Ergomomics

Thanks Josie!

Have you signed up yet? Nothing to lose and so much to gain!! Link in bio! https://breathe-fitness.ck.page/kickstart

This 5 Day Kickstart was created by a real mom (me) who was also sick of struggling. It has been tried, tested, tweaked, and approved.

You deserve to feel better! What are you waiting for?

No seriously, post in the comments 👇, or dm me, I want to know what your biggest obstacle is to giving this a try?

Never underestimate the power of your breath 🙌

…………………………………………….

Craving more ways to hack your daily habits and find greater connection? Grab my FREE roadmap for feeling better! Link in bio.

My #1 tip for csection mamas?
TOUCH 🩷YOUR 🩷SCAR

PHYSICALLY it will help for regaining sensation to the area. And, when ready, expanding to gentle massage techniques can accelerate the healing process.

EMOTIONALLY, it will help to reconnect with the area. So many moms, myself included, did not opt for a C-section but it was necessary for safety reasons. Even some moms who elected to have a C-section, find themselves disconnected from the whole area. There was definitely emotional baggage that came along with the surgery. How my body felt, how it looked afterwards, my own disappointment at not having the birth I had envisioned. Those emotions can create extra stress and tension. Working through these feelings and touching your scar with love and compassion are key to a solid c-section recovery.

Have a tip for other csection mamas? Help a sister out 👇

Is it common? YES.
Is it normal? NO.

Whether you’ve had a vaginal birth or cesarean birth, there has been sustained, increased pressure on your organs and pelvic floor muscles. This is on top of any additional trauma you may have experienced during delivery.

In other countries, women are automatically sent for pelvic floor physical therapy and offered fitness recovery programs as part of their postpartum care. In the US, you have to ask for it 🙄.

While it’s great, for solidarity purposes, to see all the reels and posts about moms and leaking, it makes me sad that so many women seem to see that as the end of the conversation. To me, that is only the beginning.

If you are experiencing urinary incontinence when you laugh, sneeze, run, jump, please schedule an appointment with a specialist.

4000 KEGELS IS NOT THE ANSWER.
Any practitioner or instagram post that tells you to just do kegels is not the specialist you need.

Check out the link in bio and let’s work together 🤗
I offer free consults, zoom sessions, in-studio, or, if you’re local, I can come to you for an in-home session! You deserve to feel better 🫶🏼

Contrary to some advertising, baby gear is not some magical aide that takes all the work out of carrying, holding, or transporting your baby.  

🤗 When used properly, it should serve as a helper to offset the extra work that comes with caring for an infant.  

🤨 When used improperly, it can exacerbate already taxed muscle groups and create more problems than solutions.

It is important to remember that most baby gear is designed with the baby’s safety as the priority, not your comfort (not complaining, just presenting).  With this in mind, many items come one size fits all or adjustable.

🙌 When in doubt, pick items that are adjustable.  This will give you a better chance of lining up the fit you need to support your posture and ease of movement.

Most baby gear also has basic safety regulations to meet just to be on the market. Higher priced items do not necessarily mean they are safer or better. They just may have more bells and whistles or come in prettier colors. Try to be objective and avoid the tendency to equate a higher price meaning a better product.

There are so many options out there, please don’t settle. We research the hell out of things when it comes to our babies’ health and safety. We deserve the same love and attention to care for ourselves ❤️

👇🏻 Check out my free download 🤗
https://breathe-fitness.ck.page/9bc6b7f161
(Link in bio)







https://breathe-fitness.ck.page/9bc6b7f161

Honestly, I didn’t even know I was going to need something to help me feel better after having kids. I didn’t realize how out of sorts I’d be, how overwhelming, physically taxing and emotionally draining it would be.

Once that all I hit, I thought if I only had enough time to exercise, or enough sleep. Maybe if I had more order in my home, things would feel better. If I crafted the perfect schedule for myself I would feel better.

What actually made me feel better was LOWERING MY EXPECTATIONS.

I’ve learned, in motherhood, LESS IS MORE.
Less noise was step one….
Quieting the internal voice telling me that I should look better, feel better, be doing more, and the external pressures from social media telling me I should still be able to do it all was the first step.

Honestly, it was more empowering to slow the f^*&k down and meet myself where I was at instead of setting myself up to fail EVERY DAMN DAY with unrealistic expectations.

Magically, once I did that I started feeling less worn down. I started feeling lighter. I stopped “should-ing” on myself and prioritized the things that felt good to me. It’s wild how much of an energy drain all that noise can cause and how heavy it can all feel when everyday you’re feeling like a failing.

Making a human is a lot of work, keeping that human alive is a lot of work, nurturing yourself at the same time is a lot of work. Making a conscious decision to NOT add more to my plate was really what helped me feel better after having kids.

Can you relate?

Exercise is only one part of the recipe when it comes to improving postpartum health. Here are a few that deserve just as much attention, if not more!

Now, this is not to overwhelm with MORE things to do, it’s to give options on how to use the time you have and the energy you’re working with. Exercise, at its most fundamental level, is stress on the body. Sometimes, as a mom, that’s the last thing you need to really feel better.

👣
They’re your first (physical) point of contact with the world! They are the foundation for the rest of your body to stand on (pun intended). As your main starting point for posture, feeling disconnected, or preferably connected, to your feet can have a huge impact on how you feel in your body; how you relate to gravity; how you move through your day-to-day life. So give your feet a little extra love, they’re working hard down there!

☀️
Having a baby makes things a bit harder… just to leave the house can feel overwhelming, especially at the beginning. Taking time for a little sunshine fix is so important to your mental and physical health.

👯‍♀️
Motherhood can feel really isolating. There are so many sensations and emotions and experiences that you just can’t prepare for until you’re there. It is SO important to have someone to talk to. If none of your friends are mamas, check for local mama meet-ups or join one of the million Facebook groups for moms. Friend time (texting and meme sharing def count) should be non-negotiable.

🫵🏻
It’s incredibly easy to get lost in your new little human but whenever you can, try to sneak in moments for yourself to do those things that light you up, that spark your joy, that make you feel like you. This might be five minutes of reading, or fifteen minutes of yoga, eight minutes to stare at the ocean, or four minutes to belt out your favorite song in the car… as baby gets older, that time can grow, but in the early days, take what you can get.

Looking for more ways to feel better that don’t include going to the gym? Download my free guide and start feeling better TODAY! (Bio)

There are few things that fire me up more than the s**tty treatment of moms. We are literally keeping the human race ALIVE, show some respect… hell, at least expand our insurance coverage!

6 weeks is too late… and also too early.

(JAMA 2021) According to recent estimates, approximately 65% of pregnancy-related deaths in the US occur in the first year after giving birth. Among these, 12% occur within 6 days after delivery, 23% occur 7 to 42 days, and 30% occur 43 days to 1 year.

Read that again.
35% of deaths happen before that six week check up. 30% happen after it.

This might sound crazy, but maybe we should tell the insurance companies to take a seat and let the professionals create a more realistic postpartum care plan… 🤔 if only there was a group that could do that…

Oh wait there is 🙄! ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) reaffirmed their updated recommendations in 2021 saying:

“To optimize the health of women and infants, postpartum care should become an ONGOING PROCESS, rather than a single encounter, with services and support tailored to each woman’s individual needs. It is recommended that all women have contact with their obstetrician–gynecologists or other obstetric care providers within the FIRST 3 WEEKS postpartum. This initial assessment should be followed up with ongoing care as needed, concluding with a comprehensive postpartum visit no later than 12 weeks after birth. The comprehensive postpartum visit should include a full assessment of physical, social, and psychological well-being, including the following domains: mood and emotional well-being; infant care and feeding; sexuality, contraception, and birth spacing; sleep and fatigue; physical recovery from birth; chronic disease management; and health maintenance.”

Let’s help reset postpartum recovery expectations and empower women to ask for the support they need.

Tag someone postpartum!

THING 1️⃣: Feeling broken
- Everyone is like, yay you had a baby, and you’re like, yay and also wtf?!
- Parenting is like the most insane repetitive stress job out there! Sorry MLB pitchers, but it’s true. Especially in the newborn stage when it’s all holding, carrying, changing, feeding, then there’s getting nap trapped, the baby wearing, the stroller tasks - opening, closing, lifting, pushing… it’s a lot of stress on the body.
- You know when your body heals itself?? When YOU’RE SLEEPING! Guess what I was really short on as a new mom? SLEEPING!

THING 2️⃣: So disconnecteddddd! Can somebody plug me back in?
- For the BODY there is the literal disconnection that happens when you go from having something physically taking up space in your body, to it no longer being there and everything (organs, tendons, muscles, ligaments, fascia) having to reorient itself to the newfound space.
- For the MIND there’s the dissociation that almost has to happen as a mom because whatever sensations you’re dealing with (pain, overwhelm, fatigue) have to be shoved aside so you can keep your new baby alive. It’s kind of wild. It’s like, sure okay, you gotta suck s**t up a bit, comes with the territory, but if there’s never any time to process that stuff later, then you’re just left feeling like s**t.

THING 3️⃣: 6 weeks is a joke.
- Holy hell. Going into the pregnancy I thought I had done a good job tempering my expectations because I knew about prenatal/postpartum recovery but WOW was it eye-opening to find myself at that 6 week mark realizing how unrealistic my postpartum timeline/plan really was in spite of being given the “all clear” by my doctor 🙄
- I hadn’t accounted for the birthing injuries or the toll of all the repetitive stresses, and I really hadn’t fully understood how challenging finding time to be consistent with my “perfectly planned” fitness program was actually going to be.

I think new moms need to know it’s not all butterflies and belly buttons. What were you unprepared for?? Share below 🤗👇🏻

Real talk:
The initial postpartum stage is incredibly demanding on mom’s body - all of the carrying, the holding, the lifting, the changing, the feeding, carrying the diaper bag, maneuvering the carseat, the stroller, etc. (and this is of course on top of the physical stresses of pregnancy and delivery).

Long story short 👉🏻 There’s already plenty of physical stresses you CAN’T AVOID as a new mom.

When it comes to extras, my general principle, for new moms, is to do your best to decrease EXTRA physical stresses on your body.

👍🏻 Babywearing on a short walk? Sure!

👍🏻 Around the house? Sure!

👎🏻 Carrying another human while going on a hike or taking a dance or yoga class? Not yet!

If you want your core to heal you have to stop stressing it out. It needs time, which operates in a different dimension for sleep deprived moms. And before you clap back at me about the potential strength benefits of adding load to your exercise, just no. Not in this case. Any potential strength benefits are out the window when you just keep loading on injured, arguably weak/overtaxed, tissues.

Big picture postpartum health depends on taking the time for that fourth trimester healing. There will be plenty of time to add baby into your mom fitness plan (if that’s what you want) but, if you’re less than 3 months out please take the time (when you can) to focus on:
💕letting your pelvic floor heal,
💕reconnecting with your core muscles,
💕reclaiming the space in your body for those big full breaths…

There are so many wonderful things you can do that don’t involve extra physical stress on your beautiful, magical, postpartum body, pick those 🫶🏼

Thoughts? Drop them below 👇🏻

I SEE YOU 😍

As moms we are often running on auto-pilot. Pick up the baby, feed the baby, change the baby, feed ourselves, get outside, wash your face, brush your teeth, sleep, repeat…

Let me show you how to move better. How to move intentionally to thrive instead of merely survive. Reconnecting to your daily movements helps to make every one of them an opportunity for building strength.

Being a mom does NOT mean your body has to fall apart. No one teaches us this stuff. That’s why I created this series.

Only 5 spots. Link in bio. Message or drop your questions here 👇🏻

Thanks Christina!!!

Yes we keep it real! Exercises only work if you’re doing them! I love getting creative so that moms can do the work while they’re already doing the work! Parenting is so active already! The trick is using all of those movements to your advantage. This series will show you how 🙌

Grab your spot with 4 other moms and learn ways to exercise you’ll actually be able to stick with! Let’s go!

Did you know that people who have knee surgery get more post op care than moms who deliver babies. WTF??!!!

There are no automatic referrals for physical therapy, no follow up appointments outside of the 6 week check in and even that doesn’t usually include a full physical assessment (no check for diastasis, internal pain, sensitivity, etc). Considering how many appointments they schedule for you when your pregnant, it’s actually kind of offensive how little they seem to care about you after baby is born 🙄.

I created this program because I CARE about you after you’ve had your baby! Being a mom is hard enough without also feeling disconnected from your body, feeling like your abs aren’t working, and generally just feeling a little less than yourself before you got pregnant.

Each week, you and 4 other moms will take the time to release tension, reconnect with your body, and rebuild your core so you feel not just better but STRONGER THAN BEFORE.

It’s never too late to do this work! All moms are welcome. Hope to see you on the mat! Link in bio!

Yes it’s important work, and YES we have a lot of fun doing it!

Thanks Teresa 🥰!!

BREATH WORK
This is the foundation for everything - your breath is your golden ticket, it’s the vehicle we will use to release, to reconnect, and to rebuild - it is your home base, it is your safe space. It is the best way to increase awareness and the
best mode of communication
with your
nervous system,
your tissues,
your muscles,
and your soul.

It is truly one of the most powerful tools a mother has. Never underestimate the power of your breath.

You will create a whole new relationship with your breath over the course of this 5 week series. It will no longer just be something that happens, it will be something you do, with beautiful intention.

If you’re ready to start feeling better, then follow the link and save yourself a spot with 4 other moms who know that they too deserve to feel better! Let’s go!

Stronger than Before is a 5 week postpartum series that will help your body recover and rebuild from the stresses of pregnancy, delivery, and parenting.

The pelvis is the main intersection of your body. The stress that pregnancy and delivery places on the muscles that support this area require attention and focus to ensure a strong and supportive foundation to care for yourself and your family.

This series is a progressive 5 week journey. Each week you will spend time…

❤️ RELEASING stress and muscle tension
❤️ RECONNECTING with your postpartum body
❤️ REBUILDING your deep core, and
❤️ LEARNING how to apply it all to real life activities

This series will help you feel more EMPOWERED in and by your amazing body. You will feel LESS OVERWHELMED and MORE CONNECTED to your body. I whole-heartedly believe that moms deserve to feel better, and I’m proud of this series because that’s just what it does.

To keep it intimate and personalized the series is only open to 5 moms. While non-mobile littles are welcome, I strongly suggest finding care if that’s an option for you, so that you can take the time to focus on yourself.

Have questions? Post here or dm! Know a friend that could use this? Please share! Can’t wait to see you on the mat!!

Thank you Teresa!!!!

Only 2 spots left for the October series!! Hope to see you on the mat ❤️ Link in bio!!

REBUILD ❤️

It’s kind of like when you have a houseguest and they rearrange things a bit… like move some stuff around to make space for their own crap… but then they leave and forget to put things back where they found them? And then you come home and you’re like, uhhhh… where’s my s**t? Yeah. That’s kind of like postpartum.

Your body spends all this time making internal shifts to your organs and muscles, etc so that baby has space to grow but then once it leaves you’re kind of left to put things back together. The problem is, you’re not really given the tools… or the time 😣

There is little to no guidance given to moms about postpartum expectations.
👉🏻How their body’s might feel.
👉🏻Symptoms that might be common but not normal (ex: leaking when coughing > please see a pelvic floor PT)
👉🏻Realistic recovery expectations
👉🏻How to support their recovery

Most moms have a hard time “finding” their abdominal muscles after pregnancy. Many moms have a hard time restoring proper function of their pelvic floor muscles. Sometimes even just finding a nice full breath feels more challenging because of changes to the ribcage and diaphragm’s position.

Rebuilding is about putting things back together, but the neat thing is that you get to choose to do it differently than you had it before. You can choose to rebuild stronger and more efficient than before, and that’s kind of cool.

This series is so much more than just exercises. It’s everything a mom needs to feel more empowered BY and IN her body.
It teaches tools to release tension, to reconnect with their body, to rebuild their core.
It’s all about making motherhood feel better.

Questions?? Hit me up! I hope to see you on the mat! Link in bio.

Thank you Asia! 🥰

Did you know that people who have knee surgery get more post op care than moms who deliver babies. WTF??!!!

There are no automatic referrals for physical therapy, no follow up appointments outside of the 6 week check in which doesn’t even include a full physical assessment (no check for diastasis, internal pain, sensitivity, etc). Considering how many appointments they schedule for the mom when she’s pregnant, it’s actually kind of offensive how little they seem to care about the mom after baby is born 🙄.

I created this series to help plug the gap in postpartum care because I experienced the negative outcomes first hand. Moms need care too.

Pregnancy is physically and mentally challenging, giving birth is physically and mentally challenging, being a new mom is physically and mentally challenging… this series is here to help you release that tension, reconnect with your body, and rebuild your core ❤️

All moms welcome, it’s never too late to do this work . Link in bio. Link in bio! Hope to see you there!

RECONNECT ❤️
The disconnect that happens between a mom and her body is real.

PHYSICALLY > organs are moving, skin is stretching, center of gravity is shifting, your abdominals are literally moving further and further away as the baby grows inside.

MENTALLY > shifting hormones can make you feel crazy and, at times, more emotional. Common pregnancy symptoms force you to manage expectations and don’t get me started on the comparison trap and unsolicited advice about what you can and cannot do, what you should or should not eat…

THE BIRTH > for some women, having a birth that did not align with the birth plan they’d envisioned can cause its own disconnect from their body.

After pregnancy, we often don’t recognize our own bodies. They look different, feel different, move different. And there isn’t really any time to come to terms with that or sit with that because you have a newborn baby that needs you.

It takes time to reconcile the differences. This is one of many reasons why the “bounce back” narrative is so harmful.

This series begins the process of reconnecting with your body, reconciling the changes, and learning how to support your body on its journey to rebuild.

Registration is open for my fall Rebuild Your Core Series (flyer with info last pic in the post). Link to sign up in the bio 👍 Hope to see you there!

Thank you Courtney!!!

4 Spots Left!

Parenting is no joke. The demands on the body are hard to understand until you’re in it. And even then it’s hard to see a way out of the tension. I mean, we kind of HAVE to carry and feed our babies, right?!

This series is about so much more than just rebuilding your core. This course will empower you, it will free up more energy for yourself and your family, it will help you to feel better in your body ❤️

Better is always possible 🙌

Hope to see you on the mat with me!

REGISTRATION IS OPEN! Only 5 spots!

I've always enjoyed working with moms but it really wasn't until I became one myself that I realized just how special, and significant, good training and instruction is when working with pregnant mommas' changing bodies, and postpartum mommas' recovering bodies. .

I always tell people that I wish I'd had my class to go to after having Sierra. They tend to look at me funny, maybe surprised that I wasn't doing it for myself? The fact is, those first 6 months are somewhat of a blur and I didn't go into my postpartum period with a very realistic recovery plan. I mean, I thought it was realistic, it wasn't anything crazy, but I definitely didn't fully account for the disconnect from my core, the emotional rollercoaster of becoming a mom, or the aches/pains that were brewing from all the repetitive stress of caring for a new baby.

I created this Rebuild Your Core series as part of my ErgoMOMics programming. It is a true passion project!!!

This 4 WEEK SERIES is an opportunity to follow a thoughtfully planned core recovery program with the education I wish I'd gotten postpartum to help RELEASE tension, RECONNECT to your body, and REBUILD your core. Being a parent does NOT mean your body has to fall apart.

REBUILD
Slow and steady wins the race! When it comes to fitness I'm a firm believer that quality and proper form trumps quantity, intensity, and fancy-factor. When it comes to postpartum recovery, I’m all about doing it right the first time. And when I say “right” I’m not talking about some magical recipe of perfect exercises. I’m talking about the focus for the exercises, how you connect to the movements, and setting realistic expectations.

Let’s take the "dead bug" series.
This is a super common exercise prescribed by PT's and trainers alike for postpartum recovery. Like any exercise though, the focus is key. {Disclaimer: There are many ways to perform this exercise… for the purposes of this post, we are focusing on rebuilding pelvic stability.}

Because this is our focus, we’re going to let go of any preconceived idea about how LOW the leg (or arm) is supposed to go. This is because, how low the leg or arm go is dependent on how well you can stabilize your pelvis under the weight of the moving limb.

For example, when I first began rehabbing postpartum, I could support my leg extending about 45-60 degrees (90 being straight to the ceiling, 0 being all the way to the floor). I couldn’t feel my abdominals that well and it was hard to connect with the movement. If I lowered my leg further than 60 degrees, my pelvis would tip and I’d feel a light strain in my lower back. My core muscles couldn’t support the weight of the leg at that angle. With practice, moving slowly, and accepting that how low my leg went was not the goal, I steadily improved and regained not only the connection to my core but the strength needed to successfully stabilize my pelvis again, no matter the exercise or activity.

Pelvic stability is key not just for returning to pre-pregnancy exercise, but for daily life activities. In my Rebuild Your Core Series, each week we tackle new exercises to improve pelvic stability - on and off the mat, with and without your baby.

Want to learn more? Get on the list for my upcoming Rebuild Your Core Series - coming in October!! Registration opens September 12 - ONLY 5 SPOTS

RELEASE🙌

Parenting is a special kind of stressful… both physically and emotionally. And that stress accumulates in the body, usually in the form of tension. While daily stressors aren’t always possible to manage (cue toddler tantrum because I cut his waffle the wrong way), the ACCUMULATION of stress is definitely something that can be managed.

My favorite go-to is foam rolling. For me, it’s a delightful combination of release work for both my body and my mind. I go into a little zen space, almost like a moving meditation.

Does that sound like the opposite of your experience on a foam roller? Do you associate it with pain and discomfort… and are probably now thinking I’m a crazy person!

I plead the fifth to the crazy part but as for the foam rolling part… it doesn’t have to be painful and uncomfortable!

Sure, sometimes the tension can feel a little uncomfortable but how hard are you going? We have a tendency in our society to go hard - dig deep - try to beat our body’s into submission.

I always remind my clients that foam rolling shouldn’t be overly painful. If you hit a spot that makes your face scrunch up, don’t stay there! You can roll above that area or below that area but please, for the love of all things, do not keep rolling on that spot.

Think of it this way…
If you had a bruise on your arm and I came along and punched you on your bruise… would that make it better or worse?
I hope you all answered worse.

Same thing applies here… you may not SEE a visible bruise, but tension is kind of like an internal bruise for the tissues. So digging deeply, rolling too hard on it, is not helping it. It’s actually probably making it worse. Please don’t do that.

Next time you dust off your foam roller keep these tips in mind:
- Be kind to your body
- Release tension, don’t create more.
- Reconnect while you roll
- Go Slow
- Breathe Fully
- Enjoy the Conversation

Curious to learn more about how your foam roller can be your bestie instead of your nemesis???? Hit me up! The last 2023 IN-PERSON Rebuild Your Core 4 Week Series is coming in OCTOBER!

REBUILD ❤️❤️❤️

Core/Pelvic Stability is KEY. Your pelvis is the main intersection between the top half of your body and the bottom half. If it’s unstable, it can create problems above and below it. It’s not the sexiest or sweatiest part of working out but I would argue that it’s the most important.

Okay cool but what the hell is pelvic stability? A stable pelvis allows your torso and limbs to move through safe and effective ranges of motion. It is the foundation for an active, healthy life. Without running down the whole list of muscles involved in this operation, you can think of them as your foundation. These are the very muscles that get, to put it plainly, wrecked, during pregnancy.

Pregnancy is HARD on the body. Even if you have a unicorn pregnancy and feel great the whole time, on the inside, your body is doing A LOT. The amount of space that has to be made for the baby to grow is crazy. The amount of shifting for you organs, tension gains and losses in your muscles and joints, and resulting neuromuscular changes are real. After baby is delivered that space needs to be reclaimed and it’s a multi-system project.

I never really liked the phrase “restore your core”. Your body is not an antique chair we can slap some new upholstery on and call it good. I also don’t like when postpartum fitness posts lead with “get your body back” because NEWSFLASH: that body is gone. But that doesn’t have to be a sad or depressing thought… This is your chance to upgrade, to build back even stronger.

I see so many moms try to jump back into pre-pregnancy activities like running, HIIT workouts, yoga, weight lifting TOO SOON and wind up injured. Don’t get me wrong, these activities aren’t inherently bad, and every body is different, but the truth remains…
Trying to build on an unstable pelvis is a little like building your house on a marsh. Don’t do that. Take the time to rebuild your foundation. YOU ARE WORTH IT.

Want to learn more? I’m running my last 2023 in-person Rebuild Your Core series in October. Interested? Message me or email [email protected]

BETTER IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE.