How to Train Females: Getting Rid of “Mom Butt”
Michael Hughes
So you know the phrase junk in the trunk? You know, you got a nicer rent. Nice but filling out the jeans in the in the backside there. Well, what if you don’t have any junk in your trunk? or know someone that really has a tough time keeping those pants on the wayside? Because there’s nothing back there. It’s flat. Well, I’m talking with Coach Kaleen. Today, a female core movement specialist, who knows how to put the junk back in the trunk, especially for a lot of moms who have this amazing gift of life called kids. But want to pick it back up on the back end side. Want to bring it back? And is it actually interesting conversation. Because the biology and the physiology and the physics of it is solvable, it’s really there, just understanding what it needs. So get ready to dive in to the junk in the trunk with the cleaner, and Michael. Welcome to the Gymnazo podcast where you get to peek behind the curtains of what it takes to create and run a seven figure fitness facility that ranks in the top 5% of boutique fitness studios for revenue. But to be honest, that’s the least important thing about us. Founded by me, Michael Hughes, Gymnazo has created an ecosystem of surfaces that blend performance with restoration techniques, and attracts top coaches to its facility hosted by its owners, Paden and myself and our top coaches, this podcast shares our best practices on everything, from how to build a sustainable fitness business, to how to program for maximum results to how to build a hybrid training module that’s online and in person. We have marketing secrets, movement, innovation, and breaking down trends in the industry. If you’re a fitness professional or fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results. Alright, Kaleena I get to hang out with you and talk about a topic honestly, that I shouldn’t be speaking on. So I’m so glad that you’re here. But this is a topic that I think we really need to know about as the training community because it’s not. It’s it sounds kind of fun, but it’s, it’s a real deal. Yeah. And it affects not just the physique of somebody but also how they function and so much more excited to you to get into. So the topic is Mamba.
Kaleena
Yeah.
Michael Hughes
But what is that
Kaleena
Mamba is simply that women referred to after they have kids that they just get whether it’s from lack of activity or just not working out anymore. age but they just think after I have kids, I just my butt disappears. It’s not what used to be. And it’s just flat the the kind of the weird fashion trend right now is the mom jeans hear about these mom jeans seriously came out of nowhere. Yeah, but like when you think back at least for me, like our generation like mom jeans, they’re not sexy. They’re not cute. Like they’re the super high waisted and cinched up super high so they don’t fall off because Mamba is like, man, we go low back straight to hamstrings. It is just a it’s flat as board. It’s a cliff Pants Fall Off. Just like nobody wants that. We’ve never had anybody come into the gym. It’s like you know what, I really want a flat but I want just something just my pants won’t stay up. It’s just you know, that’s I want that Look, nobody would nobody wants that. So, mom, but is the post partum glute deactivation, we just have no muscles back there essentially.
Michael Hughes
Got it. That’s not just for moms. Obviously. This is a an old man but as I’ve heard been called before horridly
Kaleena
I think old man but and you think of grandpa and his walker? Same thing. He’s like, hips are tucked underneath him. And he just same thing. No, but you’re like what happened? Like you could see their sag in his back pockets. Like, where did it go? It’s just deflated. And this it’s yeah, it’s it’s a very common thing. But a lot of it’s just from not not doing the work, not not putting in the work back there.
Michael Hughes
So how does how does someone really get this? Four of words
Kaleena
specifically talking about women for these mom butts a lot of things change as we go through pregnancy as we go through menopause and you go through different phases of life in which we’re either not using those muscles or they just kind of literally have heard it called doormat, but syndrome as the nice way of putting it. But for women, when you get into that third trimester of pregnancy happens is those hips get that big anterior tilt as you’re starting to prepare for labor and delivery rotate forward. Yep, they rotate forward, we get a little bit wider set. And we tend to go into external rotation of the of the femur got it, right, the hips go down. So they kind of walk like a duck. Yep, we want all we want. We’re just trying to get from place A to B, right? We’re just trying to be comfortable but extra 25 30 pounds. minimum minimum 35 pounds, just had a woman tell me that she put on 100 pounds that she carried her first baby. Yeah, it’s a lot. And it’s all front. Most of it’s all front loaded. Right. So
Michael Hughes
it’s, the changes are great. It’s like a weight vest but it’s a it’s a belly vest. Yeah.
Kaleena
that you didn’t want to wear actually, he didn’t want that much, you know. So with those, you know, we tend to go that anterior tilt, we tend to go externally rotated. And if you actually put your hands on your butt standing up and you went into that position, you would feel your glutes shorten, essentially, right? They kind of closed down, because when the pelvis goes, and with hips go, those glute muscles just shorten. So and you could also think third trimester, you’re probably not working out as much, probably not loading those hips, you’re not going through as many lunges or squats, some women is just really uncomfortable at that point in time. And we just kind of we go inactive, there’s nothing wrong with that you’re doing an incredible thing by creating life. And you’re just worried about, you know, getting from place A to place B comfortably and just worried about what’s the next step for me. Right tire someone don’t do this. And if someone
Michael Hughes
has been working out, right, and there’s a habit, they go into this inactive state, it’s not just like, they’re very aware. Yeah. Imagine they’re very aware of the changes that’s going on. Oh, yeah. And it’s not a physical thing. Yes, it is a physical thing we’re talking about. But yeah, it is. Far beyond that.
Kaleena
Yeah. And I mean, it goes to energy levels, like, you just don’t want to do it, right, you’re tired. So we get that, and you just tend to be more inactive, you sit down, which same thing, when you sit down even like you think most guys sit down, right, that’s the leg spread, you’re just you’re going to still external rotation, you gotta you gotta have enough room for everybody. Right. But that’s how women will sit because it’s the most comfortable at that point in time. And when you sit down, if you got 100 extra pounds on your front, you know, it’s not, your legs aren’t going to be criss crossed applesauce, there’s not going to be anywhere for the legs to be just sitting in that position. So your glutes, essentially, they do go dormant because they just shorten they never get into this lengthen state. And we know that the glutes lengthen most with internal rotation of the hip of the hip joint. So towing in the foot, right? Loading that hip will give you that interpretation will give you that big beautiful load of the glute tissue,
Michael Hughes
right. So just for everyone listening here, like we’re calling this, she’s extremely smart. She knows how the fibers work. But the glute fibers, the way they they run is left to right. Predominantly, they definitely run up and down, but strongly left to right, which is what we call the rotational plane. And the way that the femur leg works in combination with a foot, the more you can spin that sucker, meaning the foot spins in open space or closed down and hip spins on the leg, the more you get that glute right up to work and to fire up. Yeah, so when it stays in one position, you don’t get the other position. So you basically get this. Well, non active non activation, excuse me, and with non activation of muscles, you either use it or you
Kaleena
may lose it and use it. That’s right. So even postpartum, we’re just gonna sit more here, right? You’re recovering from labor and delivery, you’re exhausted from lack of sleep, you spend more time breastfeeding, you’re just inactive. So we just don’t You don’t use those muscles and you lose it you lose that ability, that proprioception, that ability to just load those tissues just kind of forget how to do it. And then for women, if you think, you know, if you have two kids back to back, if you go real quick turnaround and you joke, and you don’t get that recovery time to actually get back into team and and build upon that you’re just doubling down on that inactivity and that layer of fuzz, you know, we talked about the fuzz that we build, even when we sleep, if you don’t know this, your your tissues can go that buzz when we sleep and it’s kind of this it’s it’s literally a fuzz, but we but when we stretch in the morning, kind of just you know, you couldn’t you’re open on up, you’re you’re melting that buzz, but there’s like nobody wakes up in the morning, like squeeze my butt. Like, that’s not a place where you’re going to feel that stiffness in the backside. Typically, we feel that stiffness, maybe in the low back, or the chest or the shoulders result is you know, it’s not my glutes, so you just get you grow that fuzz in your glutes, and in that posterior chain and back to back babies. Lots of inactivity. I mean, some women go like three, four years without before they get back into normal exercise routine because they’re having kids and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s just you know, just this awareness and then all of a sudden, flash forward. Where’s my ass?
Michael Hughes
Right? Yeah, and not only that, like there’s pain for that, like even me being a dad, there was pain. Yeah, I mean, physical pain, carrying you carrying a sweet little one that you literally adore for hours on end, during the middle of the night is challenging. And I’m not trying to take away from anything from what from what a woman does, but it’s certainly I need if I had some challenges.
Kaleena
Yeah, no, no dads are gonna experience the same thing. They’re going to be less less active because they’re spending more time with the kids more downtime with mom even. I mean, we hear dads gain sympathy weight, you know, that’s, that’s a real thing. Or they do that they can be just as inactive. Someone else has to eat that. I had a buddy who said he went to an appointment with his wife and he jumped on the scale and he screamed and his wife was like, what’s wrong? And he couldn’t believe the number that was on the scale because he’s like, she stopped working out and so did I and I just I can’t, I can’t even what she didn’t need me. Like, all of a sudden, I’m 25 pounds heavier. But uh, but like dad, you know, dads gain it too. It’s just that you know, you don’t use it, you lose it.
Michael Hughes
It’s true. That’s true. So I like to think about it is this everybody’s case does every mom experiences is it like up sorry, that’s what’s gonna happen. No is independent,
Kaleena
totally independent. Some women feel really great and can stay active and train and exercise even if it’s you know, just walking sometimes that just keep the body moving, keep those muscles firing, you might be predisposition to shortened glutes or that external rotation, just from your day to day life, it can be a structural thing, or just a behavioral thing. You know, I call it the soccer player walk, we kind of like to drag our heels and have this little swag. And you know, you just it’s the lazy athlete walk. And that’s, that’s something that you know, same thing, you’re an external rotation, dragging your heels out, and you get that same short and glute. And you just don’t get as much loading as you possibly can know what I definitely have seen with women who have trained with us, they’ve trained 3d for months or years, and then got pregnant, and then came back afterwards, they definitely did not experience that kind of mom. But because their hips were constantly stating loaded in 3d. So their glutes are constantly getting that 3d loading. And they’re not missing out, even if it’s just some mobility. And they don’t have to do no mass loads. They don’t have to squat or lunge with heavy loads, they can just do bodyweight. Yeah, just using it. And making sure that those tissues have that capability. They keep everything moving and grooving a whole lot better definitely see reduced muscle activation, or deactivation, I should say, right, and less pain, overall, less discomfort, the body for women who are pregnant and even postpartum, they’re going through so many hormonal and physiological changes that they can’t keep up, your body can’t keep up with what’s going on. But if you keep doing little bits at a time, it allows that body to essentially develop new protein receptors and understand hey, this is how we can keep moving to stay healthy and to keep your hips work and your butt work in the way that it should.
Michael Hughes
So I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna swing this back a little bit, what are you doing?
Kaleena
So for those you listening in, I’m currently a 20 weeks pregnant right now, very excited. This is my first. And I’ve been working in coaching women last three years specializing in pelvic core training. So this is cool for me to actually get some firsthand experience now. And I am trying to do as much as I have been doing or can continue to do, certainly my energy levels are not what they used to be. And that I just have to mentally just say, Okay, it’s all good. But still knowing that
Michael Hughes
it is all good. But yeah, going from A to B. Yeah, knowing that you still have to go to see,
Kaleena
yeah, I’m only halfway there. And I know that my body is going through a lot of changes, and I can feel it physically. But trying to just be mindful, Hey, I gotta do this in 3d. I know physiologically, what’s happening and biologically, what’s happening and what I need to do to make sure that I’m not going to get knee pain or back pain or sciatic pain. So but moving and keeping that posterior chain well loaded, whether it’s squats, or lunges, and not heavy loads, even if it’s bodyweight, just trying to maintain some semblance of athleticism. And 3d training is helping a lot.
Michael Hughes
So what moves, what exercises would you do? Honestly, let’s go, let’s fast forward another 10 weeks, okay, you’re 30 weeks and still got a little bit more to go? What are you going to be doing?
Kaleena
I’m going to be working on my hip, most stability, what we call most,
Michael Hughes
what’s that mean?
Kaleena
It’s a mobility and stability combined. We’re not going heavy load, but I want my body to have as much range of motion as I can with as much stability as I can.
Michael Hughes
So I mean, it’s like getting a deep squat, deep squat into a lung yet or making a full exercise path. In a sense, you got it. Because the further you go into it, the more flexibility you need. Yeah, and the more you have to come out of it, the more strength you need. Exactly.
Kaleena
Yeah. So I’m looking at our 3d lunges, going through all three planes, sagittal plane, frontal plane, transverse plane, especially because I know I’m gonna get the most benefits, whether it’s from the joint or the tissue, and the transverse plane from my hips for my glutes, specifically, and adductors. And doctors are something that we tend to forget about. But those actually, they connect your pelvic floor to your glutes, so determine your glute muscles and those influence your pelvic floor mobility and stability. So as you get ready for labor and delivery, everybody wants strong pelvic floor and immobile pelvic floor at that point in time.
Michael Hughes
It’s kind of like getting ready for the Super Bowl, which we just had, right? You don’t just show up
Kaleena
yeah. There’s a little bit more blood and guts in the Super Bowl. This is I’m gonna give him I’m gonna give ladies little bit more credit here, but by all means, you do get to go home with some semblance of a trophy bed. afterwards, everybody comes out of winter. But yeah, so continuing to train that mobility, that stability, important, important important, I emphasize that ability to load through three planes, making sure the pelvis continues to move in three planes, not just going through the motion, but making sure that hip can actually go through an anterior posterior tilt, a lateral tilt and a rotation to make sure that it’s not, you know, it’s not always just the muscle and to keep the joints moving to.
Michael Hughes
So again, just put it practically speaking, what our warmup be that answer if someone knew nothing, they could literally just do the lunges, on a, let’s say, three times a week basis.
Kaleena
Absolutely. They just do our lunge, warm up our squat warm up, even our core warm up is going to help in some shape or form. You know, we forget that your core plays a big role in labor and delivery and pregnancy, it goes through a lot of changes, like your, your core muscles, just they stop working because they’re living on your sides. They just like they’re just living there.
Michael Hughes
So if someone similar sounds like Well, yeah, I don’t have the book that I used to have. Two amazing kids deep. Yeah. And I want to get back into how do I even know if my bullets working or not?
Kaleena
Oh, that’s a good question. Your butt’s gonna work. It works, it just might not work at the highest capacity that you want it to. So you can test it with what we call our common lunge matrix as a great way that I like to see how the glute loads and how that works. What’s your range of motion look like? For trainers look at their knee, look at their need, or do you have chronic knee pain? I’ve found with a lot of our case studies, too, that women, particularly women, if their glutes Do not load well, and they don’t work well, they have chronic knee pain, because someone is making up for that either lack of mobility or stability. And if it’s the hip can’t do it in the first place it trickles to is typically the knee for me.
Michael Hughes
So this is not just says simply standing up flexing your butt muscles, like oh, I can flex them. They work. It’s like
Kaleena
that is actually I have I we can talk about the butt cheek flex if we don’t mind teeing off for a minute here. So we’ve been talking about the oh man, okay, for as long as we can remember. All right at the top of your squat here, ladies, squeeze your butt cheeks, right? Just squeezing as hard as you possibly can. And for whatever reason, we’re all like, Yeah, do it. It’s it’s this mental thing. Because it was like, Oh, I can feel my butt work when I squeeze my glutes. Because we just talked about your glutes don’t work with tension squeezing. Like, that’s not how your butt loads. And from a functional fitness. Exactly. It’s the exact opposite. From a functional fitness standpoint, this one always gets laughing like, when do you ever need to squeeze your butt cheeks together in any moment in time? Like I always say, like, emergency situation in public when you’re like, please don’t let this happen right now, times. But other than that, like in my day to day, I’m not going on Excuse me, but right here, it’s going to help me, you know,
Michael Hughes
hanging out by the bar. Yeah.
Kaleena
It’s just not going to help you. So it can actually do more harm than good. We feel it. So it’s this kind of behavioral, like, Yes, I feel my glutes working. But it’s counterintuitive to how we want the glutes to actually load and lengthen. Right? You want that route that beautiful round. But like athletes, athletes have great butts that play multi dimensional sports because they constantly are changing direction, their glutes constantly have to load in different ways, and your glute max and your glute, minimus and medius. They work differently. Like there’s different ways to better load those particular portions of the
Michael Hughes
summer sideways, some more rotational,
Kaleena
more format. Exactly. So you have to do that, that 3d bit of loading that so squeezing your butt cheeks is not going to be a functional way to make sure that your glutes are working,
Michael Hughes
but cleaner. I feel like it’s fun.
Kaleena
But it isn’t the like, has anybody ever asked you like squeeze your biceps at the top of a bicep curl?
Michael Hughes
No, nothing. Not that I’ve ever done. I’ve done a lot of bodybuilding prior to this job. No,
Kaleena
yeah. So it’s why is that the only place that we’re asked to clench or like flex and hold tension when biomechanically, physiologically it doesn’t do anything really for us. Fair enough. I mean, you can squeeze your biceps and you’re gonna be like, Yeah, my biceps are working. But that’s all you’re doing is just flexing. Yeah.
Michael Hughes
Well say you’re tearing more muscle fibers are getting more growth. Are you saying? I mean, that’s certainly a truth. Yeah. But maybe not a truth that really matters.
Kaleena
I’d say there are better ways to do that. Like how you said that certainly better. I see that for Navy driven FCC. Yeah. So the question is, how do you get rid of it? Yeah. How do we get rid of mom but how do you start re utilize utilizing those grip glutes and turning those muscles back on because
Michael Hughes
it can’t be just as simple as Oh, go to some bridges. Go do some squats because it doesn’t just work like that. proprioceptively you mentioned
Kaleena
Perfect. So proprioceptors, if you don’t know what purpose of design, the way that I like to put it is athlete muscle memory. So you have all these proprioceptors turned on in your right arm, if you’re a thrower, right, you can throw with your left arm, it’s just not pretty. And it’s just because we don’t have as many proper receptors turned on in the left arm as we do our right arm, you can get it better as you work on a train on it. So if you have this mom, but all of those proprioceptors, in your glutes are probably turned off, or they’re not established yet. So we have to figure out how to get that light bulb turn back on, because all the pathways are there, all this neurological pathway for those proprioceptive to work are there. They just kind of forget how to do that. So we have to figure out how to get that light switch to turn on from the brain to the glutes, right? And
Michael Hughes
squeezing the butt is not the best answer. No. Make sure point of that. So not
Kaleena
to go. It’s not the best answer. But But
Michael Hughes
what about today, what’s okay?
Kaleena
If you’ve ever used those, some people call monster bands, they’re those resistance bands, you can throw them around your ankles, you can throw them around your legs, and everybody says, oh my gosh, my butt burns so bad. And I use it. That is because you’re actually having to push out against that band to hold that tension create that tension, that proprioceptively is going to turn on your glutes because you’re trying to go through a reduction through that, right sideways motion. Yeah, that lateral motion trying to go through that a reduction and that resistance, your glute muscles have to work in order for you to get that a reduction did knees to the hips. So we use a ball and band system in our female court conversion class specifically to help facilitate that proprioceptive turn on for women who have not done exercise in years or maybe just have never done 3d exercise. That is such a great way. I mean, we have you push against that band, do some some lateral squat walks, just even some loaded squats, and all of a sudden people are like, Oh my gosh, I haven’t felt this in years. Because even functionally, like you don’t ever have to push out against anything from that, like you need like, not Yeah, from our legs, like if you think okay, I’m gonna, I’m not gonna push the door open for my knee, oh, and open it up to but that is going to get those glute muscles to turn on, they’re going to wake up. Same thing for that squeezing the pelvic floor Pro is the tool that we use in our female court conversion class. And it’s this elastic band and ball system, where the ball is kind of centered in a matrix and velcro around the strap that goes around the legs and kind of sits right above the knees. So we use that that facilitates a B and A D duction. We squeezed the ball and push gets the band and we use that with different combinations of squats, lunges, reaches breathwork bridges, planks, you know the whole kit and caboodle to really get the whole not just the glutes, but the pelvic core.
Michael Hughes
Yeah. So what I’m hearing is that we got had built is tension. Yes. It’s literally having that Ted like a rubber band is a perfect example. bourbons under tension. That’s what a muscle does. Yeah, it doesn’t just stay in locked state like a flex. has to go through that. Pulling rubber band back. And what happens when you pull the rubber band back? You have to let it go. Boom. That’s the fire. Yeah,
Kaleena
got it. Yeah. Creating, recreating and establishing that tension on all three planes that gets the glutes going,
Michael Hughes
God so if I’m, you know, I like to do this. I’m holding rubberband in my hand between two fingers and I pull it apart. That central plane. Yes. Move one finger left with a finger right? That’s frontal plane. Then I twist right? Yeah, like wringing out a towel. Yep, that’s the transverse plane. Yep.
Kaleena
So you can do one you can do you can do any one of those three loading in the sagittal plane frontal plane, transverse plane. You can couple you can load in two planes you can invest load in all three planes too little troubling there and get it getting that sounds like a mushroom yeah 3d That load and man you get some you get some killer results.
Michael Hughes
Okay, results so the FCC female court court conversion you know if you have mom but do you probably have something else going on? Or is like now those are kind of two separate things or the likelihood is if your posterior chain glutes are not working, then I can infer XYZ
Kaleena
I would say you’re more likely to have dysfunction than not maybe 75 25 usually again if it if the glutes aren’t working and you have you have some mom but I would not be surprised to see either low back pain and or knee pain or any Yeah, or thoracic spine pain some upper or some upper mid back pain some sort of back or knee dysfunction would be I would say common to go along with that mom but or dormant but syndrome. But it’s not uncommon just because you think about those like those are huge muscles. The hips are the most powerful part of the body and we’re talking about not using a good chunk of those muscles. So how do you get through your day to day with even just like sitting down picking up your kids, you know, now, somebody else has to make up that work, right? If the butt’s not working, the glutes aren’t loading somebody else is gonna have to make up that load capability. Maybe it’s the hamstrings, maybe it’s the back. And that’s, I mean, that’s not going to go well, eventually, you know, it’s just more time under stress for those tissues that shouldn’t be doing that work. Everyone’s got a job to do. Right.
Michael Hughes
Like the people are gonna keep moving human body’s gonna keep going. Yeah, but it’s just gonna take a player off the field. Yeah. And what’s gonna happen to that team? Yeah.
Kaleena
Playing demand down. It’s a lot. It’s a lot harder to play with your man down,
Michael Hughes
right? Or female down? Yeah. Or blue down. Conclude. Yeah, exactly. What is FCC? To you? Like, why is this important thing? Why is it passionate for if you could describe to somebody,
Kaleena
it’s, it’s like, it’s my business baby. Put it that way. This is my business, baby. Um, I mean, painting painting was painted was the whole inspiration for FCC after after baby girl. My wife, everybody. Yeah, our amazing CEO and co founder. She had all of this dysfunction, all of this pain, all this discomfort, this inability to just live life the way she wanted to. And she had always been active. Like she was somebody who played soccer who did workouts and then after a kid, she was like, What the heck is going on here? I think she was out for like a month, right? Like, yeah, like not doing anything for a month.
Michael Hughes
And the crazy thing is, and you know, you can go into this whole whole whole topic because there’s there wasn’t much available information. It was there just wasn’t like readily available, even from the training world. Like I knew something was there. Yeah. But it wasn’t obviously it wasn’t my body. So what did I do as a typical male? Just say, hey, Wolf, we’ll figure it out a little more now. But you know, it was that Yeah. So
Kaleena
please, so we went and got help from amazing pelvic floor exercise specialist. And she’s a physical therapist, pelvic floor, physical therapist, and she came out and trained us on the female chain reaction, what happens from the ground up what happens through pregnancy, labor and delivery and said, we can help women and we love helping people anyway through fitness and exercise. And I was thinking I was the only female on the staff. So I was like, Well, do you want to take this? I was like, Sure. Yes. So and it has turned out beautifully. And I’m so glad that I did, because we’ve been able to help hundreds of women overcome dysfunctions that they didn’t know that they were capable of getting rid of incontinence prolapse. diathesis, back pain, knee pain, hip pain, I mean, you name it, we’ve seen it, and we’ve been able to help women get out of it.
Michael Hughes
And the fancy thing is like, I’ve been a trainer for going on 15. Gosh, more than that more than 15 years. And I’ve always heard clients always, especially female clients, like hey, can I do the speed ladder? I’m like, sure. Or I can do box jumps, candidates. I’m not sure. Why not. I just don’t like them. Yeah. Okay. And the questions and answers stopped there. Yeah, it was really an awakening. Yeah, this is something’s going on. Like what the heck, and even a lot of women saying really? That’s happens, or that’s what’s going on?
Kaleena
Yeah. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. A lot of people think like, this is just part of having kids and you’re just gonna have to suffer with this for life. Yeah, I started here six years ago. And I remember that the speed ladder, aka the bladder ladder, was what they called it and they’re like, just wait, just wait, you’ll see. And I was like, no passage. Yeah. And I was like, I’m gonna pass on that thank you like, Oh, definitely rather not have that happen. So we developed femur I developed female core conversion as a exercise class, a neuro muscular exercise class. So it’s not how hard can you work? It’s Can we turn on those proprioceptors? And can we get your pelvic core neuromuscular system to function the way it’s supposed to function? Yeah. So the pcns is not something that is super common knowledge that are that’s really out there. Typically, when we look at pelvic or any sort of labor and delivery problem, everyone thinks it’s the pelvic floor and they think Kegel is or the answer which they are not, because the pelvic floor is just one part of the equation. You have your core muscles, you have your low back and hip muscles and you have your respiratory diaphragm that make up the whole pcns.
Michael Hughes
Kegel is only really only go after one single group of muscles
Kaleena
in a kegel is again, it’s a conscious contraction of the pelvic floor. Which that’s not how that bad boy functions. That is a
Michael Hughes
you do not go around holding your pee all day long. No. Yes, you do not.
Kaleena
So yeah, if you don’t know what a kegel is, I actually had a girl asked me this, who she’s in her 20s And she’s like, what actually is a kegel? He goes if you were paying and you stopped midstream, that muscle action to stop midstream is a kegel so men can do them too. You guys can do them. But it’s uncomfortable. It’s not it’s not fun to try and do that. But that’s been the cure all end all for dysfunction. People just say do your heals, but you Do you keep doing? You know, it’s insanity, keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results
Michael Hughes
like doing a bicep curl. Thank you, you’re very fit for the rest of your body.
Kaleena
Totally, totally. So FCC has worked to take a whole body approach and a whole neuromuscular system approach to address and fix issues that women go through. And it doesn’t have to be just from labor delivery, we see plenty women who have never had kids who come in later in life because all of a sudden menopause happened and their hips change and their hormones influence how their tissues can load and function. And all of a sudden, they start seeing dysfunctions. And so they come in going, I need some answers. So yeah, I got I got one of those couple of those actually, right now I think about it. We do have some good case studies, chronic chronic knee pain, and they just, and they’re these sweet little ladies, and all of a sudden we throw those bands on. And man, I tell you what has a trainer. There’s nothing better when and they’re like, this sucks. This. This kills my butt. I hate doing this. And then two weeks later, like how your knees feel like, Oh, my knees don’t hurt anymore, like sweet. Because we just taught those glutes how to take that load off the knees. He said the knees. Knees should be a stable joint. Not a mobile joints. We can Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. Relatively speedy joints should not take load muscles should must. Exactly. Thank you. Yeah. So the knee shouldn’t be loading for the butt. So if we can reteach that, but how to load how to load Well, takes all the stress off the knee joint.
Michael Hughes
Work. Sure. Great case study of winning most complicated cases, like you’d like whoa, I’m so glad you’re here. Give me Give me some like that,
Kaleena
um, cash, one of our most shining ones. I had a woman come in at the end of December 2018. And her goal was to run a half marathon. She had gone undiagnosed for about eight years with severe rectal and vaginal prolapse prolapse is anytime your pelvic bowl organs collapse onto themselves, or another organ is about eight different types. Just as fun as it sounds, it’s pretty, pretty awful. A lot of women will describe it as a falling out sensation like something’s gonna fall out. And she’d gone undiagnosed for quite a bit. And the option that her doctors had given her was surgery to try and like lifts and fix it. And she said, I’m going to try and find another option for you for that to put in structure. Yep, the mesh. The mesh lift is a popular one that’s not very successful, doesn’t have high success rates works for some woman, but most women don’t see a whole lot of success or they need it replaced or fixed. 10 years later, imagine that’s like getting a C section. Actually, they might be able to do it laparoscopically. Now, they don’t have to cut through as much tissue, but it’s still invasive, it still affects the core. And now we’re talking about more dysfunction because you got now scar tissue going through your court. So her goal was to run the slow half marathon four months later, and she could not run down her driveway without completely soiling herself. She had to alter completely how she ran, she could have stopped running with friends because she just soiled herself. And it was both number one and number two. So her her route was about three miles around her house because that was all she was comfortable with. Because as soon as she was done, she had to go home and change or be able to use the restroom. So we did an eval, and she had been a lifelong runner, competitive runner. And I love working with athletes. So I was very emotionally connected to this because I could feel that I want to be able to do this and I very much connected with that and say I got it, we got to get her to be able to do this. And we got her on a custom program cousin program to be able to proprioceptively use her glutes and her adductors to give her mobility back through her lateral motion through her transverse plane motion. Got her core, her respiratory diaphragm working the way that they’re supposed to work with the pelvic floor through some intentional breath work, and then combined all that together. So we could do loading whether it’s squats or lunges, multi directional, with breath work, functional to running patterns. And she went from completely soiling herself to running a half marathon with zero leakage in form a whole thing whole thing. Wow. 000 leakage.
Michael Hughes
What do you guys Oh, that’s awesome.
Kaleena
It was pretty amazing. Because she had been told for a long time that it was just something that she was going to have to deal with.
Michael Hughes
Just by movement. Yeah, I mean, intense. Yeah, intentionally.
Kaleena
We didn’t move it therapy. I didn’t put any let you know a lot of people do. Some physical therapists will do internal work. That’s not me. Well, I’m not I’m not a pelvic floor physical therapist. I don’t put my hands inside anyone. But we did all external, you know, some soft tissue and FMR, some joint manipulation, just to kind of get the body working again and it worked well and we see the quote unquote moms but with runners sometimes because runners is a very sagittal plane In sports, they don’t get a lot of 3d loading and they’re not necessarily like you know they’re not sprinters like sprinters have those power like you see they got the this totally different muscle fibers long list of long distance yeah so we’re talking long distance runner and she kind of had that that runners flat booty and then get her loading in 3d All of a sudden she’s like, Hey, check this out. You know we got we got glutes that that load in that work and that propel now she’s feeling more powerful. And so she’s been an awesome success story as far as getting going from major dysfunction to no dysfunction, but it’s something that you have to keep up this is not necessarily a cure all end all. There’s some maintenance work involved.
Michael Hughes
Yeah, I think all fitness all movement, all nutrition, right? Even head cuts. Right. So got it. Yeah. I just thought of something. A trainer. That’s what you know, you’re a trainer, you’re a highly glorified trainer, and a lot of senses. But what if someone else wanted to do this? But would you say just some other trainer, male or female, you said, You know what, I want to do this. I got clients that I can help.
Kaleena
Oh, if you work with women, you need to understand this system. And you need to understand how to train women differently and how to proprioceptively and biomechanically help them. And there are so many great avenues for that I’m actually doing a mentorship right now with a girl who actually went through our amazing MDMC program. It’s our multi dimensional movement coach program, that so we take you through the hows whats and whys of what we do Gymnazo that makes us so different that separates us to be cut above the rest teaches you the soft skills and some of the hard skills for how to enhance your clients experience fixing not just their dysfunction, but in helping them move better and to live their best life. So you can do MDMC And that segues into a mentorship program with me did you FCC where we do we do case studies, I break down all the nitty gritty and give you the biological physiological adaptations that we do you get access to our female core conversion program literally just to Hey, this is it. This is you can just do this program and take these exercises and run with it. And you’re gonna see success with your clients.
Michael Hughes
We’re gonna do that. Sorry, I’m just assuming.
Kaleena
Hit us up on our website, we have that MDMC, that multi dimensional movement coach, we’re on Facebook gymnazo.edu on Instagram, you can reach out through any of those outlets. click like, subscribe, explore, come check out what we do. We have some brilliant educators on our staff that will go far and beyond what I what I’m even doing right here in addition to what I’m doing that will help you just enhance your game.
Michael Hughes
I appreciate that. Well, yeah, we’re definitely very passionate about movement, Fitness, Health, you name it, but we do things differently, right? Yeah, we definitely lift. We definitely do far out crazy movements. But it’s the combination of all those and I think that’s what makes athleticism and sport and fitness. So fun. Because it’s not just a treadmill. It’s not just a bike. It’s not just lifting weights, it’s everything. Alright, last time, I had a sweet, sweet, awesome meal, I kind of had a little bit everything that’s, you know, the buffet option? Oh, yeah, you know, not saying I’m not gonna just eat a steak one day, and that’s all they eat. But very few in frog, you know, they want the mashed potato. Exactly, you know? And dessert. Yeah, why not make a little greens in there too, just to kind of balance it out. Yeah. So kind of wrapping this up a little bit. What would you say? Like, oh, this whole thing is like, you’re gonna go through this. So you have your own personal like, you have your own goal. Like, I’m going to do this because I have the knowledge. How would someone learn about this? Who is maybe listen to this, or has a friend or etc. Like, what can they actually do about this? Let’s say that they have the resources to train virtually. So Right. So they can call us they can reach out to you know, they actually reach out to us to actually give virtual training. But if they want to do it on their own, like if you could give like three points. Five Points. Yeah. Like what could someone like Luke walk away from this podcast and say like, oh, sweet for the kickstart easy
Kaleena
to do, go get one of those resistance bands, go get one of those monster bands, the they have different different tensions that you can that you can utilize. Throw them to start, if you’ve never done it, throw it above the knee joint to start and just straight. Start with some squats. Start some squats. But you gotta you gotta know how to tweak your feet and we’re not talking just straight up and down. But mixing the foot positions that we call our little SFT foot positions, one foot staggered in front, toes out toes in wide narrow because that’s going to load your glutes differently. Our bodies get super accustomed to doing the same thing over and over again. If you want to really challenge your hips and really get your glutes to proprioceptively work as best as they can. You have to train them in 3d again. Everyone’s the athlete But you got to train like an athlete. So you got to mix it up. Being in a multi dimensional sport athlete like soccer, baseball, football, they’re constantly transitioning and having to load through the hips into redirections, you got to do the same thing with you personally, you know, if you want that look, you got to train the same way, get those monster bands, do some walks, there’s plenty of great like booty workout videos out there that you can try. Start with some bands, start with some squats, start with some walks with the bands. And just make sure you have tension. If you didn’t know this, it’s harder if you take them down to the ankles. So start at the knees, work it down lower and lower, that’ll get you a little bit more, it’s more intense, because you’ll get less help when the resistance is lower. So it requires more strength and stability from the rest of your muscle and joints
Michael Hughes
are like yeah, sweet. Anything else you want to share?
Kaleena
You always yeah, like I said, if you’re if you’ve hit a wall, if you’ve reached out to people and haven’t found results, always happy to take on more people. That’s the silver lining of 2020 is that I get to work with women who I’ve never met before in person that reached out, you know, contact us here Gymnazo set up an appointment, come see me I’m happy to do a little 10 minute consults, and see what we can do to help you our female core conversion class is completely virtual at this point in time. So you can always jump in and try out a class. Check out our website gymnazo.com. There’s some great information in our female pelvic core section and you can always follow me on instagram Kaleena.Ruskin.
Michael Hughes
Awesome. And here’s a really cool thing that I really love from one bucket to another, but is that you don’t have to live with a flat butt, you know, and I was told this joke a long time ago, and I hope this is a good end of the podcast. But I had this this one client tell me, Michael, when I’m dead, I want to be put facedown in my casket. I said why is that? Because the great looking but that I got I wanted to see that. I said let’s go to work.
Kaleena
Amazing.
Michael Hughes
Alright, Kaleena. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. That was fun. All right. Cheers. Hey all. I hope you guys enjoyed today’s episode. And if you did, please share it with your fitness obsessed friends and peers who are also navigating this world of fitness and trying to succeed the trends and misinformation. As you guys can see this podcast is basically a masterclass for trainers wanting to level up in their coaching skills, and their fitness business model. We launched this in 2020. Because you and your fitness tribe deserve to see an unfiltered look at all the aspects of what it takes to stand out as a next generation coach, and build a successful fitness business. So share it far and wide. And please, when you do do me a favor, take a screenshot of this screen and share it to your social media accounts and use the hashtag Gymnazo podcast that’s hashtag Gymnazo podcast that way we can see you and share your posts with our audience. And finally, when you’re ready to go to the next level as a coach, or in your business, and to reach more people, please go check out gymnazoedu.com. We have put together the best 90 Day coaching program on the market for trainers wanting to become a masterful practitioner and build a business that gives them the freedom and impact. So let us help you do just that. We have online training and one on one coaching to guide you through a full 90 Day certification. We even get you training our clients live because it’s always better to work out your kinks on someone else’s clients than yours. But we promise you this, your clients will be blown away by the transformation our program will help you make you’ll be masterful at a whole new level and part of an incredible community of coaches worldwide, taking their skills to the next level. So if you thought this episode had some fire to it, and inspired you to take action, wait until you see what we’ll deliver on this program. So just go to gymnazoedu.com. And we’ll see you on the other side. Remember that turning your passion for fitness into transformation and sustainable business is critical to reaching the people and lives you were put on earth to help it matters and truly can make an impact in other people’s lives. So, hope you do that. Keep sharing your passion and we’ll talk to you soon.
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