by | Jan 14, 2025 | 0 comments

Training For Two: Pre-, Peri- and Post-Natal Fitness with Gina Conley

Summary: 

In this episode of Wellness Your Way, host Megan Lyons interviews Gina Conley, founder of Mamaste Fit, a company specializing in prenatal and postpartum fitness training. Gina discusses the benefits of postpartum fitness and prenatal fitness, including improved comfort during pregnancy, reduced pain, and better preparation for birth and postpartum recovery. She emphasizes that pain is not a mandatory part of pregnancy and that exercise can significantly improve the experience for both mother and baby. Gina also shares her personal experience as a mother of four and the author of “Training for Two,” a book on prenatal fitness.

Full Episode:

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Transcription:

Megan Lyons: It’s just adorable. All right, thank you so much, Gina Conley, for coming on Wellness you way. I am very excited to have you here today.

Gina Conley: Thank you for having me.

Megan Lyons: Of course. I’ve just read your very impressive bio, but please just start by telling us a little bit about you and how you got into this line of work.

Gina Conley: So my name is Gina. As previously stated, I’m the founder of Mama Stay Fit and Mama Stay Fit Special specializes in perinatal and postpartum fitness training. So we help folks during their pregnancies. We help prepare them for birth, and Then we help them in the postpartum to recover from pregnancy and birth. And that’s kind of like our. Our biggest specialty. We also offer childbirth education courses as well. So we’re kind of like full spectrum. Support from conception all the way through your pregnancy, birth, and then the postpartum. Our main goal is to help folks feel very confident and empowered throughout their entire pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experience. Because there is a lot of misinformation out there. There’s a lot of conflicting information. It’s very confusing on, like, what’s safe to do, what’s not safe to do, and there are a lot of things that are really safe to do throughout.

Our pregnancies that really help to contribute towards a more positive experience, both during our actual pregnancy, our birth, and then help to support us in the postpartum. Um, I’m also the author of the book Training for Two, which is all about prenatal fitness it’s kind of a big focus of ours and I am a mom of four. I actually have my littlest one here right now. She is about three months old, so she’s joining us for this podcast episode. Her name is Zoe. So I’ve got four of these little ones running around. So I’ve been in the motherhood space for about seven years now. My oldest is seven and it’s been a wonderful journey and it’s been really wonderful supporting other folks in this phase of life as well.

Megan Lyons: So amazing. For those of you who are just watching the audio version, I’m sorry that you’re not watching the video because you get to miss out on Zoe, who is so adorable. I will be entertained this entire. Oh, so cute. I’ll be entertain this entire podcast and I’m really grateful for you sharing your expertise. So let’s just start with the basics here. We’re talking about using prenatal fitness to support both a strong pregnancy and, and a birth and after. In the postnatal period, just Talk about some of the benefits that pregnant people can experience when they focus on being fit throughout the journey.

Gina Conley: So exercising throughout your pregnancy is pretty safe to do, especially if you’re like a low risk. We don’t have any severe complications. Like, we don’t have any like pre existing medical conditions. Obviously, like, if your provider has specifically told you exercise is not safe, then that would be one of those unique situations. But in general, most of us, it’s pretty safe to exercise through our pregnancy. There’s lots of benefits both for you and for your baby. And so for you specifically, one, you’re going to be more comfortable throughout your pregnancy. Like, nine to ten months is a long time to be pregnant and it’s a long time to be uncomfortable or in pain. And so pain is not a requirement of pregnancy. There is this common misconception that if you have pelvic pain or you have discomfort, it’s just this expectation and then you’re supposed to suffer. Eventually you’ll give birth and then the pain will go away. Then you realize that the pain didn’t go away, you still have pelvic pain, you still have the discomfort. Maybe now it’s worse in the postpartum because you’re healing, you’ve got a small baby you’re trying to care for and so you don’t have to be in pain during your pregnancy and there’s a lot of things that we can do to help resolve that during pregnancy as well. Like you can work with a pelvic core physical therapist who, like our programming is gonna incorporate a lot of those movements, but we can focus on strengthening and stretching to help be comfortable throughout pregnancy.

So that’s like a big benefit of exercising throughout pregnancy is your journey will be more comfortable for you. The next thing is gonna help to decrease your risk of developing complications. So your risk enveloping preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, hypertension decreased by like 30 to 40%. If you are exercising throughout your pregnancy, which is pretty significant to me, like, I think that that’s a pretty big deal. And now obviously, like, you could still be exercising and still develop these complications for sure.Like, it’s not like a 100% guarantee by any means, but it may delay the onset of it, it may decrease the severity of it. So there’s still benefit to it. And there are other things that you can do to help support a healthy pregnancy and not developing complications, like thinking about your diet, maybe taking additional medication as needed, depending on what your provider is Recommending. But exercising can be a really great way to do that.

And you don’t have to lift weights. It could just be going for walks. Exercising throughout your pregnancy can also help make your labor a little bit faster. Not because exercising makes you better at labor by any means, but it usually helps you maintain an upright position for alittle bit longer, which can help baby apply more pressure on the cervix, which can help with that labor process a little bit quicker. So exercising throughout your pregnancy can give you the stamina to move a little bit better throughout your labor as well, which is a huge thing. It can help with baby’s positioning, it can help decrease your risk of assisting your birth, decrease your risk of needing any sort of instrument, assisted delivery. And so there’s a lot of benefits that help to support your health throughout your pregnancy and your actual labor. Things I can do to help with baby, because it’s, you know, it’s not just about us. Like, it’s also really beneficial for our baby. And a lot of the fear with prenatal fitness is, how is this going to harm my baby? What are, what are the bad things that can happen? Is my baby going to be too small or is it going to steal their nutrients because my muscles need it?

So there are a lot of concerns when it comes to what about baby. But there’s actually a lot of benefits for your baby by exercising. So one, because of exercising, there’s more stimulus for them. And so this helps to develop their nervous system a little bit more. It improves brain development during pregnancy. So they have improved cognitive function. Like the first year of life, their motor skills are going to be more improved. Like, after birth, they have more blood volume, they’re more resilient to stress. So there’s like, a lot of, like, really awesome things that is happening to your baby from exercising throughout your pregnancy. And so there really aren’t like a ton of, like, risks to exercising unless you have, like, a preexisting medical condition or there’s some sort of complication during your pregnancy. Like, you’re in preterm labor, your water is broken, you have a severe, like, medical condition. Like, those would all be reasons to, like, not exercise. But in general, exercising is pretty low risk to do, to include lifting weights, going for walks. Like, doing one exercise feels good for you.

And so I just want folks to feel confident and comfortable that exercising is not going to harm your baby. It’s not going to impact the length of your pregnancy because the two things that I normally hear concerns for is, is this going to cause my cause a miscarriage? Is this going to cause a pregnancy loss? Is this cause me to go into preterm labor? Like, research has repeatedly demonstrate that that’s not true. Like, it doesn’t cause miscarriage.

Gina Conley: Miscarriage is typically associated with a chromosomal abnormality. So unfortunately, nothing that you did or fortunately nothing you did cause it. But unfortunately there was really nothing that you were probably going to be able to do to prevent it as well. And one out of four of us have a miscarriage. Like I’ve had to myself, and it wasn’t because of exercising. The other thing will be, is it going to impact my baby’s development? And the answer is no to that as well. Like, if anything, it can help your baby’s development. Those babies tend to be leaner, they tend to be stronger when they’re born. And so, yeah, so feel comfortable exercise throughout your pregnancy. But those are just like a quick peek at a lot of the benefits of it. Because I think when we hear that, hey, this can make your baby brain develop more, improves their nervous system, helps improve motor function. Like, those are huge things that I am like, all about when it comes to, like, I want super smart mobile babies. Yeah, I guess savoring little potato baby can be really nice too.

Megan Lyons: Yes, all babies are good babies. But. But you just painted such a clear picture of so many benefits. I know that everyone listening is convinced and excited. And I think for those who may express some of that fear, it can be a really cool opportunity to get in touch with our body. So many of us go through life not knowing how we feel or paying attention to how we feel. But as your body’s changing so much during pregnancy, I think I’ve seen exercise really help people get more in touch with themselves and actually understand how they’re feeling a little more.

Gina Conley: That was the case for myself throughout my first pregnancy. Like, I was an athlete through college, I was an athlete in my career that I was in. And so I was very like, focused on the physical aspect. But I, I wasn’t as in tune with my body as I thought I was until I was pregnant for the first time and was starting to kind of pay attention to the, the signs that my body was telling me, like, oh, I need more rest or I need to modify this movement. And then feeling that sensation during my labor and kind of connecting what different movements felt like what to me, like really connecting with the intuitiveness of movement to helping our babies, like, move through our pelvis and then into the postpartum. Like, it really helped me just give myself more grace as well because I was like, I just appreciated what my body had done for me to create all these babies, to birth them, to care and nourish for them. Like, that’s really incredible. And so navigating fitness throughout my pregnancy really helped me to be more in tune with my body as well. And I think that’s the case for a lot of folks as they are navigating this very new experience in their lives.

Megan Lyons: That’s amazing. So hopefully people hear this whether they’re pregnant or on a pregnancy journey or not, and they’re inspired to exercise. But let’s just take the rare case where someone has not exercised in 10 years and then they get pregnant and they hear this interview and they want to start. I would probably tell them now’s not the time to train for an ironman, but absolutely. Can you do some walking and some body weight, strength and some weightlifting and all of this stuff? What would you say as the expert here?

Gina Conley: I would definitely agree. Like, so there’s this like notion of like, just do whatever you did before. Pregnancy just a little bit less. Well, if you’re doing nothing before, like how can you do less than that? Like, that would be the opposite of the direction that we would want to go, especially when we know how many benefits there are for both the mother and for the baby by moving our bodies throughout pregnancy. And so when it comes to like not doing anything before and then wanting to start because you’re like, oh, there are a lot of benefits and I want to reap those benefits as well. Like, like you said, like, we’re not training for an ironman. We’re not like trying to train for a marathon or the CrossFit games. Like we’re going to ease our way into it and it can be very accessible. It doesn’t have to be five times a week, two hours a day. It can be three times a week for 20 minutes, like three times a week for 15 minutes. Like we can kind of take these little bite sized pieces of movement and slowly integrating that over the weeks. And so maybe if you’re starting it’s twice a week for 20 minutes and then it’s three times a week for 20 minutes and then it’S four times a week for 20 minutes and then we increase it to 30 minutes and so we can kind of slowly increase the volume of movement that we’re doing throughout. For our workouts we can start to integrate those body weight movements and then like slowly incorporating more weights.

Gina Conley: If you are not familiar with lifting at all because it can be intimidating to try to figure it out. This is where I would say investing in like a personal trainer or someone that specializes in perinatal fitness can be really helpful. Like this is a short phase of life if you have the funds. Like I would invest in someone who could walk you through how to do it. Or even just like joining like a group fitness class where they’re teaching you how to lift can be really helpful as well even during pregnancy. So if there’s like a seminar or like a six week, like what’s it like on ramping class that you can join? Like I would join that. Like you can buy online programs as well that have like videos that you can follow.

So like we have like an on demand like video program that just like do these movements. Just follow me as I do it. Like that can be another really great way to like integrate like the more strengthening type exercises if you don’t have a lot of experience is to seek, seek other people’s expertise, hire a trainer. Do like in person fitness classes. Like I wouldn’t do like maybe like a cross fit class just because those are usually there’s like a lot of people in the movements might be a little bit too much at first unless they have like a beginner’s class or something. Do like video based programs that kind of walk you through again. We have our own prenatal fitness specific program. We have like YouTube videos as well. But there’s a lot of offerings on just YouTube also like free videos that you can watch and then just take your time with it. You can also just try to increase your daily step count as well. Like that’s something that I’ve been trying to do like in the postpartum. Just I have like a walking pad for my desk so I can like walk and move around or walk as I like do work at my desk. I try to just move throughout my day a little bit more. And so that can also be another way to increase movement is you don’t have to just focus on the 20 minute workout.

We can also just try to increase movement throughout the day as well so ease into it. Seek support from professionals as much as you can. Like it is totally possible to begin programming throughout your pregnancy and to feel really strong throughout your journey. We have folks that come to our gym that have never lifted a day in their lives and by the end of their pregnancy they’re like bench pressing with the bar and they’re like super proud of that. And they’re like, hey, I know, I don’t have the normal discomforts of pregnancy because I’ve been working with you because I don’t have the back pain. I don’t have the pelvic pain because I took the time to do all this stuff, even if it was, like scary and unfamiliar to me. And so seek professional support, Ease into it. It doesn’t have to be like some crazy regime right away. We can kind of fight, like, do some baby steps throughout the way and just give yourself grace. If you need more rest because you feel sore, take. Take the rest. It’s okay.

Megan Lyons: So amazing. Well, I’m going to laugh at myself for the next question because it’s the equivalent of someone asking me, like, what’s the healthiest food? And I’m like, it’s just not that simple. I gotta talk to you for an hour or something. But that said, if someone is just curious, what are some of your favorite exercises to guide people in for specifically preparing for birth?

Gina Conley: So my absolute favorite exercise, like, if I could only pick one, which will. Just like you said, like, there’s a whole. There’s so many things that we can do. It would be a hip shift. And so what a hip shift is, is it’s when your pelvis or your hips kind of rotate on your femur or your thigh bone into a closed hip position so your belly moves more towards your thigh. When you do that, you’re going to feel more of this, like, stretch in the back half of, like, your pelvis or your hip pocket. Like, if you put your hands in your jean pockets, like, that kind of area is where you’re going to feel the stretch. And so it’s a little hard to, like, explain what it looks like. And I sent you the link for, like, our free birth prep circuit that has two hip shifts in it. But what this movement is doing is it is creating space in the back part of our pelvis. And for a lot of us, we tend to have a little bit more tension back here. So throughout pregnancy, we tend to favor a little bit more of an extended or, like, arched back position. We tend to favor more external rotation. So tight pose, kind of pointed outwards. So like, more like a duck. Like duck feet.

Megan Lyons: Yeah.

Gina Conley: And so that tends to decrease space in the back part of our pelvis. It could impact the back half of our pelvic floor. So during pregnancy, maybe experiencing, like, tailbone pain or like, si. Joint pain or even, like, constipation. Those are all signs that, like, the back half of the pelvic floor is very tight. This can impact how our sacrum can move. And we need that sacrum to be able to move out of the way to allow our baby to enter into the pelvis and also to exit in the pelvis, so this is kind of like a big deal, like, for us to be focusing on during pregnancy. So a lot of us favor that more extended position, more like, toes out type of position, decreases space in the back half of the pelvis. And so the hip shifts kind of bring us into the opposite position. So it’s a more internally rotated position. So, like, toes are more pointed inwards. Pelvis is coming into that closed hip position, and it’s creating that, like, stretch in the back half of our pelvis which can one help to relieve a lot of discomforts throughout pregnancy. So we’ll have clients that come to the gym that are like, I have tons of tailbone pain. And I’m like, I got the move. I got the magic move for you. And then they’ll leave my class, and they’ll be like, oh, my God, I feel so much better. And I’m like, I know. Just do that all the time. Whenever you feel it, just do that.

And so hip shifts are, like, really beneficial for that because it, again, is going to decrease. It’s going to stretch and release tension in the back half of the pelvic floor, which can one make you more comfortable throughout your pregnancy. But it also can create more space in the lower part of your pelvis to help your baby finish their rotation. So if anyone has had a prior labor where they got stuck at like, 8 centimeters or like, they were pushing and pushing and pushing and like, the baby just would not get underneath the pubic one a hip shift could be something that I would definitely recommend for those folks to incorporate, because we may not have been able to create the space to allow baby to get underneath that pubic bone, and hip shifts are going to be that. And there’s so many variations. We include, like, one every day in our prenatal fitness program. There are side lying ones, all fours standing. Like, there’s so many different movements that you can do to help create that space. But if I can only pick one movement, that would be my one movement that everyone should do.

Megan Lyons: I love it. And is that guide that you sent, are we able to link that in the show notes for anyone listening?

Gina Conley: Yes. So it’ll. It’s a. It’s a free PDF guide. I sent you the link for it so that folks can just download it from there. Um, I think it’s like 10 pages long. It’s got videos and pictures and written descriptions. But yeah, it’s our birth prep circuit and it addresses all those areas of tension that a lot of us tend to have during pregnancy to help support our baby’s position, help to create more space within our pelvis so that we can one be more comfortable and also help to create space, help baby navigate through it during labor.

Megan Lyons: That’s amazing. Such a great resource. We’ll be sure to link to that in the show notes as well as the book, the YouTube, the Instagram, all the things that we’ll talk about through today. Um, so here’s another funny question because the answer is it depends of course, but in general, when do you recommend or how do you recommend people assess when to start exercising after giving birth?

Gina Conley: So in general it’s, it’s, it, it depends on how we define exercising. And so you can start doing movements very early. So like hours or days after birth. Like you can do some diaphragmatic breathing. You could do some mobility work, you can do some like short walks like we can start integrating these really gentle type of reconnection type exercises fairly early in the postpartum. But we don’t want to be like at the gym, we don’t want to be like you know, lifting with a barbell and all that kind of stuff. Like right away we want to let, we want to think about the tissue healing timeline. And so like the first like week or so postpartum we’re in inflammation phase. The tissue is just trying to like recover from what, what is known as just planned trauma during labor. Like we like gave birth and this is a planned type of trauma that we’re going through. And so we just wanna allow those tissues to heal. So we like gentle compression can be really helpful. Like in the first 48 hours, maybe icing the perineum can be really helpful.

And then we’re just thinking about just like gently breathing to kind of gently move the pelvic floor, move the core. Maybe some mobility work chest to feel more comfortable. Cause we can start to get kind of stiff from being so still. And then after about that first week maybe we start to incorporate some like short walks to begin to move our body a little bit more. Like again. And we’re not doing a marathon day one, we’re doing like a 10 minute walk, like a 15 minute walk. Yes. So we can begin to incorporate movement in that way. Maybe we’re starting to integrate a little bit of like really gentle core exercises where we’re kind of expanding on our breathing to integrating some like arms and legs moving while maintaining our core position.

Gina Conley: So like again, very, we’re kind of easing our way into it. So now we’re kind of in this early tissue healing phase. And this phase is kind of like when you, you’re, you sprain your ankle and it feels a little bit better. So you go and you start doing too much and then you hurt it again. This is kind of that same initial tissue feeling where we’re feeling pretty good in our bodies. We’re feeling like we can do it a little bit more, but we need to kind of hold ourselves back a little bit because the tissue that it’s generating right now is not super strong. Right around like the, the four to six week mark, the tissue kind of enters the second stage of healing where it’s in like, it’s in maturation. Those, that tissue is going to be much denser, much stronger. And this is when we can start increasing the load. So now that we have done our mobility, our gentle core work, we’re kind of like slowly integrating movement around like the four to six week mark, we can start to incorporate more structured exercise. So this is where we’re, we’re not starting again from like pring or like lifting as much as we can or what we even did pre pregnancy or during pregnancy. We’re starting from the basics. So we’re thinking about, okay, how do I squat again? Okay, I’m going to start with the kneeling squat and then I’m going to squat to a box and then I’m going to do an air squat and then I’m going to add in some weight.

And so there’s kind of this like progression that can happen to like help us do functional movement again. But it’s a very event baby steps, like really, really small steps, but generally around like the four to six week mark for most. Again, it depends on complications you had during your labor. This timeline might be a little bit more extensive, extended, but generally it’s not shortened than that. Like, I would not like, if someone came to my gym and they were like two weeks postpartum, I’d be like just sit in a corner and breathe. Like, do not, you do not need to be here. Go home. Like, I won’t kick them out, but I’m like, I’m not giving you a workout. You are just gonna exist right now. But generally like four to six weeks is when I say that most folks can look at doing structured exercise again, but it’s not gonna be like, pre kids. Like, we have a baby now. We have, like, small children. And so navigating that can be really challenging. Navigating like sleep deprivation, maybe. We’re having a hard time eating our breakfast because baby has a lot of demands, too. So it’s not, like, as simple as just go to the gym and do your workout and then come home.

Like, there might be some balancing to figure out, okay, do I do my workout at the same time with baby? Do I have, like, some sort of childcare set up? Is my partner available to, like, watch the baby? Like, what? Like, so it’s a little. It’s a little bit more dicey when we get postpartum, but it is doable. But yeah, four to six weeks is kind of like, the earliest point that I would say. Like, we have a postpartum program that, like, gently guides you from that structured exercise and beyond. We also have, like, an early postpartum that’s just like, that breathing and mobility as well. If somebody’s like, I want to do some stuff, but I don’t want to do too much, you can always grab that. And that one’s. That one’s totally free also.

Megan Lyons: I love it. You have so many amazing resources, and I think it’s so helpful for people just to hear a potential timeline, even if they know that doesn’t necessarily apply to them. They get to listen to their body, but the unknown is worse a lot of times. So thank you for laying that out. I’m curious about what you just said at the end, which is sleep deprivation, working with your partner, if you have one, all of this. So I’m curious, as a mom of four, how do you figure out if you’re going to work out that day, if you’re going to take that time, if it’s better to rest? What are some of your own guiding principles for that?

Gina Conley: So if I was, like, up all night with the baby and I wake up exhausted, I’m probably not gonna work out that day. Like, I might go for a walk and, like, move around my house, but I’m probably not gonna do, like, a structured workout because my body is just tired and it needs. It needs some rest. It’s hard, though, because my, like, workout routine is not. Folks will ask me, like, how many times do you work out a week? And I’m like, it kind of depends on my children. Sometimes it’s four times a week, sometimes it’s once. It just kind of depends on what it is that we are navigating at that Time when it comes to if I do feel good and I’m like, all right, I got. I feel like I slept pretty good. I feel rested. I’m again, there’s like, postpartum feeling rested is if I’m like, I don’t feel completely sleep deprived. I’ll probably get a workout in.

For me, I’ve kind of set up my home to be able to have aspace to work out. We have a basement that we have our home gym in, and so that makes it really accessible to me to get, like, a workout in. My kids are used to being in the gym, so they’ve been in it since they were little babies, and so they know how to be safe in the space. And then we also have set it up so it is safe for them as well. And there’s different things that you can do. You just kind of got to look around your space and be like, what is a hazard? Yeah, how do I. How do I handle this hazard? So, like, in our gym, folks can bring their kids and things that we have done to keep that safe space is we have, like, the treadmill surrounded by a baby gate, because that’s a huge hazard to small children. We have, like, weights that are easy to pull off. Like, the racks surrounded by a baby gate as well. We have lots of baby gates everywhere. Also, we have a weight tree that has bumper plates on – we put clamps on it. Like, we got them from Lowe’s, or, like, you can get it from Home Depot. Like, the things that you clamp on to, like, wood and stuff.

We put them on the weight tree so the kids can’t pull the bumper plates off. Everyone squats inside power racks, so there’s safety straps there. We. And then we teach the kids how to be in the space. And then we’re also mindful when we’re working out as well. Like, okay, I’m not just going to do whatever I want. Like, I need to be aware that there is, like, a small kid that is, like, trying to learn how to be in this space. So, like, we don’t. We don’t have weights. Like. Like, if I’m using a dumbbell, I’m not going to put it on top of the bench. I’m going to put it on the floor because, like, the kids can pull it off the bench. Like, can I squat? I’m going to squat inside the power rack. I’m going to be mindful, like, where the kids is when I’m bench pressing or when I’m deadlifting.

Gina Conley: And so Teaching them to be in the space is. It takes time, it takes a lot of effort, but it is doable to help them be safe in the space as well. I also have tons of snacks, toys. We have iPads, tablets, videos, things to entertain them. The gym has kid workout equipment as well, so they can join in on the workouts, which is adorable. We have play mats and baby swings. We have a lot of things to try to entertain them as much as we can, but there’s gonna be a lot of patience with it as well. Like, my workouts are generally, sometimes, not always, though, usually not. It’s not like I start and then I just work out and then I finish. It’s like I start, okay, I pause, give you a snack, and then I go back, and then I pause and put the baby in the swing, and then I go back and then I okay, now you want me to play with you? Okay. And so it’s a little bit of back and forth, so it can kind of extend my workouts a little bit, but it’s just being patient with it, knowing that eventually there will come a day like huge tears and sobbing that my children will not be as demanding and I’ll be able to work out completely by myself. And I’m sure I’ll have a good cry when that happens, because that means my kids aren’t little anymore. But, yeah, it’s. It’s a lot of balancing with it. If my husband is available, like. Like, he works throughout the day. I’m. I’m. I work from home. So if he is home, then he just takes all of them, and then I get to work out all by myself as well. So there’s a little bit of balancing between the two of us as well, so that we can still take care of ourselves, because that’s like a huge resolution of mine this year is to eat breakfast, to sleep more, and to also remember myself and take care of myself, because you can’t pour from an empty cup. But, yeah, that’s kind of how I do it. I set my space up. I try to be realistic with the kids are going to have needs, and that’s okay. And then keeping my space safe for them and then also teaching them to be safe within the space helps me be able to do workouts from home and then also in our gym so that I. I can take care of myself, too.

Megan Lyons: I love it. And I think it’s such a good reinforcement mechanism for the kids as well, to see you prioritizing yourself and to see working out as part of the day and that’s fun. And I can play on the swing and mom does this over here. It’s just so amazing for them. So kudos to you. Very inspiring. Now, changing topics a little bit, this might be a few months old. I can’t remember when I prepared for this interview, but at that time you really interesting reel about diastasis recti. And you said there’s nothing we can do to prevent it, but there are things we can do to reduce the severity. I know people will want to hear your thoughts on this, so please take it wherever you want to go.

Gina Conley: So diastasis is when the two six pack abs kind of separate from one another throughout pregnancy. And it’s a normal adaptation to pregnancy. We need this to happen to allow for our baby to grow and not have our internal organs just crushed. And so it’s, it’s necessary, it has to happen. Now the severity of it will vary from person to person depending on just lke your own genetics, like your tissue laxity, like how you carry your baby, like your baby size. So there’s, there’s different factors that are outside of our control that can contribute towards the severity of it. But something that is within our control is our movement habits, like our movement patterns, like our general posture, our breathing pattern and those are all things that can either help to decrease the severity or increase the severity of a diastasis. And so one of the key things that we’re looking for to let us know that our movements and our breathing patterns are maybe problematic is if you look down at your pregnant belly and you exhale or you’re under exertion, so you’re doing your, your squat or whatever movement that you’re doing and you see the center of it push out more than the rest of your abs. This is known as abdominal coning. And this means that that tissue between your six pack abs is being stretched more than normal. And so if you think about like a hair tie, like you put it on 50 times the 50th time, it’s kind of loose, like it’s not, it doesn’t have that same elasticity anymore. That’s kind of the same thing with that tissue. If we are constantly stretching and stretching and stretching it under exertion. So increased pressure is what is pushing that tissue out. It’s going to kind of damage it a little bit more than normal.

Now a little bit of coning here and there is okay. It’s not going to like destroy your abs every single rep of your workout you’re coning is going to cause problems like that’s going to be problematic for you. Now, if you’re just sitting down and you notice coning or you’re in a very relaxed position, that’s just the way that your belly is relaxing. It’s not problematic at all. So I do want to kind of clarify the difference between like a soft cone and a hard cone. A soft cone is you’re just in a relaxed position and your belly is just kind of falling into that. It’s totally fine. If you’re like under exertion, like you’re picking something up, you’re lifting, you’re doing a workout and you see it, that would be problematic because it’s happening because the pressure inside your abdomen is pushing out at this point of least resistance.

So things that we can do to kind of decrease the severity is one. We can think about our positioning and our posture. If I am in a more arch position, so I’m extending my spine a little bit more, kind of pushing my belly forward, I’m going to be stretching the tissues of my abdominal wall even more. So it’s going to make it thinner and more easily susceptible to pressure. So if I am doing my overhead press and I’m in an arch position that tissue is already stretched, and then I’m going to push air into it and it’s going to be even worse. And so we really want to think about not living in neutral by any means. But if I’m doing an exercise or I’m under exertion, I want to think about being in a more neutral position so that tissue isn’t overly stretched. The other thing that we want to think about is our breathing pattern. And so breathing is how we kind of manage pressure and stabilize within our core. And so if we are exhaling and kind of pushing out into our belly, so we’re kind of, instead of exhaling up to kind of pull everything in, we’re exhaling to push out. This can be really problematic. That can be from chest breathing. So we’re kind of inhaling up into our chest, and then when we exhale. Everything has to come down.

Gina Conley: And so it comes down and kind of pushes into everything. And so now we have increased pressure pushing against these, like, thin and like, potentially like more easily susceptible tissues. And so we want to think about inhaling to expand in the rib cage and into our backside of the body and then exhale to lift up and in. So think like kind of lifting up the front half of your pelvic floor and kind of pulling belly to spine as you exhale and then do your movement. So if you’re pressing a weight overhead, I’m going to inhale into my back. Exhale, pull everything in, then press overhead. And that can help reduce any sort of coning that you may be experiencing. So you want to think about our breathing pattern as well. Another way that you may breathe is you may inhale and push into your belly. Because if you’ve seen like any Instagram reels, typically what you’re going to see is like a big pregnant belly, like pushing out with an inhale and then exhale. She like pulls that whole baby in. It’s more visually appealing when you see the belly really come out and then. Come in because you see just so much more movement.

But when we do that, when we’re breathing directly into our belly instead of into our rib cage or the backside of our body, we’re also stretching that tissue a little bit more than it. Maybe would have normally. So we don’t want to belly breathe. We want more of this like 360 expansion where the belly is going to expand a little bit. But not all of the effort is into the belly. It’s, we really want to think more about like the rib cage and the back side of the body. The muscles are a little bit thicker back there. There’s more structure to support the increased pressure and it creates this more like 360 expansion. So belly breathing can also potentially make diastasis a little bit worse. So you want to think about our positioning when we’re lifting and we’re under exertion, being in a more neutral position because that’s going to decrease the stretching of that tissue. And the second thing is we want to think about our breathing. So inhale into the back and into the ribs, exhale to pull belly in and then initiate your movement if you’re noticing any coning and then we may just need to modify movements.

So typically the movements that I tend to see the most coning is going to be overhead pressing. I tend to see it in like vertical pulling. So like pull downs, pull up type movements. And I tend to see them very core intensive exercises. So like hanging from a barbell is like hanging from like a pull up bar is very core intensive doing like planks or sit ups and crunches. Those are going to be more core intensive on like the rectus or that front six pack abs. And so if we’re pressing overhead and we’re noticing coning, it’s probably because you’re arching and so coming into that more neutral position, maybe we shift into a seated position or maybe we need to adjust the angle of push. So instead of pushing directly overhead, we do like a 45, like a landmine press or like a cable press or a banded press or something. So not overhead. It’s more like a 45. And then we want to think about the breathing as well. The other movement that we tend to see, it is like the vertical pulling motion. So like pull downs, pull ups, pull ups are probably going to be like one of the first movements to go during pregnancy. Like, it’s just hard to maintain that core position as we’re pulling. And so we can switch to like a lap pull down or a cable pull down instead. We’re in a more supportive position. We can kind of adjust the weight a little bit more. There’s not as much intensity on the core and similar if you’re pulling directly overhead. And you’re noticing a lot of coning pull from a 45 instead.

Gina Conley: So instead of pulling straight down, it’s more kind of like towards like the clavicle instead. The other one is gonna be those core intensive exercises. We can still train our core during pregnancy, but we’re not gonna like doing sit ups and crunches and planks are probably not gonna serve us very well. Sit ups and crunches are also not a very functional core exercise. Like, they’re very abdominal focused and like, there’s a lot of focus on like six pack abs because that’s what you see on magazine covers. But there’s so much more to your abs than those muscles. And having them doesn’t mean that you’re like, more stable by any means. And so during pregnancy and even in the postpartum, we can focus on anti movements. So my arms and legs are moving. But my torso maintains this position. So this can be like a farmer’s carry beer crawls, like paylock press. These are all things that are like, really great to train your core during pregnancy and the postpartum.

Gina Conley: The next one is going to be rotational exercises. So you can absolutely twist during pregnancy. There’s some misconception that if you twist. It’ll cause your placenta detach. Like, there’s all sorts of like crazy, like, misconceptions about fitness during pregnancy that are terrifying. So I totally understand why people are afraid to exercise. You can absolutely twist throughout your pregnancy. I wouldn’t find, like my deepest expression of a twist because it would be uncomfortable. Like, it just gets kind of uncomfortable. But our spine needs to twist, our hips need to twist in order for them to Open and to create space. So we can do rotational exercises, like a diagonal banded pull down, like an upward chop, like rotation, like side to side, like core rotations with like a band. So we can do exercises like that to help strengthen like the obliques, the side abs. And then we can do hip extension exercises. So these are going to be like my squats, my deadlifts, my lunges, these are all movements. My torso is maintaining its position as my arms and legs do more heavy loading stuff. You can like just load it on one side so you can do one sided squat, one sided lunges, have a little bit of like anti lateral flexion. With that hip extension so during pregnancy you can train your core which can also help to reduce the severity of diastasis. We don’t want to do sit ups and crunches. We want to focus on anti movements or resisting movement while my arms and legs move rotational exercises. And then we can do hip extension, focus, focus exercises because those are also kind of like anti, but they have just a little bit more hip flex, flexion as well. So incorporate those instead of those other things and then be mindful of abdominal coning during pregnancy.

Megan Lyons: I love it. You are such a pro. You explain it so well. I can tell you’ve explained it a jillion times before. And I’m finding myself, I’m practicing breathing in different ways and like visualizing the exercises and all this as you’re saying it. So great explanations. Now I know people want to hear from you for the next five hours, so good thing that you have so much content out there. But I just am hearing in the audience’s mind, we’ve got to ask about the pelvic floor before we go. Pelvic floor is a hot topic these days. Many people don’t even know what the pelvic floor is or why it’s important. So just give us some foundations about the pelvic floor and what we can do to take care of it.

Gina Conley: So I also did not know what my pelvic floor was until I was pregnant for the first time. And I was like, what do you mean there’s muscles in my ******? Like, I don’t understand. So the pelvic floor is a sling of musculature that’s at the bottom of your pelvis. And it provides a lot of function. For us during pregnancy, outside of pregnancy, during labor. And so first it’s going to help to support our pelvic organs. As women, we have three pelvic organs. We have our bladder, our uterus, and our ****** men also have multiple organs. I just can’t think of what they are right now; I think it’s similar ones minus the uterus – I think they have a prostate instead. Anyway, so your pelvic floor is supporting those pelvic organs. It’s going to have sphincter control, so it releases to let pee and poo out and it cinches up to keep it in. It’s going to be some pumps. So it’s going to help with lymphatic drainage from the lower part of our body through our pelvis up to our different lymphatic places. It’s going to provide stability. So the pelvic floor is a part of our deep core system, which helps to stabilize our spine. And so the deep core involves our diaphragm on the top, pelvic floor on the bottom. We have our corset abs. And as your transverse abdominis around the side, your internal obliques and then your multifidi which are right along your spine. So all five of those work together to help stabilize the spine to help with postural control. And so these are like all like pretty big deals. They all connect directly to the spine as well. And so the pelvic floor is on the very bottom of that, helping to manage pressure and to stabilize the spine.

Gina Conley: And it also has a sexual function so it helps with orgasm, it helps with childbirth and plays a big role during labor and so during labor, the pelvic floor helps to position baby’s head and then also has to release to allow baby to come through. So pretty big deal. It’s a pretty big deal. During pregnancy, the pelvic floor is going to have more load on it. We have, we’re just, we have more volume. For us, our, our blood volume has doubled. We have a baby, the uterus, a placenta. Like there’s just a lot going on. Even if you don’t gain a single extra pound, like you still got more, more mass to you. And so your probably floor is taking that on. In addition, like it is going to probably get a little bit tighter because of all that additional load that’s on it. And so we really need to be a little focused during pregnancy on helping it to learn how to release. If we think about earlier in the conversation we talked about how there. Are certain postural tendencies during pregnancy where we tend to favor that more extended position and more external rotation. That back half of the pelvic floor is going to get even tighter during pregnancy because we have something known as joint laxity that increases during pregnancy, which means there’s more movement within our joints.

It’s easier for us to kind of sink into positions. We can go a little bit deeper into some of these postural tendencies than we would outside. That’s why, like, during pregnancy you may notice more pelvic pain and more discomfort, but then have the same movement patterns and not feel it as much outside of pregnancy is because we’re sinking a little bit deeper into these positions. That is going to cause a little bit more tension than normal, usually particularly in that back half of the pelvic floor.

During pregnancy, the things that we’re focusing on is we want to learn how to release and to move our pelvic floor really well. Like, we don’t want it to just tighten, tighten, tighten. With Kegels, we also want the lengthening and the stretching of it. And one of the best ways to do that is just with our breathing. So when I inhale, my pelvic floor is going to move down and stretch, and then when I exhale, it’s going to lift up and in, which is going to be more of that Kegeling motion. And so if anyone is telling you to do Kegels, you need to remember that there’s multiple parts. It’s not just tighten, tighten, tighten. It’s release and stretch, and then tighten, release and stretch, and then tighten. So there’s this whole range of motion similar to if I was doing, like, a bicep curl. I wouldn’t just, you know, pop my arm at the very end.

I’m sure there’s exercises where that’s appropriate to do. But I want to fully lengthen my arm and then bend my arm, fully lengthen my arm and then bend my arm. And it’s the same thing with our pelvic floor. It’s a muscle. It needs to lengthen and stretch as a part of its range of motion and then tighten and foreign. And so we can do that with all of our exercises that we do throughout pregnancy. So I inhale to lengthen my pelvic floor. I lower my squat. I exhale to lift up as I stand up. And so we can integrate it with, like, every rep that we do, which is going to be super helpful.

And then we can incorporate different types of mobility exercises. We’re moving our hips to different positions so we need more of that external rotation. So, like, wide knee positions is going to target more of the front half of our pelvic core. So think, like, butterfly Pose like adductor stretches, like deep squat positions, those are going to stretch more of the front half of our pelvic floor. And then we also need to find the opposite with a closed hip position. So like those hip shifts, for example, that’s going to be more internally rotated position. Positions where like our knees are in and our ankles are out is going to help to stretch more kind of like that back half of the pelvic floor. We want to incorporate both the wide knee positions and the closed knee positions to stretch different parts of the pelvic floor in addition to like one sided.

One leg is more externally rotated, the other is internally rotated. It’s like a 90, 90 position or like a shin box position is like a great example for that. Hip shifts are also a one sided position as well. And so there’s essentially like four different movements that we want to incorporate. We want wide leg positions, we want knees in internally rotated positions and then we want one sided positions where we’re targeting more of like an open hip position on one side. Something like Captain Morgan, like that type of like lunge position as an open hip position in addition to one sided closed hip position. So like those hip shifts for example. So if we incorporate all four types of those exercises into our daily workout routine, it’s going to help to release tension throughout our pelvic core, which is going to be really important.

Megan Lyons: You’re just fine. Bye, Zoe.

Gina Conley: She’s passed out. So incorporating those four types of movements is going to be really helpful for the pelvic floor. Learning how to lengthen it and then shorten it, like both is going to be helpful, not just Kegel. Kegel, Kegel. Their poly floor does not push her baby out. It just has to move out of the way as your uterus pushes your baby out.

So that’s also a misconception with the pelvic floor is I need to have a strong pelvic floor to push my baby out. It would be like thinking that like half of my toothpaste is what pushes my toothpaste out. When I squeeze it like I want it to, I want to take the cap off and let the toothpaste come out, for example. And then the other part is if I tell somebody like, don’t do you don’t have to focus completely on Kegels during pregnancy. They’ll be like, but I want a strong pelvic floor after birth.

And we also don’t need a tight pelvic floor. And so it’s important to understand that tight does not equal strong. Like, how well a muscle moves over range of motion is going to be really important. So if we’re having issues postpartum with, like, leaking, with, like, pelvic pain, like prolapse or feeling like, this feeling of heaviness, it’s not because your pelvic floor is loose. It’s usually because it’s. Sometimes it’s because it’s too tight, there’s weakness somewhere, or it’s not well coordinated with the system. So it’s more complex than just your pelvic floor is weak and loose. It’s probably actually very tight and it doesn’t have the range of motion or it’s unevenly.

Like, there’s uneven tension in it that’s kind of torquing the pelvis and not allowing, like, proper pressure distribution. And so it’s more than just make your polyp for tighter so that it’ll prevent things from falling out of your body. Like, we want to coordinate it well, so it gets very complex when we start thinking about, like, healing the pelvic floor postpartum. So I’m a big fan of public for physical therapists and folks working with them, like, both during pregnancy and in the postpartum if they are experiencing issues.

If you are seeing a PT for anybody that’s listening and you’ve been seeing them for months and like, the only thing that you’re doing is, like, clamshells and blue bridges, like biofeedback kegels, and you haven’t left the table, you need to find a different pt like, you need somebody that’s going to progress you. It’s going to bridge the gap between rehab and, like, function.

Again, like, we don’t want to just stay in rehab. And so if you aren’t seeing results, find a different pt we have two in our gym that both do virtual support as well, and i’ll send you the links for their site. And so if you aren’t seeing results with your PT and you’re like, I’m just going to do whoever Gina tells me to see, work with them virtually. Like, it’s better than nothing. Or we can help you find a PT that can be really beneficial for you. I. I personally find PTs that have been trained in the Postural Rest Restoration Institute to be, like, really beneficial to work with because they have a little bit more of, like, a full body approach to it.

So you can look for someone that has, like a PRI certification if you’re like, I don’t want to mess around with somebody that’s just going to waste my time because like in every profession not everyone is like great. And I would hate, I would hate for people to waste both their time and their money working with a PT that’s not going to get them results. So look for someone with PRI certification to work with pts. Or you can just like interview pts before you like make appointments as well and see kind of what’s your plan of action to help me recover. If they’re like we’re just going to do tons of Kegels, go somewhere else.

Megan Lyons: I love it. Well, between the pts and the guide that we’re going to link in the show notes and all of the amazing videos programs book now you have so many resources out there so I’d love as we close for you just to recap, I guess where you want to send people. Where are some of the best ways to learn more from you.

Gina Conley: So we have a lot of resources because we want to ensure that our information is accessible to all regardless of finances. So good places to learn a ton from us is going to be our Instagram page. It’s just amastayfit. We have, we post multiple times throughout the day and just tons on pregnancy, postpartum birth.

We also have a YouTube channel where we post one workout a week that’s related to pregnancy postpartum birth prep and then we have like one educational video or two or three educational videos a week as well. If you want to, you know, you just, you want to pay us, then buy one of our courses instead of like kind of piecemealing all our information together. We do have a fitness program both for pregnancy and for the postpartum where it’s a step by step guide to help you move throughout your pregnancy.

Gina Conley: And in the PostPartum we have two formats to that where we have our app based format which is self paced workouts. So it’s the more traditional style of workout delivery. And then we also have video based workouts. So it’s like a video that you follow and work out at the same time. I would definitely recommend that one for folks that are new to exercising or just feel confused in their body and they’re like I need to just see somebody do it. I would recommend that program for my athletes.

Gina Conley: I would recommend our self paced program because there’s a little bit more to it. We also offer childbirth education courses and so if you’re, if you’re trying to prepare for birth, learn the science of birth we break down information similar to how I did in this episode where I. I just go really in depth with stuff. We have an online course for that as well. So we’ve got our free courses with Instagram and YouTube. I got my book Training for Two, which is specific to pregnancy.

And then we have our paid fitness programs and online courses as well to help support everyone throughout this entire journey because it’s a big deal to feel empowered as we navigate pregnancy, to feel good in our bodies so that we can feel good when we enter motherhood, to meet the demands and to feel confident in ourselves. And so it’s a really big deal. I’m glad to have so many people that trust us to support them throughout this journey and to also be on it myself.

Megan Lyons: Well, you are certainly doing the good work out there. Thank you so much for sharing all of this information today and for all that you’re putting out into the world. I know people will be really excited to get their hands on more. So one more time. Thank you so much, Gina. I appreciate you coming on Wellness yous Way today.

Gina Conley: Thank you for having me.

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Want to hear about this topic in audio format? → Check out the podcast episode here!

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Megan Lyons Headshot

Hi! I'm Megan Lyons,

the voice behind The Lyons’ Share. I love all things health, wellness, and fitness-related, and I hope to share some of my passion with you. Thanks for stopping by!
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