Sara Reardon
speaker
284 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard Jun 2025
Sara Reardon’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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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,
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.
Right.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So citrus juices like grapefruit juice, orange juice, spicy foods, wine, beer, chocolate, anything acidic will cause more bladder urgency and frequency.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Showing 201–220 of 284 · page 11 of 15
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