04 | Gayle Hulme, Pelvic Health Physio

“Women feel like it’s their cross to bear. That is not at all what we should be settling for.”

In this episode I speak with Gayle Hulme, a Calgary-based pelvic health physiotherapist. As you’ll hear in the podcast, Gayle is very passionate about women’s health and it was a real pleasure to have her on the show. I learned so much from this interview and I encourage all women, whether or not you currently have pelvic health problems, to listen to it.

Here are some of the key things we discussed:

1:20 Gayle and I reconnect after 20 years

5:10 How Gayle started working in as a pelvic health physiotherapist

6:10 What pelvic organ prolapse is and who has to be concerned about it

“Women are pretty robust. This isn’t a fault. It’s about recognizing some of the risk factors and the do’s and don’ts that help ward against having something like this happen in the future.”

8:50 Risk factors for pelvic organ prolapse include:

genetics
chronic constipation or cough
obesity
hypermobility syndrome
repetitive high impact activities
pregnancy

12:05 Whether certain training styles put us at more risk

“It’s not necessarily about the type of exercise but how can that person manage the increased pressure and strain.”

16:30 How long Gayle recommends waiting after birth before high impact/intense training

“Four weeks is not enough time because what we know in tissue healing is that we need a solid 12 weeks to see the changes happen. It’s no small feat to give birth – this is a major event on the body. Walking and some light resistance training that is progressive is a good protocol. Lots of rest and taking care of yourself in those first few months is important.”

19:25 Other times and stages of life when you should consider your pelvic health, including how menopause affects tissues.

22:30 It’s not all about the kegel… but sometimes it’s okay to kegel.

“It’s all about balancing. Does every single woman need to kegel? Not necessarily.”

24:00 How to strengthen and engage your pelvic floor muscles when training

29:00 Listener Question: How do I know that I’m doing kegels right?

32:30 There’s plenty of things we can do including:

kGoal and Elvie (interactive trainings system for pelvic floor exercises, including device and phone app)
Bwom (free app for kegels and hypopressive exercises)
the hypopressive breathing technique
pessaries