Doctors, OBGYNs, doulas, midwives, your mom, your girlfriends, literally everyone has been telling us to do Kegels to help out our pelvic floor. Do them in the shower, in the car, while you’re watching TV, while you’re having a conversation, while you’re running, do them all day every day to make sure your vagina doesn’t fall out and that your pelvic floor is tighter than security at the Pentagon. “Get it right, get it tight!”, right? WRONG. Your pelvic floor is not some rigid structure that needs to be securely locked in place at all times. It’s a complex network of muscles that move in conjunction with the rest of your body. They have the ability to lengthen, expand, contract, load, and unload just like every other muscle in your body. So, why do we even do them?

Did You Know: Kegels were first described and published by American doctor Arnold Kegel in 1948?

Does anyone else have an issue with the fact that the Miracle Exercise for women was prescribed by a man? *Insert face palm followed by cursing mouth emoji* A Kegel is a conscious contraction and then relaxation of the pelvic floor muscles. They’ve been said to cure incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and to help prepare the pelvic floor muscle for labor and delivery. 1 in 3 women suffer from some form of pelvic core dysfunction, and 50% of women deal with incontinence at some point in their life. Have you been doing kegels for the last 10 years and still have incontinence when you sneeze, laugh, jump, or run? Guess what? Your pelvic floor is not the problem.

What if I told you that your pelvic floor was part of a bigger picture? What if I told you that in function (running, laughing, and child labor) that your pelvic floor is part of a complex system that has to work harmoniously and subconsciously in order for it to function properly. Still not convinced? When you sneeze is your pelvic floor the only thing that contracts or do you feel your abs squeeze together to violently project that fresh spring pollen out of your nose? When you’re giving birth, do you simply push with your pelvic floor or do you brace with every fiber in your body? Have you tried to Kegel when you laugh or while you run? You shouldn’t have to because the pelvic floor should function subconsciously, without you thinking about it! The pelvic floor is actually a component of the Pelvic Core Neuromuscular System (PCNS). Your PCNS is composed of your pelvic floor, abdominals, low back muscles, and your respiratory diaphragm. This is one giant fascial network of muscles that work with each other to support our bodies from the inside out. Your pelvic floor is just one part of this major system, and your pelvic floor isn’t solely responsible for all PCNS dysfunction.

Almost every woman I’ve seen for PCNS dysfunction has had the same question, “What about Kegels?” and my answer is always, “Well that depends. Have you been doing kegels? Have things gotten better? No? Then stop doing them.” The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The assumption with most dysfunctions is that our pelvic floor is weak and needs to be strengthened, so that’s why we do Kegels. Brace yourselves ladies: it is actually possible to have a pelvic floor that is too tight. If you’ve had a vaginal birth, did you tear or have an episiotomy? Then you probably have scar tissue built up that doesn’t want to move.

Your pelvic floor actually needs to lengthen to help absorb changes in intra abdominal pressure (sneezing, laughing, coughing, running, jumping, etc). If it doesn’t….that pressure squeezes your bladder, and we were blessed with a plumbing system that has a direct line out in accordance with gravity, so you pee yourself. Your adductors (aka inner thigh muscles) as well as your obturator internus (fancy for small butt muscle at the base of the pelvis), directly connect to your pelvic floor muscles and therefore can influence pelvic floor mobility and strength. Got tight hips? That can cause pelvic floor dysfunction. If you have a tight hamstring, we foam roll and then stretch it. If you have tight shoulders and neck muscles, and I told you to do shoulder shrugs to relieve that tension you would look at me like I’m crazy. Same concept applies for the pelvic floor. A Kegel is a conscious contraction of the pelvic floor muscles. If your pelvic floor is tight, then you are just making a tight muscle tighter. Kegels have their purpose, and can be productive, but they are not the miracle exercise cure all that we’ve been force fed. I’m not quite sure how we got to the understanding that Kegels help prevent and/or cure pelvic organ prolapse. Last I checked, my uterus and my bladder aren’t propped up by my pelvic floor. Sure, if my pelvic floor is so tight that I could make a diamond in there, then nothing is going to actually fall out. But, that doesn’t stop my pelvic organs from drooping or falling into the pelvic floor. We can, however, re-train the neuromuscular system around those tissues to support them and “pull” them back into place. How? Through intentional, integrated exercise and breath work. How do we know? We’ve done it.

Women have come to Gymnazo looking for hope and answers to their problems that doctors seem to brush off as “normal, just deal with it”. We’ve helped women avoid surgery, get back to jumping and running, and not have to cross their legs and hold their breath every time they sneeze. We’ve helped women eliminate chronic and debilitating back pain, have sex AND orgasms again! We’ve helped women reclaim their bodies. We did it without doing one freaking kegel, too. Your pelvic floor is a complex muscle group that is part of an integrated, subconscious neuromuscular system, and it has to be treated as such. If you’re fed up with Kegels, and haven’t gotten results please give us a call and look into our Female Core Conversion Class. It’s designed for any woman, at any stage of life, regardless of whether you had kids last year or 40 years ago, or never had kids and are just experiencing the joys of menopause.

Do you suffer from PCNS dysfunction? Take our quiz to evaluate your risk.

For more information on our class please visit our website https://www.gymnazo.com/female-pelvic-core/

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I had the honor last month to address this year’s Leadership SLO group for Health & Human Services day. (Sidenote: If you don’t already know about Leadership SLO, I encourage you to look into it. Both Paden and I have been a part of this annual 10 month program that is devoted to educating leaders on key sectors of our county.) I was asked to represent the Health and Wellness services. What do you say to a group of leaders about the state of health in our county? 

After much thought I decided to discuss the history of fitness and the future of movement. If you look at how fitness has emerged through humanity, it’s quite interesting. Here’s my digested timeline: 

History of Fitness

• Fitness for survival: Humans moved in caveman days to literally run from predators and or hunt prey. While not structured as “fitness” these early humans stayed in functional shape because they had to to live. 
• Fitness for war: Once man simulated into communities, the need to protect themselves from aggressors emerged and thus fitness was required for community survival and growth. 
• Fitness for sport: We’re all familiar with the Ancient Greeks who invented the Olympics, a sporting event the competitors would train for in order to compete for honor and glory. 
• Fitness for leisure: Soon enough fitness was something only the wealthy could afford because they had the time and money to fence, practice riding, box, etc. It wasn’t something the lower classes had much access to. 
• Fitness for body building and physique: Finally we get to the 19th-20th century and we start to see physical education through calisthenics and traditional gymnastics programs enter formal education. From there we see figure heads like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jane Fonda popularize the concept that we can train to achieve certain desirable results with our figures. Welcome to “fitness” as we grew up with it. 

Emerging Importance of Movement 

I believe we are in an age where fitness is more than perfecting our bodies look, that it’s for combating the effects of our increasingly inactive lifestyles. With the rise of white collar jobs and the increased efficiencies of technology and innovation we are able to achieve more with less movement. This is fantastic on one front, but a losing battle on the side of human health. 

Our bodies are not designed to be sedentary for a prolonged amount of time (aside from sleeping). Think about how long we as a culture train our bodies to sit for extended periods of time, upwards of 4-6 hours at a time. Gravity is waging war on our bodies and we are “too busy” to combat it effectively. 

I believe the importance of moving is at an all time high. We need to move, train and carve out time to give our bodies the gift of movement to thrive in our inactive world. 

Future of Movement

I believe that in the name of increased productivity and therefore increased convenience, that we are witnessing a time in humanity when health is harder to achieve. Nutrition marketing clouds the reality of where to get the best fuel for your body. Fitness is not evolving fast enough to meet the needs of functional movement for our current lifestyles. And society is increasingly normalizing unhealthy behaviors to where the public is caring less and less about striving for a high level of health. We are willing to compromise on our health standards because it’s too inconvenient. 

It’s a bleak picture. But writing this only inspires me to combat this and be one of the forerunners to bring to market a brand of “fitness” that is really more about movement and health. 

If you’re reading this, congratulations for being someone who is interested in quality health and wellness, even if it means sacrificing in some way to reach for a higher level of training and conditioning. You are leading the way and the hope of our society in valuing health. Thank you for joining us in the fight for movement and in not succumbing to standards of fitness that are mainly designed to improve physique without assisting the body in how it is also functionally used.

Thank you for trusting me and my team to help you thrive in this life, not just limp through it.

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Walking out of Fresno State with my Bachelor’s of Science in Kinesiology, I thought I was equipped with theories, case studies and techniques that would put me on path to a vibrant career of fixing what’s broken and enhancing what exists in any human body in front of me.
I get my first client. Guess what their goal was? To lose weight, get toned and increase flexibility. So I write my workout program, dotting every “i” and crossing every “t”. Low and behold, one week into my program I start to see flaws in my plan. For my client to build strength I needed to add extra load on their body but their joints couldn’t handle it and it caused pain. To be able to help them lose weight they needed to be able to run long enough to burn extra calories. But when they ran on the treadmill their knee hurt. When we worked on flexibility their low back would seize on them at home. It felt like I was constantly finding new problems and not getting closer to delivering results that my new client desired.

What I came to realize was that I was making the same mistake the entire fitness industry is guilty of making.

I assumed my new client was coming in at a 0 level (meaning everything is in balanced working order just not maximized) and wanting to build up performance to a level such as a 3 out of 5. All my education, tools and strategies were based on taking someone from a 0 to a 3 or a 3 to 5. But what I found out was most people do not come in at a 0. Some are at a -1 or even a -3; they have aches and pains that flare in certain planes of motion and under certain cases that don’t show up in normal day to day activity. It was becoming clear that I would continue to run into a training wall and therefore not build results as fast without knowing what my clients’ baseline or starting point was walking in the door.

Imagine being a dentist trying to reduce tooth pain without access to the x-ray? How much harder did that make their job? What is the likelihood of success the first time he or she drills into your teeth? I would hate to find out!
How well could a business leader solve a problem without the context of KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators)? How successful could a pilot be flying to a new destination without knowing the updated weather patterns of the area? You can see where I’m going with this.

Where I have landed in my career is that until we take a baseline, we cannot adequately meet our clients goals in their expected timeline with consistency. This is a problem I’ve been working to solve now for a long time.

In fact the entire evolution of the Gymnazo service suite was based on solving this problem. We started off with different levels of group training so our programming would match capabilities and pain thresholds. Then we evolved to Semi-Private and Exclusive training to take the time to identify the root of the issue and work proactively to neutralize any painful movements or limitations. Most currently, with the addition of G-Flow (yoga) and Melt/ Mold/ Move (foam rolling, cage stretching and stability training) our group service suite now offers entry level restorative training to every member.

But our team really got excited when we embraced a new movement assessment called 3D MAPS that gives us a consistent baseline for any athlete for any goal. In a twenty minute movement screen we can consistently identify pain, see limited range of motion and ascertain many mental insecurities of the athlete before us.

But knowledge without a plan and roadmap does not offer lasting results. So for the past six months the team and I have been working to take the movement screen results and create effective programs designed to bring athletes to a true baseline score of 0 and beyond. We are now set expectations on time, effort, and investment to help align expectations.

Our team is committed to taking the time to learn about each one of you because we know you evolve constantly. Just as Gymnazo has changed its services and capabilities, your body has evolved since joining our ranks. We want to commit ourselves to staying current with you.

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A couple days ago I had the privilege of leading an outdoor workout at the Lululemon Showroom in downtown SLO and had 24 athletes join to learn our classic “vacation workout”. We love a good workout in the gym, but one that’s outside in the sunshine was refreshing!

Of those who joined us was a valued member of Gymnazo who brought her husband with her. After the workout she came up to me and shared with me that she’d noticed her husband’s feet, while doing a transverse (rotational) plane lunge, would start shifting out of alignment. She said she knew exactly why that was happening, his hip’s were tight, likely from sitting too much during the day, and since his flexibility was so limited in his hips, his feet would were trying to compensate. She even started to suggest appropriate stretches for her husband to do. 

A good teacher knows he/she is successful when the student is empowered to apply the knowledge to themselves and others. It was a proud moment.

Not only was she on point, but I was pretty impressed that she had retained some of the specialized instruction we provide, and was able to not only see a movement limitations in another but understand why. 

You may not know that this year I am privileged to be a facilitator for the Gray Institute GIFT program. I’m responsible to lead, instruct and mentor 90 movement professionals (mainly physical therapists, osteopaths, occupational therapists and trainers). It’s a great responsibility and with it I am able to walk trained professionals through biomechanics and Applied Functional Science. Observing first hand how confusing movement professionals, coming out of their graduate programs and even with decades of experience, are when it comes to understanding how the body works in three dimensional bio-mechanical chain reactions.

But what our member (a professional not in the movement or medical industry) observed and understood is profound in the movement world. She knew more about movement dysfunction than a Kinesiology student coming out of college would. That’s pretty powerful. 

At Gymnazo we pride ourselves in the fact that above being truly uplifting encouragers of our members, we seek to be effective educators. We are geeks, you already know that. But we seek to have you join our ranks in the ability to understand your body and have solutions readily available to aide you inside and outside of our facility. 

Stories like this uplift my spirit because it shows that when you truly understand the way our bodies were designed to move and why, you can simplify the body in ways that make your knowledge accessible for others. 

So my hope in reading this is that you feel encouraged that you truly are learning complex concepts and for anyone who is adept at anticipating their modifications, you are far ahead of the game! I also hope you continue to stay curious, stay learning and always evolving. 

One of our core values is to always innovate and evolve. We seek to take you with us into that journey that together we may be stronger and better with each workout.

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DEFINING TRUE FUNCTIONAL TRAINING

Applied functional science may sound confusing, however, simply put it applies three types of scientific principles to individuals in order to create and maximize human function. These three truths, or field of facts, are: physical sciences, behavior sciences, and biological sciences. But what does that mean…

It means that we design each workout or movement with these three areas of knowledge in mind, so that your movements have purpose. Functional movement is driven by these three principles in order to enhance your life:

– The physical science aspect includes important concepts such as chemistry, our immediate environment, and especially physics: ie. gravity, ground reaction forces, mass/momentum laws etc. These facts are necessary knowledge in order to know how the body reacts to the physical boundaries of earth. The best example is the concept of gravity. Resisting gravity’s pull is something we each have to battle all day. For this reason, at Gymnazo we train in situations contrary to traditional methods. Where most training tells you to explode against gravity, in fact the deceleration of gravity is more important than the acceleration against it.

– Behavioral sciences consist of social and cognitive sciences. There are certain ways humans respond and behave that are crucial to understanding why humans function the way we do. It is important to know the desires and drivers, both positive (such as success) and negative (such as pain, fear, and/or guilt). These innate drivers enable us to build upon our successes and fight against our failures.

– Biological sciences are our most important area of knowledge. This concept consists of anatomy, physiology, human biomechanics, and neurology. In order to be able to enhance the body’s function, we must know, in detail, how each muscle works in all three planes of motion; and how each interacts with its surrounding joints, nerve endings, and neurological pathways to the brain.

Our job as coaches is to take these facts, transform them into strategies, and then create techniques to enhance your workout and your life. Studying the behavioral sciences allows us to effectively motivate, and know how to best read individuals and understand what drives them. The physical and biological principles allow us to strategically design programs that will increase optimal function, benefit your fitness, and help you live a more pain-free life.

The knowledge within these three main sciences are well known principles. Applied Functional Science takes these known facts and applies them to members and clients in order to uniquely benefit each individual’s life.

To learn more about the founders of Applied Functional Science, check out The Gray Institute.

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PROBABLE CAUSES

Plantar Fasciitis involves pain and inflammation of a thick band of tissue, called the plantar fascia, that runs across the bottom of the foot connecting the calcaneus, or heel bone, to the toes. This pain occurs when the foot has not fully resupinated (one of the actions required for a normal gait pattern) and the midtarsal joint (in the arch of the foot) does not “lock-up” or become sturdy. In normal gait, the foot will lock-up as the heel lifts and the foot starts to leave the ground. However, when experiencing plantar fascial pain, this does not happen correctly.

There are several reasons why this may be happening. One possible cause is that there is an abnormality in the structure of the foot, disrupting the midtarsal joint and thus gait. If foot structure is the cause, shoe orthotics are often helpful.

A more common second reason could be tightness in the tissues around the ankle, specifically the achilles tendon or the gastrocnemius and soleus (calf muscles). Tightness in these posterior tissues would limit the amount of dorsiflexion (flexion of the foot in an upward direction) at the ankle joint.

Lastly, it is also possible that the external hip rotators (muscles that externally rotate the hip and femur) are not functioning properly. These muscles help decelerate each step, and the femur must externally rotate in order to lock up the midtarsal joint. If the function of the external hip rotators in the transverse plane is limited, then the foot does not stabilize properly. This can cause the foot to remain on the ground for too long during gait, causing inflammation of the plantar fascia.

So how can you use this information to help with your plantar fascia pain? Try stretching out the calf muscles and posterior tissues of the ankle as well as strengthening and increasing the function of your external hip rotators!

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