I want to talk to you today about something that’s near and dear into my heart— exercise and moving.
I have frequent conversations with clients that start out with sentences like, “I’m afraid to move. I’m think I’m going to hurt myself. I don’t know how to move safely. I am scared that am I going to make my condition worse.” It breaks my heart to hear that people are scared to move because movement is life and it can help so many things.
I particularly see this happening a lot for moms who have just given birth. Our clients are reading things on the internet trying to find out what’s going on with their mummy tummy or abdominal separation. They notice some doming in the muscles when they curl up. And because of what they are reading and seeing, they get scared to move for fear of hurting themselves or making things worse.
And if you’re a mom, you are bending, twisting, lifting kids into and out of car seats, lifting groceries and laundry… you are doing all sorts of functional movements that you might read are bad for your abdomen. So then what can you do??
It is hard enough in this world to get people to exercise enough that I do not want to be to taking exercise or movement away from people. If you tell us that you want to be doing Zumba again but right now, you’re scared to do it then we’re going to work together to figure out how to get you back to Zumba and moving away that you want to be moving.
I am frankly disappointed when I hear patients telling me that they’ve been told by other healthcare providers that they need to avoid and stop doing activities that they love. I want people to be able to be active and move and do the things that they love.
I never want someone to feel fearful of movement. So if that sounds familiar to you, if you are avoiding exercise because you think you’re going to hurt yourself or you are avoiding exercise because you think it’s going to make your abdominal separation worse, then you really should partner with a women’s health physical therapist to try and help you figure out what the best ways for you to move.
That’s one of the things that we love doing here at Legacy Physical Therapy– helping people figure out strategies to move and do what they want to do. If you’re local to St. Louis, we are happy to help you out. If you’re not local to St. Louis, we can try and point you in the right direction to help you find a specialist in your area.
