of their life and things they maybe never told anybody, I feel like they deserve that same thing from me.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
They deserve compassion, transparency, vulnerability. And the other thing is that like People are not alone. I think so many people don't talk about these issues and they feel like they're the only one. But I've been in this practice for 18 years. I've treated tens of thousands of patients.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I tell a lot of stories in my book because I think it's important for people to know that if you're experiencing it, somebody else likely is too. We're just not talking about it. So I always say I want to normalize the pelvic floor conversations. I don't want to normalize the pelvic floor problems.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And that's where I think that we really need to shift the narrative of let's talk about these things. And then we're able to find solutions for them instead of dealing with them kind of so quietly, but then not even knowing that there's help out there.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
A few summers after I specialized in this field, I ended up like sitting in a hot tub with all of their moms talking about their bladder problems. And all of my friends said, oh my gosh, she's like the vagina whisperer. And then when I created my Instagram account in 2017... I created it for my group of girlfriends. I was pregnant. We were all going through pregnancy and postpartum.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So the full title is Floored, A Woman's Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage. So it is for women. And I say it's for everyone with a pelvic floor because if you have a daughter, if you have a mother, if you have a wife, I mean, I get men reaching out to me saying, I found you on Instagram. I think my wife has this problem, you know? And so they're searching.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I mean, not to generalize, my husband, he wants a solution. And if he can't find one, he wants to keep searching for one. And so I see a lot of men doing that to support their partners. But it's a woman's guide. And I think one of the things I want women to understand by reading the book is that, one, these muscles exist. And there are things you can do to prevent issues.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I think we live in a healthcare system where we're always doing damage control. We're like addressing problems afterwards where I'm like, there's a lot you can do to prevent issues, whether it's you're becoming sexually active, you're pregnant, you're recovering from a baby, you're heading into perimenopause, at every stage in life, your pelvic floor requires different things.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And I want to give you the tips and tools to take care of it. And then also, if you are experiencing a problem, there's resources in the book to help you. Like, what are the exercises to start with? How do you massage? How do you know if you're doing a Kegel correctly? How should you be sitting if you have pain? If you have pain with sex, what are different positions to try?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
You know, just so many things that over the years I've been practicing, this is the daily things that I tell my patients. And yet not everybody can come see Sarah. Not everybody can see a pelvic floor therapist. So how do we get this information into women's hands in a very easy, accessible, and affordable way?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
The second part of this is I really want us to change the experience of the next generation. I have two kids. I have so many friends who have daughters and children, and they're like, I don't know how to teach my daughter how to use a tampon, or I don't know how to talk to her about sex or like, how should I teach my kid about how to poop properly because he's constipated.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And so if we can, we know better than I think we can teach the next generation better as parents and really help them have a different experience. And I think my generation or even my mom's generation had with respect to pelvic floor healthcare.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Yes. And I will say right now, it may be the last, hopefully not, but it's a huge endeavor. I mean, it's a two-year process. And I mean, I had a research assistant. I mean, we dove into the research. I looked up my old cases from over the years to have really rich patient stories. I used kind of all my old techniques and tools. I mean, everything.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I mean, there was so much in this book that I wanted to put out there. And I could have written a book just about pregnancy or just about menopause. I was like, we need to start just from the basics. People don't even understand the basics of this part of their body. So it was a two-year process. But the really cool thing is the way that I got the book deal was it was a follower on social media.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And she worked for HarperCollins Publishing Company. And she said, I think that what you're saying is really important. And would you ever consider writing a book? And I was like, I'm going to have to think about that. I'm really busy. But I owned a physical therapy clinic in New Orleans at the time. And I was building up my online exercise platform. And I was like, I just don't have the capacity.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And I just was sharing tips on social media for them to find so they could know how to prepare. And I named it The Vagina Whisperer because that's what they called me. And so it really has blossomed, you know, over the years, several hundreds of thousands of folks following along. And I think that that growth is a real testament.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So I ended up selling my clinic. And the day after I sold my clinic, I signed the book contract. And so I had to make some shifts in my personal and professional life to take on this endeavor. And I still work for the clinic. I sold it to the two women who were my employees at the time. And now I work for them.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
But yeah, it's been a pretty interesting journey just to kind of follow this path, just like you, Dylan, of like, where am I headed? You don't always know, but you just kind of go to where you're called.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I'm thankful for them too.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
They do. And the imprint I'm under, which is a specialty imprint, is called Park Row Books. And that's where my editor, Erica, is. And I met with this team, and it was all women. And they were really behind this mission-oriented book. And they've just been great. I mean, I have a great team. And yeah, I mean, it's just wild. Literally like a cold email.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And then two years later, you're a published author. And it's just a really cool experience to kind of have gone through this and to be where I am now.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Yeah, thank you. So it's called The V-Hive. And I started this post-COVID because a lot of people weren't able to access pelvic floor therapists in person. And people were working out from home and not back to gyms. And so I created online pelvic floor workout routines. And some of them are strengthening. Some of them are relaxation.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
A lot of them are like pregnancy, birth preparation, postpartum recovery. Also, I just launched a perimenopause and menopause program, which adds in weight. But all of it is pelvic floor focused. So it's teaching you how to contract your pelvic floor, how to relax your pelvic floor, how to modify exercises if you're having a pelvic floor problem. I'm not a fitness professional.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I'm a pelvic floor therapist, and I really try to stay in my lane. But I mean, if you, a lot of people are scared to exercise or they don't know what's safe or what's not if they leak or if they have prolapse or abdominal separation or diastasis recti. So I wanted people to have a resource of how do you do this at home? And it's 10, they're 10 minute workouts, 10 to 20.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So you don't need 45 minutes. I mean, if you're a busy mom, you don't have 45 minutes three times a week, right? You maybe have 10 minutes, but I'm like, everybody does have 10 minutes. Like you scroll for at least 10 minutes a day. So if you can carve that out a couple times a week and really start working on your pelvic floor, I mean, the benefits are huge.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And I've had women over the years that are like, I did this before my birth and I had the best birth experience. I had no tearing or... I've been leaking for years and I'm finally able to run again. Or, you know, my mom has prolapse and I don't want to end up like her in diapers. So like, thank you for giving me resources. And it's very affordable. It's like $21 a month at the cheapest level.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
One, maybe the name is funny, but two, that women really want this information about their pelvic floors and they're not getting it from anywhere else. So it's just been an incredible journey to go from starting an Instagram account to now being a published author, talking all about the pelvic floor and the vagina.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And that's important because not everyone can access, you know, in-person therapy or out of network, you know, private services. So I really want this to kind of become the normal for women's healthcare so that they can work on their pelvic floors and prevent issues.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Yeah. So prolapse is when your pelvic organs aren't supported well by that hammock of pelvic floor muscles. And so your bladder, your rectum, or your uterus kind of starts to drop down into the vagina. You might feel a bulge at the opening of your vagina or like something's like falling out.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And it sounds scary, but it's really an issue where your muscles are tense and you might be straining or they're weak and the muscles or the organs are kind of pushing through. And so by strengthening your muscles and working on relaxation, you can kind of actually relift those organs and give them more support.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
But it's 50% of women who have given birth have some degree of prolapse walking around out there. And if you're lifting heavy weights and not breathing properly, you're engaging your pelvic floor. If you're straining with bomb movements or you're pushing when you pee, I mean, all of those things can contribute and make this issue much worse.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Right, so in the female body, your uterus, your ovaries, your bladder, and your bowels. And then you also have your balls are kind of connected to your colon, so any kind of digestive issue. For males, it's their bladder, their balls, which hold stool, and then their prostate. And men only have two openings.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Men only have two openings in the pelvic floor, one for the urethra through the penis, and then the anal opening. Females have three openings. They have the urethra, where urine exits, the anus, where poop exits, and then the vagina for vaginal birth, vaginal intercourse, menstruation. So, you know, females just have more susceptibility to weakness too because they have an extra hole.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
But we see that's the difference between female and male bodies too.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Yes, I see this all of the time. I see it in teachers, medical professionals, people who don't like to use the bathroom in public, holding your bladder too long. So the normal frequency to pee is two to four hours. If you're going more frequently than that, you're going too frequently. It's like overactive bladder syndrome, which your pelvic floor is a component.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
But if you're holding it longer than four hours, you can create hypertension in those muscles and then your bladder gets really full. And then when you try to pee, you can't relax. So then you try to push, you have to sit down, you strain, you have to push in your stomach to try to get your bladder to empty. You know, there's all of these things that it can...
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
totally lead to a pelvic floor issue. And it can even lead to a urinary tract infection because you're not emptying your bladder frequently enough. And then bacteria accumulates in the bladder and creates an infection. So I always tell people pee when you have the urge to pee, like don't overhold it. And I think people can go too frequently or too infrequently.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And both of those are pelvic floor problems.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Yeah. This is such a great question because these are muscles like any other muscle in your body. You can absolutely overtrain them. You know, I had a gentleman who years ago I was seeing him, he had urinary leakage after his prostate was removed. After you have prostate cancer, they can remove your prostate and it can lead to erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And he was doing 2000 Kegels a day. And when I went in to assess his muscles, he was, had so much pain and spasm in his pelvic floor. And he was like, I'm sitting in a truck and I'm a truck driver. So I'm just like doing Kegels all day. And I was like, but you don't need, just like, you don't need 2000 bicep curls, right? No. Like, what would you say?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
You want to load, you want to work to fatigue, you want to gradually increase intensity, you can do heavier loads, you can do more reps, but like you do three sets of 10 max, right? And so it's about gradual strengthening, but you don't need more than 30. But the other thing is you have to bring this muscle into function.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So if you're at the gym and you're like, oh, I have pelvic floor weakness, right? Or I want to make sure I'm protecting my core and my pelvic floor. I would guide you to engage your pelvic floor. So pre-contract. A pelvic floor contraction is what we also call a Kegel. Do a pelvic floor contraction prior to lifting, prior to squatting, prior to lunging,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
you know, contract these muscles before you load and then make sure that you're breathing. A really common thing that we see with a lot of heavyweight lifters and trainers is that they hold their breath when they're lifting heavy loads. And it's a compensatory technique and it's fine to lift heavy loads, but as a long-term strategy, it will blow out your pelvic floor.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I mean, you'll have hemorrhoids, you can have rectal prolapse, you can have a hernia, diastasis recti, because that air is getting trapped and it doesn't have a place to go. So it's going to find the path of least resistance. So in a male body, it might be an umbilical hernia or a hemorrhoid. But in a female body, we have vaginas and we have that extra layer kind of opening of weakness.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So it will lead to prolapse, urinary leakage, pelvic pain, because you're not breathing while you're contracting. And over time, it can cause dysfunction. So that's a kind of an icky situation because I want women to be able to lift heavy, but I'm going, if your bladder contents are spilling out as you're doing it,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Reach your PR goal, but just know you're likely causing some pelvic floor dysfunction, just like you may cause a muscle strain or strain somewhere else in your body, but it is affecting your pelvic floor, which could lead to a more severe issue.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Yeah, you have – the way that your brain works, Dylan, is you're really like following this track and the answer is yes. It's like you're like cluing into all these things. I'm like, that's correct. So you have different layers of your abdominals. And the deepest layer is called your transverse abdominals. That kind of wraps, you know, all the way around from your deep abs to your low back.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And then you've got your layers of oblique abdominals. And then you've got your six-pack rectus muscles, right? Those are kind of the out muscles that you would have. I know you've seen yours. I've never seen mine, but I've heard that they're in there. But all that being said, that deepest layer, the transverse abdominals, connect to your pelvic floor.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So when you activate your pelvic floor contraction, when you contract, your deep abdominal transverse muscles contract at the same time. They work in synergy. You can't isolate them separately. So if you're engaging your deep pelvic floor muscles, your deep ab muscles are also firing.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And that's actually the biggest reason that a lot of people have back pain or they can develop hernias or is because they're not activating the deep core. They're only doing rectus work or oblique work. And so before you even do any ab work, I'm like, pull your pelvic floor, your perineum, which is kind of the midline of your, we call it the taint, you know, in like urban dictionary. But
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
The area kind of just at the base of your vagina or penis, and you lift that up, and that activates those deep core muscles while you're working out. The hernia is caused by not having the correct pressure management, which likely means you're not breathing well. Like it likely means you're holding your breath and that breath is trying to find a place to go. So it goes towards your belly button.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Awesome. Thank you. You know, and I think that that's one of the thing is I'm a medical professional. I'm a medical provider. But I think when we start using this jargon and all of these really medical terms, people get lost and then they can't understand what we're talking about. And so I want to meet people where they are.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
It goes towards your inguinal area and you've got a hernia. It's also why disc bulges happen, right? That pressure from heavy lifting or poor posture has to go somewhere and you bulge a disc. Right. Or you get prolapse or you get a hernia. So it's trying to find its outward maneuver. Right. Dr. Anneke Vandenbroek
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And I have a lot of postpartum moms who get this after giving birth and their belly stretches out. There's so much pressure in there. It doesn't have anywhere to go. But if you fix it, there's a 50% chance of it failing and happening again because you never learned the right strategies.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So to get to your point earlier about like you have to kind of look for what's causing the problem, your breathing, your lifting, your posture, your core, and that will help kind of give you long-term relief.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Yeah, I mean, the basics are like if you have constipation, you're at a high risk of pelvic floor dysfunction. Constipation is the number one GI complaint in the United States. And it's super common with kids as well. So if you're eating too many processed foods, not enough fiber, you're not getting enough hydration. I mean, the basics are like you need fruits and veggies.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And the other thing is, you know, I've treated, you know, thousands, tens of thousands of women. And this is a really intimate part of their body that we're talking about. They're sharing things with me that they've never told anyone sometimes. And I want them to feel comfortable doing that and less alone in the process and that I also understand it as a woman.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
You can take natural fiber supplements if you want. I'm a big fan of taking magnesium citrate for constipation. You take it at nighttime. It makes you a little bit drowsy, but a side effect is to soften your stool. And so you can have smoother, easier bowel movements. So yeah, it's a little bit of the chicken or the egg. If you're constipated, your pelvic floor is going to be tight.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Or if your pelvic floor is tight, it can cause constipation. But either way, looking at what you're Eating is super important. On the flip side with your bladder, some things that can irritate your bladder, you can have them, but if you have urinary urgency or leakage, you may want to just minimize how frequently you have them.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So citrus juices like grapefruit juice, orange juice, spicy foods, wine, beer, chocolate, anything acidic will cause more bladder urgency and frequency.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So, you know, if you leak urine and you're going to go stand at a football game for hours and you love to have beer, like just be, know that you're going to have to pee a lot and you might want to be prepared to, if you leak urine or something like that, to have a backup.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
But if you, or if you have a really important meeting and you know coffee irritates your bladder and makes you pee, then, you know, maybe hold on the coffee until after the meeting. Things like that, they're fine to have, but just knowing the effect on your body is important.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
When it comes to supplements, so I, I mean, I take my own for perimenopause, which, you know, I take ashwagandha, I take fish oil, I take Vitex berry. I mean, I kind of take the standard ones that I think a lot of folks take. I'm actually a huge fan of CBD because I think that it can kind of have a very chill effect.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And often when people have really upregulated nervous systems, they have tension in their pelvic floor. So everything from oral CBD, CBD lotions, but I also recommend CBD suppositories that you can put in your vagina or your rectum to help the muscles relax. It can also be found in some lubricants if you're using it for sexual activity.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I'm a big fan of collagen because we have estrogen is responsible for making the protein of collagen. And when you have less estrogen when you're postpartum, And breastfeeding, when you're on hormonal birth control or you're perimenopausal or menopausal, you have less collagen. And collagen can weaken your tissues, give you less pelvic organ support and lead to incontinence.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So I like people to take collagen. I don't know much about creatine, so I don't comment on that a ton. But I think that there are some supplements that you can take, but it's a combination. It's like you can't just take ashwagandha and think your pelvic floor is going to be better. It's always a piece of the puzzle, but it's not just
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I think our society still wants this like magic pill or this like silver bullet and it just doesn't exist.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And so I think all of those things have really just, yeah, been able to help me connect with so many people over the years and provide them help and resources for these really kind of intimate and often embarrassing issues.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
You know, I mean, totally. And people like, how do you strengthen your pelvic floor? I'm like, you have to exercise. And they're like, well, do I have to do it forever? And I'm like, well, do you have to brush your teeth forever? Like, you don't have to, but your teeth will get like gross and you'll get cavity. So it's really a choice, you know, and I don't mean to be glib about it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
But it's like, this is if we want to take care of our bodies, we like, have to take care of our bodies. And You know, pelvic floor dysfunction is associated with depression, higher risk of ending up in a nursing home, higher rates of surgery. And so I'm just like, what can we do to care for our bodies in the long term? I don't want to spend gobs of money on diapers when I'm older.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I want to be able to travel. I want to be able to run three miles for the rest of my life. And so how do we help keep people with a really high quality of life into our later years which is now 40s, 50s, 60s, we start seeing our body changing so significantly. But if you have a pelvic floor issue, it can really affect that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And even relationships, like if you can't have sex or it's painful, I mean, these can cause a lot of marital relationship challenges. If you can't have sex, you may struggle to get pregnant. I mean, the effects go so deep that I don't think we realize how much pelvic floor issues can really influence someone's life. But that's why I'm so passionate about giving people the resources for help.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Yes and yes.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Yes. When you are pregnant, that is the time that we often see pelvic floor issues arise. And we don't have any standardized postpartum rehab for women in the United States. In other countries, they are sent to postpartum therapy, physical therapy, like automatically. And we don't have that system here yet. But during pregnancy, your pelvic floor muscles are getting weaker over time.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Your pelvic ligaments are softening and loosening, and you have less stability in those joints, which that's what our body's supposed to do. It's designed to do that, but you can get pelvic floor issues as a consequence. So... I always say, you know, your pelvic floor is this basket of muscles that supports a growing baby, right? Your uterus is inside that basket.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And the beginning of pregnancy, your baby's a size of an avocado, right? And then maybe the size of a papaya. By the end, it's the size of a watermelon. And so if you think about a hammock holding an avocado, it's not going to change very much. But if you think about a hammock holding a watermelon, that hammock's going to sink down. It's going to stretch out. It's going to get weaker.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And that's what happens during pregnancy. Your pelvic floor gets weaker just during pregnancy. And low back pain and urinary leakage are present in over like 75 of pregnant moms. Unfortunately, doctors will say, oh, just wait until after pregnancy. But if you don't address it during pregnancy, it's likely to persist after the baby's born.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So I always tell women like during pregnancy, I really recommend strengthening during the first and second trimesters. I have a whole online program for pelvic floor strengthening during pregnancy. And then in that third trimester, focus a lot more on relaxation and stretching because you need your pelvis to open up and your pelvic floor muscles to relax for a vaginal birth.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
We don't need super tight pelvic floors for a birth. We need relaxed muscles that can lengthen and coordinate and get out of the way for baby to come down the vagina. So if they're super tight, it's almost like doesn't allow baby to come down. So I focus a lot more on like yoga and breathing and learning how to push properly and different positions to push in that third trimester.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And then postpartum, you should do recovery. You should do You know, retraining, re-strengthening, reconnecting to your pelvic floor and core because it's been through 10 months of change and then birth, sometimes which required a surgery. So it's definitely a time I think women need to be proactive. And we also see a lot of issues arise postpartum.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And I really encourage women to get them addressed, whether it's, you know, you gave birth three months ago or three years ago. It's never too late. I would definitely get help for the issues or read the book and kind of get started because there's a lot that you can do and it doesn't get better as we age.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Yeah, people with vaginas.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
No, but really, you know, I think that when people like even, you know, my mom's in her 70s and she's like, well, I don't know if I need this book because I'm in my 70s. I'm going, well, you're at a risk of leaking urine. You could end up in a nursing home. You pee every 30 minutes when I'm with you. Like, yeah, you definitely need this book.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Or it may be a young woman in her 20s that has pain with sex. And she's like, well, I don't I'm not pregnant, but and I don't leak. And I'm like, yeah, but you might have pain or you're sexually active. What I really think that I tell everybody is read the first chapter and the last chapter. Those are my two favorites. I just did the audio book recording and reread the whole book.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And those two chapters, I think, really sum up what's important, what's kind of total BS, because there's a lot of like wellness industry stuff for the vulva and vagina, why we need this. And then you can kind of cherry pick which chapters you like. Like if I have a peeing problem, then I'm like, okay, read the bladder chapter. If I'm pregnant, read the bladder chapter.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
then read the pregnancy and birth and postpartum chapters. If I'm perimenopausal, read the menopause chapter, you know? So kind of go to what you need it for, but you're going to go through every stage of life as a woman and you may be pregnant and postpartum and then a couple of years later be perimenopausal, you know, or start having pain with sex and then you need to read the sex chapter. So,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I think actually when people read it, what I do is I tell you what's normal, how often should you be peeing, what should sex feel like, how do orgasms work, how to insert a tampon. I mean like everything from the basics of your body to how should you be peeing and pooping and lifting and breathing so that you don't cause an issue.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And then if you are experiencing an issue, what can you do at home to start helping with it? Like you can start these things right now. And you and I talk a lot about like, hey, it's just 10 minutes a couple of times a week. And I know some people are like, oh my gosh, I can't put another thing on my plate. But these are really small changes you can make.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So I went into college. I went to Washington University in St. Louis in the Midwest. I was born and raised in New Orleans. And the first time I ever flew on a plane, I was 17 and going to college. Like, I mean, I was kind of a small town girl. And so even being from New Orleans and I went to WashU knowing that I wanted to be a physical therapist. I said, I don't want to be a doctor.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Literally like just changing how you sit when you poop or changing how you breathe when you lift or how to relax your muscles to pee. And all of those small changes add up to make a very big difference with your body. And so they're not big life overhauls I'm asking you to make. It's really small changes, but you have to be consistent with them and it can go a really long way for you.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Right. Great point. Yeah.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
No, in every state in the United States, you can go to a pelvic floor therapist without a referral from a physician. Sometimes insurance or the state requires you to have a physician's approval to continue. In Louisiana, we don't have that. You can absolutely just keep coming. But in every state, you can at least get an evaluation.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So if you're like, hey, I'm not sure I want to talk to my doctor yet, or I'm not even sure if there's a problem, you can find a clinic. go to Google, ask your friends, you know, there's, you can go on social media and literally type in like pelvic floor therapist near me or pelvic floor therapy, you know, Louisiana. And there's so many people who will pop up. So they're all over the place.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I don't want to be in school forever. I don't want to be a nurse, but I'm active. I run track. I swim. I don't want to sit behind a desk all day, and I want to work with people. And just kind of following those small things I knew about myself led me into this field. And so I was at WashU for seven years, undergraduate and graduate school.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And I would even say like, go check out my blog because there's a ton of information on there, not just for women, but it's also just like, what is your pelvic floor? What's normal to pee? How should you poop? Like, sign, do you have a pelvic floor issue?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And so I think people can start going down these rabbit holes and then look around and actually you'll realize how many other people are seeking help as well, or there could be a clinic down the street. So I would say at least get an evaluation and see, and then you can always try some of the things that help.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
You can get them from your therapist, you can do them from the book, whatever the case may be. You can do my online program. But I think that the biggest thing, and we talked about being proactive about health, is I'm like, you get one pelvic floor and you can't replace it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
If we know that it can lead to all of these dysfunctions, you have to proactively take care of it and recognize early when there's an issue. Because a lot of us will have back pain, hip pain, or pelvic floor problems. None of us are immune to these issues, but if you have them, then I would seek help sooner than later because they can be so easy to address and so easy to overcome.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
We just don't talk about it, you know, but it's what I talk about all day. And so I know how common it is.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Correct. So, um, yes, I would say that There are 36 muscles that attach to the pelvis, your core, your glutes, your abs, your pelvic floor muscles, your low back muscles. So anything that is influencing one of those muscles can influence your pelvic floor. Literally, if you have a labral tear, if you have a bulging disc, if you have SI, just joint dysfunction, where sometimes there's
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
like a misalignment issue, if your pubic symphysis is separated or kind of misaligned, all of those things will change the alignment of your pelvis and therefore change the tension and tone in your pelvic floor. So that basket of muscles may be tighter and shorter on one side or longer and weaker on the other side.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And sometimes it's an injury or an episode that does something like say you had a back injury. But the other thing is also chronic postures and positions that we assume. So if you sleep a certain way or you always hold a baby on one hip and your right side is always short and tight or you've got weak hip muscles on one side because of an injury.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So all of those imbalances influence your pelvic floor. And so the way that we actually treat, it's not like we go straight to the vagina or anus. It's really like peeling layers of an onion. Like I look at your posture. I look at your back. Do you have surgery, scoliosis, abdominal scars, diastasis recti, a hernia, all of those things. I look at your glute strength, your hip mobility.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I got a degree in psychology, and then I went on to get a doctorate in physical therapy. And while I was in physical therapy school, I had a professor who's still my mentor to this day, 18 years later, who gave us this two-week lecture on women's health.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And then I work on those things and then help kind of get closer, peel that layer of the onion, get to the muscles and tissues and fascia externally, and then work internally. Because I could go in and release your pelvic floor muscles till the cows come home.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
But if you have overactive glutes and a piriformis syndrome and a tight QL and, you know, rotation, then I'm like, I'm not going to get very far because those factors are still influencing your pelvic floor. So, and to your point about the core, it's like... I think again, we look at the outside core muscles, but we don't look at the deep core muscles.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
We don't look at the pelvic floor and the transverse abs. And I'm like, we're putting walls on a house that doesn't even have a floor. Like you literally haven't built the foundation. So oftentimes- I think a lot of athletes that I work with get frustrated because I'm like, okay, let's just work on some heel slides or some leg marches. And they're like, God, this is so boring.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
But I'm like, if you don't get the foundation, you can't, you're getting to that next level isn't serving you because you don't have that deep core engagement and support to support like super strong abs and upper body and thighs and all these things. So again, you kind of have to look outside and inside about what's going on.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So it's in conjunction with. So if somebody has kind of a pelvic misalignment or they need some kind of chiropractic adjustment, I'll continue to see them while they see the chiropractor. Because if you get adjusted, but the muscles are still spasmed or overactive, then that displacement is going to reoccur. Like the chiropractor is kind of putting it back in place.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
But if you don't fix the muscles and tissues and ligaments that are influencing that, then it'll persist. So I work on, say you get realigned or I release the muscles and tissues. It makes it easier for a chiropractor to adjust you. So it's very much in conjunction. I don't do, PTs don't do any x-rays. We're not licensed to do them, but I also, people aren't coming in to see me for a fracture.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Now it's called pelvic health, but it was just talking about how a woman's body changes and how muscles influence that, like everything from giving birth to exercise, but also just sex and peeing and pooping and periods. And I was like, I've never heard of muscles controlling those things, but it made so much sense. And then I loved understanding my own body as a woman.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Yeah. Most often people aren't coming in to see us for acute pain. We can work with chiros and physicians to get that, but I would say most often that's not what we see.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
What I do do though is I absolutely refer to a physician of like, I think that there's, you know, I've had two women come in who have pain with sex and when I'm working on them, they have this deep hip pain and their hips are so overactive and they've got popping and clicking. I'm like, I think you have a labral tear.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And then I'll refer them to an orthopedist and they get an MRI and they do have a labral tear. but the hip dysfunction is influencing the pelvic floor. So you kind of just have to have your thinking cap on is to like look outside the pelvic floor muscles. But we work with and collaborate with other practitioners all of the time. I think that that's, a real strength of physical therapists.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I think sometimes other practitioners are like, no, we're just going to do this or we're just going to do medicine or we're just going to do surgery where we're really thinking about like all the different aspects and really trying to collaborate to do what is most supported in the evidence is to have like multidisciplinary care.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
It's not a prank. I mean, it's what we're trained to do. You know, like our system is siloed. Like you go see one person for the one thing. But I think as we grow as practitioners, like I didn't used to work with chiropractors and now I, all of my pregnant patients are seeing chiropractors and, you know, things like that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And so I think it's a way you kind of find, you also find the people who kind of align with your philosophies, you know? And so I think that, you know, as I practice, I'm like, I don't know everything by any means. I just know a lot about a very small topic.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
That I can help you with. Outside of that, we'll find the right person for you.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So on social media, my handle on Instagram is TheVaginaWhisperer where you can just – I have so much information on there. And then I also have my website, TheVaginaWhisperer.com has all my blogs, which is totally free. I have a bunch of free guides for everything from birth to pelvic floor, you know, relaxation for painful sex, for – perimenopause, just, you know, resources for folks.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And then we offer online consultation. So if you do want to meet with somebody one-on-one, it's a really easy way to do that. And then, of course, the membership where people can have kind of at-home pelvic floor training programs. And you take a quiz so we kind of know what you need help with and help direct you down the path.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And then when I started kind of practicing in the field, even as a student, I said, I really love educating other women about their bodies. And I think for all of them, this light bulb would just go off of like, oh, this is just muscles. It's not like something super weird or scary or foreign. It's just muscles. And then to see them get better with just exercises and movement and
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So all of that is free except for the membership is paid, but it's super affordable. I mean, somebody's like, I'm like, it's the cheapest program is $21. It's so cheap. And I was like, the other day I went and, you know, my kids wanted Chick-fil-A. I'm like, I just spent 50 bucks at Chick-fil-A. What kind of economy is this?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
You know, but it's like you, when you think about what you spend money on, I'm like, this is your health. And as you mentioned, like this is, probably the most important thing that we can take care of. We do live in a system where I'm like, you have to be the advocate for yourself. Solutions are not going to fall into your lap.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Physicians are not going to always ask you the right questions and lead you to the right person. You have to really dig and fight and advocate for yourself because it's just the way that it is. And so I really encourage folks if they think they have a problem or they're
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Experiencing one to like check out the website buy the book take the quiz whatever it is But just just start somewhere just make one change And I think you'll realize that again like these really simple things can go a really long way And i'm also like I want to have great sex until I die. I don't I want to run forever I want to work out forever. So like why?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Would I not do the things to help me be able to do that? and um You know, I'm in perimenopause right now, and I think that there's a lot of doom and gloom around kind of this stage for women, but I really see it as like a runway. I'm like, okay, I've got the yellow light flashing. I'm like, you need to strength train. You need to eat better. You need to take care of your body.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
You need to strengthen your pelvic floor, right? You know, like just like we take care of our skin externally, like take care of your insides too. And so I really look at it as an opportunity to like I get this warning signal before my hormones completely shift. Listen to them. Like be proactive and feel in control of your health instead of feeling like it's controlling you.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
No. I mean.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Not yet. I mean. You should. You know, I love this topic and I, it's like just a body part to me. It's like an ankle. It's not that big of a deal to work with it and talk about it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And I'm just really appreciative to be able to collaborate with folks like you who are open to sharing this information with their communities and not making it weird or awkward, but like, hey, let's talk about this because, you know, people need to know.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
But no, it's really, you know, when people are like, where did you come up with these ideas? And I'm like, oh, I didn't. People asked. People said, will you write a book? Will you do a post about this? Do you have a blog about that? Do you offer home workouts? You know, and so it's really like I just kind of listen to what people say. And if I'm able to do it, I'll do it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And I think it's really important. you know, the strength of you and me. It's just like, if you listen to what people are saying, like they'll tell you what they need and if we can help them, we'll do it. And so it's just been a real, it's been a real honor to be honest, to literally throw up some Instagram posts in 2017.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And then here I am later, you know, just really loving this work and being able to kind of just improve the healthcare of people and their pelvic floors has just been a real honor. So it's, I'm having a blast doing it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And physical therapy changed their lives. And I was like, this is exactly what I want to do. And so I started eight years ago in the field and I've bounced around to a couple of different cities and states, but it's all that I've ever done. And I still practice in a clinic today, seeing women and men.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Thanks for having me, Dylan.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I only do pelvic floor therapy. So the way that we assess the pelvic floor, and I think that this is really the mystical part of it is- Yeah. These muscles are kind of deep in your pelvis. So when you think about the bones that we all have, like you put your hands on your hips and you're on your hip bones, but that's really the top part of your pelvis.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
You put your hands kind of in the lower front part, that's your pubic bone, and then you've got your tailbone in the back. At the bottom of that bowl of bones is a basket of muscles, and that's what we call your pelvic floor muscles. And those muscles support your pelvic organs. All bodies have them, men and women and kids, everyone.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So those muscles support your bladder, which hold urine, your balls, which hold stool. In the male, they hold the prostate. In the female, they hold the uterus and ovaries. These muscles support growing babies during pregnancy. They support your spine. They hold in pee and poop. They help with erections, ejaculation, orgasm, sexual activity, the passageway for menstruation. So
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I mean, they're so important, yet we don't talk about them. And we also don't even know they exist until we start having a problem in this area. And so that's really the story behind Florida is I wanted people to understand their bodies. I focused more on women, all on women in the book. That's who I have more experience treating.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And they also just experience more pelvic floor problems than men because they have a vagina. So yeah, these muscles kind of influence all of those things. And that's what we help with in physical therapy.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Oh my gosh. Yes. So many men have pelvic floor issues like pain, sexual dysfunction. It could be anything from premature ejaculation, difficulty maintaining erections, painful orgasm to pooping problems, painful bowel movements, rectal pain, tailbone pain. I mean, so much.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Absolutely. So these are muscles like any other muscles in your body. They can get tight and tense, like we maybe get in our neck and shoulders, right? And that could be from posture, that could be from stress, could be from weightlifting, and whatever it is, the muscles respond in a way that causes tension, and maybe we get neck pain and headaches. The same thing can happen in your pelvic floor.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
It could be sitting with your legs crossed. It could be clenching your butt because you're stressed out and nervous. It could be holding and pee and poop for too long. It could be trauma. For women specifically, there are three times in a woman's life that directly influence their pelvic floor and make them at a higher risk for pelvic floor issues.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And it's pregnancy, it's childbirth, and it's perimenopause and menopause. During pregnancy, the muscles, these pelvic floor muscles support a growing baby and they get stretched out and weaker during pregnancy. During birth, they can have a tear into the muscles. They're stretched out from pushing. You can have a C-section, which creates abdominal tension and scar restriction.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So all of those things influence the pelvic floor. And then...
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
perimenopause and menopause your hormones are changing you have lower estrogen lower testosterone decreased collagen so those muscles get weaker and thinner over time and this is why women have more issues than men typically when it pertains to weakness or pain because they go through these life stages that men don't got it okay cool i'm taking notes by the way okay sweet so
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So typically, the way that the medical system works here in the US is that they go see a doctor. The doctor says, let me run all these tests and see if something's wrong. And then if they don't find anything, they send them to another doctor and send them to another doctor. By the time people reach pelvic floor therapy, sometimes they've gone through seven to eight physicians.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And they're like, all the tests are normal. The blood works normal. But we can't figure out why you are peeing all the time or you have pain with urination or whatever the case may be.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So my goal is that people can get to pelvic floor therapy sooner. When we see someone in pelvic floor therapy, some of the common things that we see, I'll focus on the female population, is urinary leakage. So they leak with coughing, sneezing, running, jumping, laughing. No amount of leakage is normal, but any type of leakage, there's a pelvic floor component.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
What's called pelvic organ prolapse, when the pelvic organs aren't as supported by that hammock of muscles. So they start to push into the vagina and it can feel like a bulge in the vagina, like something's falling out. It sounds pretty scary, but it's really just kind of a muscle weakness or tension issue. Pain with sex is another one.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Thank you for having me, Dylan. And yes, I am the vagina whisperer on social medias and to all of my friends.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
These muscles can be tight or tense, or you can have vaginal dryness that leads to pain with initial insertion, deeper insertion, or both. It can also cause hip pain, back pain, abdominal pain, constipation, painful periods. So kind of anything in this pelvic arena, the muscles can be affected. They may not be the initial cause, but they're often a component that needs to be addressed.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And then when somebody comes into our clinics, it's a private session. It's not in like a big gym, like it would be another PT session. It's one-on-one with a therapist. And we ask you questions about all of your pelvic floor stuff. You may be there for painful sex, but I'm asking you about pooping and menstruation and childbirth. And then we do an internal pelvic exam.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
So this is how we assess the muscles is inserting a glove lubricated finger into the vagina and assessing the pelvic floor muscle through the vagina. In male bodies, we do this through the anal opening. So that's how we access the muscles to see if the pelvic floor itself is affected.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
This could go many different directions.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
You know, I would say 70-30, just a guess. Like I would say over the course of my career, Sometimes I have men as 50% of my caseload, sometimes less. But I would say, you know, it's typical for me to have majority female bodies and then a handful of male bodies. But I'll tell you this. I think that a lot of men experience pelvic floor issues that are underreported.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
I think females for sure have underreported symptoms, but we go to see a gynecologist. We talk to our girlfriends. We go online. We kind of do the health investigation. I think that there's as much shame and embarrassment as women have around these issues. I think men also have it, and that's a barrier for them to get treatment.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And oftentimes I'll be seeing a woman, the wife, and then she's like, I think my husband might need to come in, you know? And so it's just to kind of be, you know, make a generalization. I feel like men can have urinary issues, rectal pain, you know, abdominal pain, all these things, but it's when it affects their sexual function is when they start being like, okay, I need to get help.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
And yet then it's gone on for a really long time. And we're like, okay, now we're peeling layers of the onion for a bit before we get to the pelvic floor. But it usually takes something pretty significant for them to say, okay, now I need to get help.