INTRODUCTION

Lesley Logan
All right, Be It babe. How are you doing today? I’m really excited for you to hear this episode. I know I’ve been bringing on different guests with women’s health. And you’re like, “Okay, Les I got it.” No, there’s we got to keep talking about it because until it’s common discussion, we have to keep talking about it. And today’s guest is one of my favorite humans on this planet, you’ll hear me introduce her in just a moment. But truly, she is a gift to this world not only with the knowledge she has, but the energy she has and her mission on this planet. And if you have a pelvic floor, which by the way, if you’re listening to this you do whether you’re male or female, someone has had a baby or not, this discussion is for you. And it is very important that you hear all these amazing words. And I am really excited for us to, as listeners, if we and people in this Be It pod community if we can all start to help women and men talk about and understand that you don’t have to live with these things just because you had a child or just because you have this issue. Oh, well, you can keep going. No, it’s just so important that we are aware that there are actions we can take. And there are options for us and you don’t have to just live with it. And so Claire Sparrow is our guest today. And if you’re watching this on YouTube, you will see that she is in Brad’s seat, and it’s actually quite fun. She was here this week in Las Vegas, and I’ve been looking forward to interviewing her all week long. This discussion is wonderful. And I can’t wait to hear how you share this with your friends and the actions you take at the end.

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Lesley Logan
Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I’m Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I’ve trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it’s the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It’s a practice, not a perfect. Let’s get started.

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EPISODE

Lesley Logan
Hi Be It babes. Well, this is a very special, exciting moment because today’s guest is actually in person with me. And what makes it even more exciting, you’ll be able to hear it from her accent is that she doesn’t even live here in Las Vegas. So we have a very special special moment for you. My guest today is Claire Sparrow, and this woman I have known for several years now. And she always brightens my … like brightens the room, even though most of the time I’ve only ever seen her on a zoom screen. But what I love most about her and I can’t wait is her mission on this planet, to help so many women with something that’s so common, and we can we’ll get into that in a moment. But Claire Sparrow, please introduce yourself to the Be It community.

Claire Sparrow
Well, hello Lesley and hello the Be It community. It’s great to be here. So I’m Claire Sparrow. And I am Scottish. And I live in the North of England in Leeds. And I have been teaching Pilates for over two decades. And I work specifically with women with chronic pelvic floor dysfunction who have come to the end of their wits, trying everything that is recommended to them and not having the results that they want or deserve, really, and I step in and give them hope. And the answers that they didn’t even know were available to them.

Lesley Logan
Well, I think I hate that people have to get to the wits and like, can you actually share, like, what brought you onto that journey? And if and if we can also why people have to get to the wits end. And before they can get help?

Claire Sparrow
Yeah, so I mean, it comes as many things do when you find your mission, a lot of the time it’s comes from personal experience. And for me, it certainly is the case. I have my own pelvic floor dysfunction after a traumatic birth, which led to birth injury. I then had a prolapse, which I believed I could heal through movement and breath and natural processes versus surgery. And I did that, and it’s amazing. And I can do all of the things that I ever wanted to do with my three children, we climb trees, we run around, we play all the games we want to do, I am not afraid of trampoline. And so I mean, this week, I’ve been to the gym and done jumping jacks, and I have absolutely no fear whatsoever, because I’ve been able to restore the health of my pelvic floor. And many women don’t even know that that’s a possibility. So when I sat to to create my program, it was because more and more women were coming to me and just sort of mentioning on on the side, like as a secondary thing or and also I have a bit of incontinence or or and also I’ve got a prolapse. And most of the women that started to then come to me when I was building a reputation for helping other women, they would come to me because they had been recommended to do traditional exercises. They diligently done that for a good period of time and had expected to see a result, a change and a sustained change in that time. And unfortunately for some women, they were getting no change. And for some women their symptoms actually were getting worse by doing traditional methods.

Lesley Logan
So by traditional methods are talking about for incontinence, you’re not (Claire: So for …) like the gym but like …

Claire Sparrow
No. So traditional methods of pelvic floor training, so pelvic floor exercises, some people might know key goals as an example, in the UK, we have an app called the Squeezy app, where you know, get reminders to squeeze your pelvic floor. And you know, and people say, you know, we see it in the media a lot where people say, “Yeah, I’m doing my pelvic floor exercises as we speak.” And, and it’s just not as simple as that is what I always say, you know, it’s just not as simple as that, because it’s part of our postural whole, it’s part of our whole entire body. So to work something in isolation, it’s just doesn’t make sense. So those traditional exercises are what people have been doing, and many people have have actually had the women that I’ve worked with certainly have have made their symptoms worse, because they’re strengthening that imbalance that’s there in their pelvis, from posture or from a birth injury because I don’t know if you know this, Lesley, but actually 90% of women who have had a vaginal birth have a birth injury.

Lesley Logan
That is, so here’s what’s crazy to me if 90% of women is should obviously not someone who had has had a child, but I would imagine that you leave the hospital and there should be like, “Hey, and here’s your pelvic floor health health referral. And here’s these things and here…” None of that’s happening.

Claire Sparrow
No. So what what can happen is people will get an information leaflet to do traditional pelvic floor exercise … So that’s, that’s what’s out there in the mainstream. And that’s, that’s the challenge, actually, that I face and other people like myself doing this work in this way is that the traditional recommendation the, the easy route is this leaflet that’s given out or a app that you can get on your phone. And we have to remember that these are women. You know, the first occurrence of the injury, if we talk specifically about pelvic floor injury and childbirth, the first instance they had an injury when giving birth, then they’ve now got another human that they’re responsible for. (Lesley: Right) So I know, even as somebody in the know, when I had my child, I, it was a good six months before I started paying attention to me again. (Lesley: Right, right, right.) So that leaflet, I probably got one and didn’t even you know, it just disappeared, (Lesley: Right) because you are so intently focused on this new responsibility.

Lesley Logan
Well and that’s also assuming that everything is fine, hormonally. So (Claire: Yeah) you’re like not postpartum in any way (Claire: Correct) so that you can … to go, “Oh, I had a leaflet, I think …”

Claire Sparrow
Correct. And some women don’t even know that they’ve had a birth injury or acknowledge it as an injury that can be treated or improved upon in the way that if you sprained your ankle, you would treat that injury. (Lesley: Yeah) And we’re not treating pelvic floor injury because it’s inside us, internally. It’s not seen.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, and it makes me well, it’s also it’s also like the like, “Oh, here, do your Kegel.” That’s kind of like, well, we gave them something. (Claire: Oh yeah) And, and what it’s probably terrible is that people feel embarrassed about these things. Because it is some of the things that the symptoms of it are a bit embarrassing, nobody wants to, to share that they like I remember growing up the women in my life, were like, “Don’t make me laugh.”

Claire Sparrow
Yeah, yeah, that is a common common common statement, “Don’t make me laugh.” Or, you know that so many moms are avoiding the activities that they would like to be doing in their life, whether it’s as a mum or just a women in the world, (Lesley: Yeah) because of fear of what might happen if they go to the trampoline park. Or if they go and join a running group, or if they want to do an adventure like you know, climbing a mountain, that they don’t have the security and reliance on their pelvic floor to sustain them for those activities that they might want to do. And another piece of that is that those women who go and investigate and ask for some help, are more often than not told that their pelvic floor is weak, they’re told that it’s weak, and it needs to be strengthened. And in my experience, and even as I see it, I remember how this made me feel. I felt weak, it was more than my pelvic floor that they were saying was weak. I embodied emotionally, psychologically, weakness. And this is what I also see with a lot of the women that I work with that their their life is being determined by (Lesley: Yeah) the lack of reliability on the pelvic floor.

Lesley Logan
Well, and as you said that so like, obviously we carefully but listening going, “Well, okay, well, it’s okay. I don’t need to be on trampoline. It’s okay. I don’t really want to rock climb.” But like so let’s exclude the, the activities because maybe people like, “I’m okay with that. It’s okay, I won’t do that again.” The fact that you just said that you embodied and you felt weak. I have I wonder like, what all of that kept you from doing that was in your life that wasn’t just chasing your kids around but like was like things on this planet that make you feel who you are.

Claire Sparrow
Exactly. And I think that for me, I held back and had a lack of confidence. And it affected me a great deal actually. And I did have postnatal depression after my first because of the whole expedience and being told that my pelvic floor was weak and I would need to strengthen it even though that didn’t make sense to me even then. And I think that there’s many women that are in the same situation where they’re not living their their potential because of this, and also, just to go back to say, you know, that if there are people listening who they think right now, I’m okay with that. I’m okay with not doing this in that. Okay, now, what happens in 20 or 30 years time? I work with women who are postnatal 30 years after they’ve given birth, because they’ve not known or been able to do something about the birth injury until 30 years later, till they’ve meet me and they’ve had, you know, they, I had a client who just stopped having sex, because her pain, and because her continence was affected when she did. So she just thought that’s it. Sex life is over. And she’s now 68 69. And she’s having a great life. (Claire and Lesley laughs) And it is effects every imagine not feeling like a sexy, capable woman. (Lesley: Yeah) Like …

Lesley Logan
I mean and like, that’s the thing like, it keep that kind of thing keeps you from like, that means she’s not connecting with her partner, (Claire: Yeah) that means she’s and then that (Claire: The relationships you’re influenced.) that that changes how you feel, because now you don’t even like that connection is something that is not even you can’t even verbalize it, that is a different kind. And then that leads to other things in the relationship, which bleeds into the parts of your life. And it just doesn’t make you feel all alone. (Claire: Yeah) And we can’t do anything on this planet on our own. (Claire: Alone. Yeah.) We do it with community. So you said a couple things earlier, and just in case people have not known these words, can you explain first of all what our pelvic floor is? And, and then also prolapse just because I want to make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Claire Sparrow
Sure, I’m going to answer that. And I’m also going to say that just to round up the the future you piece. So I gave the example of the client who realized 30 years later, that she could do something about her pelvic floor. Also, when you go through the menopause and the hormones change, the injury that you had, when you had your child, then can become more of an issue. And that’s when you think of that not jumping on the trampoline was fine when I was in my 30s and 40s. But now, actually, the result is that I’ve prolapsed because I didn’t do the work air layer. So how thick organ prolapse is when an organ so uterus, for example, displaces from its natural resting place in the pelvis. A lot of the time and this is it’s where language again, we talked about weakness. Another language piece is that it’s described as when the organ falls out, nothing’s falling out, have you ever, we’re always still connected. And this idea of dropping and falling is just not very helpful. Because immediately and I even felt it myself, as I said the words there, I could feel myself like pulling in. I don’t need to pull in, my body smart enough to do it for me when it’s necessary. But what happens is that, that it creates more fear when we’re thinking about something falling out of us. (Lesley: Yeah) Then I, yeah, I’m gonna cross my legs and I’m in a bit of fear now. Okay, it’s not falling, it’s displaced. Okay, so it’s all held together in this stretchy mass. And when there’s been a birth injury, so we’re using this as the example. But it could also be overworking your glutes, for example, that this compensation has happened, it pools the organ out of place, out of alignment, rather than the organ of its own free will, dropping, it’s not, it’s being pooled there by attention and imbalance in the muscles or in the scar tissue from an injury.

Lesley Logan
So that makes a lot of sense to me. Because, for example, I have the way I have the way I walk it over works this one part of my calf, which then pulls on my tibia, and it pulls on my tibia and just the way that it twist, just this twist a little bit and it’s not like this visible thing that like I can see it happening, but just that little tiny degree puts a little bit of pain on my knee. There’s nothing wrong with my knee. If I did an MRI, there’s nothing like there’s like nothing but if I massage that muscle, it releases and I don’t have that pain. So what you’re saying is either through birth injury or overworking of certain muscles in the area, we are pulling an organ out of place everything is supposed to live in a very equal balance thing. It’s kind of like what, I feel like if my people love Pilates for it because Pilates is all about balancing our imbalances, (Claire: Exactly) but okay, so that makes a lot of sense to me. So thank you for clarifying because it does, I feel less scared that like something’s going to drop out of my …

Claire Sparrow
Yeah, it’s a balancing act all the time. And I think sometimes we can think like things just needs to be fixed, fixed in place still, it’s there. And actually, as you know, as we go through our menstrual cycle, the organs are being pushed and moved and shifting and expanding and shrinking, and everything is dynamic all of the time, which is why your pelvic floor to go on to answer what is the pelvic floor? Pelvic floor is, it is a set of dynamic muscles. So it is not one muscle. So, you’ve got a set of three main muscles. And those muscles are interwoven, almost like a French braid, you know, like in a plant, okay, they’re inter woven. And actually, the attached to the back of your pelvis, the front of your pelvis, and each of your sitting bones in your bottom, okay? And they’re meant to, at the very least, expand and lengthen three times the resting length. (Lesley: Whoa) So and that happens, when you squat, when you get up and down out of a chair, it should happen. What we see a lot is that because we sit more, and we sit in, you know, more of a tilted under pelvis, so bottom tucked under that, that stopping the fanning out the expansion, that dynamic expansion, and if the muscles if you think about an elastic band, right, we can all visualize and elastic band stretching, okay? It needs to stretch, so it can ping back. (Lesley: Yeah) So that’s what your pelvic floor needs to be able to do. It needs to be able to lengthen, so when you cough or sneeze, or jump on a trampoline, it can ping back for you.

Lesley Logan
Right. And so when we’re sitting all the time, we are not stretching it, we’re not we’re not …

Claire Sparrow
You are shortening the posterior pelvic floor. Most commonly when people are sitting in that tucked in position your tailbone ideally should be finding out behind you when you’re saying so you’re off on your pelvis.

Lesley Logan
And so fascinated why I love my meditation chair, somehow (Claire: Yes, right.) I need to make that my desk chair. You know, this is so so this is very fascinating, because that is probably the most easy way to visualize it. And I think a lot of people just think of us as a amorphous like, floor that is like catching things.

Claire Sparrow
And I always say it’s actually not a floor, it’s a diaphragm. Because it’s not hard. It’s not flat. It’s not even parallel, is higher at the back because it is like it’s just not how we visualize it. So even like using the word floor, we’re living embodying it as something hard and flat. It’s not it’s like a diaphragm. It’s got holes in it should be really flexible. (Lesley: Yeah) You know not how we think living in it.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, that is that is really fascinating to me. Okay, a couple other things that I know our listeners or want to know because I get this question a lot. But I’m, clearly listeners, not a pelvic floor specialist. But I get this question all the time. Like, will Pilates help with my pelvic floor? And I, my go to is if the person you’re working with is a pelvic floor specialist. Yes, it will. But if they’re so is that wrong? Am I, am I under cutting other teachers and myself? Or is it true that like, like, is Pilates on its own enough? Or do people really do need to have someone who’s a specialist to help Pilates along?

Claire Sparrow
So I mean, that that’s a big question. Because actually, you know, as we know, not all Pilates is the same. So not all teachers are going to teach the work in the same way. I would prefer someone with a specific pelvic floor disorder dysfunction to see someone whose whole body pelvic health informed that teaches Pilates. Pilates and using the apparatus is the best means, the best by far, but only if the cueing and the exercise selection is done appropriately for pelvic health. The we go back to the key goals example. So Dr. Kegel created these exercises, based on women using an internal device to stimulate the muscles, okay. And it was called biofeedback. Because there was a dysfunction there, the brain that didn’t know how to get the messages to the pelvic floor, so they gave biofeedback. We can give biofeedback in Pilates without going internally with a device. The exercises he did were not meant to be standalone exercises they were to be in conjunction with the device. So we just need to do things that are going to re stimulate the brain to pelvic floor, you know the neural pathway to those muscles again, and that we can do with loads of great movements with Pilates but not by telling the pelvic floor muscles to do something. (Lesley laughs) Okay.

Lesley Logan
So so if someone’s saying, move from your pelvic floor, that’s not the same (Claire: Not) as (Claire: Definitely not.) thank you for saying that. Yeah. (Claire laughs) I always wonder because I would hear people and I’m this is not if you’re someone listening, you said this, like, I’m not trying to dismiss you or or (Claire: No) anything at all, I think that the intention is pure and there, but I will hear it. (Claire: Of course.) And I’m like, “Is that how it works?” I haven’t taken a workshop. So I don’t know. So that makes a lot more sense to me, it’s less about telling the pelvic floor what to do and more about stimulating …

Claire Sparrow
Stimulating it. You, we need to give it the information that it needs to do the things we want it to do. So a lot of people will be avoiding jumping, for example, we can teach things on the Reformer, where we can do rapid movements supine, so laying on your back, doing rapid movements, that will stimulate but it’s less load, so it’s challenging it less, but still in the right direction, before we can get them upright. So we need to train it for what we want it to do, but in a way that it’s responding naturally. Because you can’t like every time you want to cough or sneeze, tell the pelvic floor to do something, because it’s too slow. We know from neuroscience, that by doing using imagery, or using the stimulus of the Pilates exercises, or the apparatus, that we get a much quicker response than our cognitive brains can make happen.

Lesley Logan
Oh, I mean, that’s it that is so true. I think like I always say we do Pilates to do life better. And like, you know, I say, I’m just here to help people fall better is really what it is. (Claire: Yeah) And that really came from many years ago, I had this woman in her 80s. And my people heard my podcast before have heard me say this, if you’ve heard me on a podcast at someone’s, I would teach her the marching exercise, the archival standing, like just standing there marching without shifting the weight back and forth. And she’d go, “Why are we doing this?” And I’m like, “You’re doing it for a minute. (Claire: Yeah) You’re doing it.” And she’s like, “Why are we doing this?” I said, “Because when you miss a step, I want your body to know how to catch itself. Because if you always have to shift your weight to put a foot down, you’re not going to do this.” And sure enough, like, I really wish like, I feel like we put it out into the world. But that next day, she was out walking on Rodeo Drive, she was walking down these steps. And these are very weird steps, y’all. They’re very, they’re rounded at cement steps. And they’re rounded. And they’re quite shallow. And they’re from this beautiful shopping center where the Cartier and the high end designers are. (Claire: Wow) And of course she’s going there and she’s walking down the steps. And she had her hands, she had one hand and a phone had a phone and the other hand had a bag. So she has not had no hands on a rail. That’s fine, love that she, love that she’s bravein’ it at 80 something. She misses a step. And she said her body just took over … Like you can’t see me if you’re not watching on YouTube, but her fluent … and she would like she floated down the steps. (Claire: Amazing) It is not because she told her brain, “Okay, cue marching.” Because we trained her body to to know it could do these things. And, you know, I can’t be there with you when you reach for the top shelf, to grab something. But if I’ve taught you how to reach around from your back, so that you don’t pull something, then in time you will do your body will do that. And so what you’re saying is, our goal is to teach the pelvic floor how to move on its own. So that (Claire: Responsively) when there isn’t a reason for it to connect it does it.

Claire Sparrow
Correct. Correct. And that we are, our bodies are smarter than our brains are. (Lesley laughs) This is the thing, like we keep trying to outsmart our bodies. And this is not sustainable. We need to give the body the tools, give it the resources so that it can heal, and then be responsive to life. So that we can really do whatever we wanted. And is to do whatever you want to do. You know, one of my clients recently messaged me and she was like, “I just played cricket with my boys.” And it was just like the best thing that you know, she started the program with me. And that was not possible for her. She had a prolapse and it was not. It just wasn’t possible for her. And now she’s restored her prolapse and she just was like, “I didn’t even think about it and I was playing cricket.”

Lesley Logan
Oh, I love that so much because it really is like it’s there are so many things they miss out on life when we are worried about what could happen. And and it’s not even just about the cricket. It’s about her having a shared experience with her boys. (Claire: Yeah) That her boys don’t look back and go, “Oh, my mom never played with us.”

Claire Sparrow
Correct (Lesley: You know) and that’s the future of her children to see what what’s possible. Um, and you know, I have boys, and I educate my boys about pelvic health, so they know exactly what I do. And they can explain to other people what I do.

Lesley Logan
I love that so much.

Claire Sparrow
You know. That and I just feel like, it’s not just a woman’s problem. You know, I know. And I don’t mean yes, men have pelvic floors, too. But I mean, women need to feel supported by everybody in the world, with their pelvic health, and we’re not talking about it with our mothers, sisters and friends, let alone our partners and our male friends. We need to open up that conversation so much more. Because the minute, it’s like anything a problem shared is a problem hafted (Lesley: Yeah) at least.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, I love that. That is a beautiful way of saying. Well, and so for people listening, can people have, can pe… can women who have not had a child have pelvic floor issues? (Claire: Of course) And then can men have pelvic floor issues?

Claire Sparrow
Of course. So pelvic floor, I mean, some people maybe don’t even know what the issues might be, what the dysfunctions might be. I mean, incontinence is of course, one of the obvious ones. And that can be you know, you could leak a bit of wee or it could be the other both incontinence as are true. And pelvic organ prolapse. Okay, so when an organ displaces, that’s another dysfunction. Sciatic pain is a result of pelvic floor dysfunction very, very often. Low back pain, sacroiliac joint pain can be a result of dysfunction in the pelvis. If you think about it, like super basically, and logically, your pelvis is in the middle, it’s got this your center of gravity in it, everything from from your feet, travels up through your pelvis, everything from above, travels down through your pelvis. It’s like the superhighway. Everything is passing through there. So massive junction, there’s loads of nerves that run through there. There’s nerves, so your sciatic nerve, your pudendal nerve, for example, they’re really close to each other, and they’re squished in by loads of muscles. And if those muscles are over, working, there are strangling those (Lesley: Yeah) nerves, and then you get nerve pain. The pudendal nerve, for example, can give you stabbing pains in your vagina. Some people can’t sit down, let alone have sex, let alone wear clothing that’s actually in contact with them. (Lesley: Wow) Because the nerve pain can be so bad. And there’s different specific nerve conditions that we don’t need to talk about. But I think, you know, you could have fallen and broken your coccyx at some point. If you fail. You know, if you fell snowboarding, for example, and hit your bum. (Lesley: Yeah) You could have a pelvic floor because you’ve had a little trauma. (LEsley: Yeah) You know, to that if you’ve you know, if you’ve ridden a bike, a lot male or female, that repetitive strain of sitting in the saddle …

Lesley Logan
So I’m like picturing like things the years where people were going to the spin class five days a week for 45 minutes.

Claire Sparrow
Oh, my goodness, yeah. And there’s the load is going through the pelvis, not really through the feet. So yeah, it’s that huge, huge. People who sit a lot for work. So people who take driving jobs, particularly because often the alignment of the seats can put a lot of pressure on. So it really isn’t just women that have had children. (Lesley: Yeah) Men, so a good kind of indicator that your pelvic floor is maybe not doing as well as it could be. It’s not responsive, as responsive as it could be. If you’re a male, and you’re up in the night for a wee. That’s not normal.

Lesley Logan
Oh, that’s interesting.

Claire Sparrow
So that is definitely something that needs to be addressed. Men should be getting their prostate checked as a number one, and then everything’s okay there, then you need to be looking at the function of your pelvic floor. Usually with men, they’ve got much more of that posterior pelvic position even than, than women’s do so like a tucked under, we call it tucky bottom or ducky bottom. (Lesley and Claire laughs)

Lesley Logan
I always would tell my clients, like, “You’re gonna have an old man.” But like, “What does that mean?” I’m like, “Where it’s like it’s just gone.” (Claire: What? What’s wrong? Yeah.) Oh, wow. This is, you know, it’s so fascinating to me that hearing this is like, if you’re listening, some of you or someone you know, has a pelvic floor issue. (Claire: For sure.) Like, that’s basically how many people this is. And we are so concerned with what we look like (Claire: Oh yeah) that like we are not paying attention to making sure that from the inside out, we are supporting our functions so that we can be out there engaging with people in a way that is less self conscious. Like all I hear about when I, when I hear any kind of pelvic floor, I just think there has got to be so much mind, focus on what will happen if that you’re not even present at the moment with the people that you love. So therefore, you can’t even see an opportunity to say, “Hey, I want to sign up for that, or I’d be perfect for this role.” Like in this the reason I love to talk about women’s health and obviously, this affects men too. But it’s like, too often I see health issues are the keeping people from saying, “Hi, I’m ready for this.”

Claire Sparrow
For sure. And women are all ready. We know that women are not stepping up in the same way as men are stepping up. I think it’s something like, you know, a woman or look at the the job description. And if they they would have to be 100% (Lesley: Yeah) on that job description. (Lesley: Yeah) Where’s the man go, “Yeah, I’m about 65% there. I’m totally up for this.” (Lesley: Yeah) And I think it plays into that, you know, we’re already not as inclined to step up and shine. And then we add this into the mix, where there are people telling us were weak, we should accept it, because we had children. It’s just because of your age, there is nothing that can be done. You, the only answer is to do traditional exercises. (Lesley: Yeah) What do you expect you had, you know, three children, whatever it is, but we were not being told what possible. You know, I say that because I was literally told, well, this is just to be expected.

Lesley Logan
I mean, and that’s like that I keep quoting just move along, because we had her on early earlier this year to talk about women’s health. And she said just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s normal. (Claire: No) And like, the the anger that gets inside me were like, oh, well, you had three children. As if you’re like, you know, what I’m signing myself up for like, like, this is … not a trade off.

Claire Sparrow
No, no. I need one of my clients. And I think this is it’s driven my mission even further recently to set some bigger goals, because one of my clients said to me, you know, you’re the voice of hope. And I, it’s in that moment that I realized that it’s actually more than the the movement that I’ve created to teach people and all of the Pilates piece of it, it’s actually getting out there in the world so that women know that there is something that they can do, because there are so many strong voices out there saying, you know, just accept it. And it’s just not.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, I think I mean, I think that’s one of the things I mean I love so much about you. But like one of the things that that makes me want to continue to see what you’re up to is you do bring hope, because I think about all the women and how you can help them because you, if you’re in will, we’ll take a brief moment of a break to find how you can help, how you can be helped by Claire without being in the UK. But the work you’re doing goes beyond just the people in your community. And it is even just us having this conversation. You all like I’m gonna say it right now, you have to be we have got to be talking to women about these things. Because we need to make sure it is actually normal to say, you know, I actually don’t go on a trampoline, like we actually sit because this is why so that people can go, “Oh, hey, I actually have so that’s not let me help you with that,” you know. (Claire: Yeah) Like, we just I know that’s such a simple way to distill it down to but we’re one of a woman who’s in the Pilates industry as well, we were talking about, like, I’m not menopausal yet. But I feel like it’s probably going to be earlier for me than then most. And she was like, “Here’s all the things that I wish I had known to do at 40. Because if I had started then I would be in a better place.” And I was like, “Oh, well thank you for my handbook. So I can go prepare myself for this race.”

Claire Sparrow
Correct. And I think, you know, when it comes to pelvic health, we need to be educating young. It’s why you know, I’m teaching my boys they know so that when they have women in their life, whoever that might be, they are able to help support and inform them. And you know, I give specific strategies to the women that I work with about how they can have conversations with their young children with their girls so that we are making the effort to educate sooner rather than later we have to preempt (Lesley: Yeah) you know, and prepare.

Lesley Logan
Yeah. Okay, well, we’re gonna take a brief break and then find out where people can find you, follow you, work with you.

Claire, I mean, we could talk about this for hours I feel like and you, and you have plenty of resources for that. So where can people find you, follow you? Can they work with you? Can they study with you? What what do you have to offer?

Claire Sparrow
Sure. So my method is whole body pelvic health and that is where you will find me. It’s wholebodypelvichealth.co.uk. I said to Brad recently, I’m really proud, I thought hard about whether I was going to be com or .co.uk and I’m really proud to be .co.uk. So you can find me at wholebodypelvichealth.co.uk. I’m also on Instagram, but I’m just me on Instagram. So it’s @claireparrowpilates on Instagram, and I do a lot of videos there. You can also find me on YouTube. And that is Clear Spiral Pilates as well. And I do have loads of free resources there. My online course is at the website. So I have a whole massive membership course, where we lead you from understanding the anatomy piece, all the way to the classes, every class you will need. And within the course, we have a women’s health physiotherapist who leads you through if you have a birth injury, how to self treat your birth injury. So we’ve got absolutely everything in there. And then the membership piece means that you have me to ask questions at any time in our closed Facebook group.

Lesley Logan
Amazing. This is very exciting, y’all. Please check those things out and follow Claire, make sure you hear, you share whatever takeaways you have by tagging her and the @be_it_pod. We’d love to hear how this is helping you or the women in your life or the men in your life who maybe are getting up in the middle of night. Before I let you go BE IT action items. Bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps we can take to be it till we see it.

Claire Sparrow
Okay, so the first thing is to talk about it. I truly believe that healing begins by talking and talking about how you’re feeling about your pelvic health, we need to open up that conversation. Talk to anybody who will listen and get the conversation going. The second thing is, could we just let it go? Some of the basic things that you can do without even coming to do class or anything with me is if you know that you have a dysfunction, so maybe you’ve been told that you have a prolapse, that automatic response to squeeze pooling, we’ll get into that fear mode that actually isn’t helping you. So if you could just let it go, then you will begin to heal just by letting it go. And the next thing I would say is to breathe, can you breathe down there. Often I see with women that the pooling in prevents the breath from reaching the pelvic floor. And because your pelvic floor works in direct correlation with your breathing diaphragm, they need to be able to talk to each other and if we pulled in, they can’t talk. So once you’ve let it go, you need to start focusing on your breath. Let the bones of your pelvis actually move when you breathe and that will work wonders for you.

Lesley Logan
Oh my gosh, I found myself like making sure I was breathing all the way down there. Like, “Am I, am I, am I breathing all the way down there.”

Claire Sparrow
Yeah. Especially into the pubic bone because a lot of people work a lot through their their abs and the lower abdominal muscles we’ve entered the pelvic floor and so if you’ve pulled in locks down those abdominal muscles then that can stop the breath down there.

Lesley Logan
Yeah. Oh my gosh Claire. I adore you and I’m so grateful that you are on this planet and and out there sharing your work. It’s just so beautiful to see and I know that you are so many lives are going to be touched because of what you’re doing. Thank you for being here. Thank you everyone for listening. Again, please tag the @be_it_pod, tag @clairesparrowpilates with your takeaways. Share this episode with a friend and for those of you who are like, “I don’t understand how to tag.” Then please just text this episode. You can even just like screenshot it but there is a little way on whatever device you’re listening to, to actually just share it and you can text and that is not not only does that help the podcast but it actually is going to help women all over this world because it goes back to that BE IT action item that I was talking about it. Thank you again and until next time, Be It Till You See It.

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Lesley Logan
That’s all I’ve got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate this show and leave a review. And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over on IG at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us help others to BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!

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Lesley Logan
‘Be It Till You See It’ is a production of ‘Bloom Podcast Network’.

Brad Crowell
It’s written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell. Our Associate Producer is Amanda Frattarelli.

Lesley Logan
Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.

Brad Crowell
Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan
Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can’t see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.

Brad Crowell
And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.