People often ask me if it’s safe to do certain types of cardio exercises; often, this is HITT or running. Fundamentally, I don’t feel like it’s my place or anyone else’s place to tell a woman what she can and can’t do. My ultimate goal is that, as women, we are educated enough to know what is appropriate to do or not do. That we have agency and autonomy over our own well-being and our bodies.
When I say educated, what I mean is that they have all the facts and information about their body, how it works, how it responds to certain situations like a birth injury, and how different activities translate through the body.
That’s where I come in and can teach you what to expect from your body, in particular your pelvis.
However, the other piece of education is about self-inquiry, self-awareness, knowledge of your own personal body, and experience with it. What prolapse feels to me will be different from how it feels to you. You will have heard me say it before that ‘as many women as there are on the planet are variations on the theme woman’. Our bodies follow a set of themes, but there are no two bodies alike.
So back to that question, it really suggests that we have been programmed to believe there are some unsafe things for us to do, like cardio, but without clarity over how we would know or judge for ourselves.
We are putting major decisions in the hands of others because we are taught to believe they are the experts. Which we often are, and my message today is that you and only you are the expert in you. We just haven’t been taught that way. Can you take some time out of your day to sit, stand, or lie down and just listen to your body, feel the relationships between the bones of your pelvis and your ribs, and notice where you are breathing?
Start here to slowly build the knowledge of your body. Then, when you are doing an exercise like cardio or taking a run, you will have woken up the communication between your body and your mind, so you will feel the impact of the activity and whether or not it feels good to do or not. You have the answers inside you.
Yes, you can do lots of different exercises, and this month we added a new hit of cardio class to the membership, and last month our live class was taking it up a notch with standing work and some step-ups and lunges to awaken your pelvic floor.
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