AUTO-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT

Brianna Battles  00:01

Welcome to the practice brave podcast. I am the host Brianna battles, founder of pregnancy and postpartum athleticism, and CEO of everyday battles. I’m a career strength and conditioning coach, entrepreneur, mom of two wild little boys and a lifelong athlete. I believe that athleticism does not end when motherhood begins, and this podcast is dedicated to coaching you by providing meaningful conversations, insights and interview topics related to fitness, mindset, parenting and of course, all the nuances of pregnancy and postpartum, from expert interviews to engaging conversations and reflections. This podcast is your trustworthy, relatable resource for learning how to practice brave through every season in your life. Hey everyone, welcome back to the practice brave podcast today. It is a solo episode. I’m talking to myself, and ultimately, I’m talking to so many of you, I shared something in my story today, and the amount of responses I’ve received basically affirmed that I needed to talk about this in a longer form, even beyond just sharing on social media as like a real I said that, Let’s see. I want to get this right. I said that a lot of the people that give fitness advice on pregnancy and postpartum have not experienced birth trauma, core and pelvic health symptoms or mental health struggles. And it shows I have been in this industry for 12 years, working specifically with the pregnant and postpartum athlete community, before that was even like, terminology that was used broadly, like people literally gave me shit for saying pregnant athlete, postpartum athlete. Like, that’s not even a thing. And I’m like, well, like, that’s what I am, and that’s what a lot of my friends are, and we’ve certainly seen a pendulum swing. But I want to tell you this, if you are listening to this and you are pregnant, and you maybe have recently had a baby, or in that season,

Brianna Battles  02:15

everything that you’re seeing online is not new. There’s just more of it, and the voices are louder because there’s more of it. So when you see somebody doing certain movements, or approaching pregnancy one way, or you see people proclaiming that you don’t need to, like modify, you can just do blah, blah, blah, like all of that existed 12 years ago as well. It was everything that I wanted to hear, which was, if you’re very fit during pregnancy, you will have an easy delivery, and you will bounce back and basically look like, look and be unscathed by motherhood, because we were made for this. It is what I wanted to hear, especially as an athlete, as a coach, I truly assumed that, like this process was not a big deal, because women have babies all the time, and back then on social media, there was nobody showing their stretch marks and loose skin. There was nobody talking about diastasis. There was nobody talking about incontinence, nothing like that at all. So nothing was normalized the way that it is now. And I share that because I know that even today, with an abundance of information online, there’s still people. There are still a lot of people who are like, Why didn’t anybody tell me this could happen? I didn’t know about prolapse until I hadn’t I didn’t know about this kind of birth experience until I experienced it, and there’s just a lot of people who feel really disappointed about what their process went like. And it’s hard when you’re in an echo chamber of a lot of fit women, when you are in an echo chamber of a fitness industry and culture that essentially says if you’re healthier and fit, you’re going to have better outcomes, and yes, ultimately, you will have better outcomes. Fitness is always a benefit. It’s just not a guarantee, and that’s where I have really needed to refine my messaging to stay consistent while still standing out in an industry that wants to have very opposite proclamations in a lot of the medical and practitioner communities, we have traditionally seen some pretty limiting and fear based messaging around training during pregnancy, training as a mother, where it’s like, well, you’re not. You can’t be an athlete anymore once you become a mom. Or don’t lift over 20 pounds, don’t get your heart rate over 140 beats per minute. If you have prolapse, you can never squat again. You can never run again. If you have a diastasis, don’t do crunches. All of these rules, regulations and fear and that has hurt women. Those recommendations have truly hurt women, because again, exercise and fitness, that will always be a benefit, is a foundation. That we need as we age full stop. And because of that really conservative messaging, we’ve seen a huge pendulum swing to the other end of the spectrum. And I’m telling you, you think that this is new. It was not. This is the same shit from 12 years ago. And so the opposite end of that spectrum is send. It right like full send. You don’t need to modify. We don’t have evidence that says that you shouldn’t keep doing what you’ve always done. Yes, keep doing what you’ve always done. Let’s push boundaries. Let’s test limits. You are so strong, you are so fit, we’re going to have better outcomes. And yes, there are going to be better outcomes for having a solid baseline of fitness. And I feel that there’s a lot of nuance missing from both ends of the spectrum, and I have spent 12 years talking about that middle ground, the gray area, because you’re right. We don’t have specific evidence on pregnant and postpartum athletes and long term performance considerations that come from training during pregnancy and postpartum, its influences on core and pelvic health, while acknowledging the entirety of that transformative experience, more of like a holistic perspective of mental health, of emotional health, that transformation that sometimes athletes really struggle with because of our unique psychology, something I refer to as athlete brain. I like to look at the whole person and the entirety of considerations, not one end of the spectrum or the other. But how do we navigate this in a really strategic way that honors the changes that our mindset, identity and lifestyle experiences, honor, the changes that our body experiences understand what to expect when we’re expecting from a physiological perspective for our own body, not just what our baby is doing every week, but what is what am I more vulnerable to? What is happening to my body? How do I know what’s happening? To actually listen to my body and know what I’m listening for? Know what that means. It’s having nuanced conversations around that, and it’s coming at it through the lens of performance. One thing that has made me a different voice in this industry is I’m a strength and conditioning coach. My bias is performance and longevity, long term performance, long term longevity. I’m not coming at it from a clinical perspective, although it is a huge influence. I’m not coming at it from a core and pelvic floor only perspective, although that’s part of it. I’m really coming at it from the whole person across the lifespan. That’s why I say that my job is to support women across their lifetime of athleticism. That athleticism does not end when motherhood begins, and there’s significantly transformative chapters in their life as women and in their life as an athlete. For so many women, this is the first time that they’ve needed to really take inventory of their body, whether it’s the conception period where they’re like, Okay, like, I needed to have more regular cycles. I really need to take a look at my nutrition and my health, my fitness, my overall like relationship with my body, with my training, with my food, all of these things, because I know I’m entering into a new season, and then it’s pregnancy. And again, truly understanding what your body experiences during pregnancy, you’re going to see, and you already are seeing so much information online about do this. Don’t do that. If you do these breathing exercises, these movements. And for again, we’re creating a lot of awareness. But there’s these two ends of the spectrum where it’s like, you must have make these adjustments and do all of these things. But then on the other side of it, we still see people that are really pushing boundaries, and in some ways that that dismisses and it overlooks some considerations that we mean they we may need to make again. A lot of the information that you see online is coming from people that do not have the full perspective. They are not acknowledging the athlete brain, the athlete psychology, of this experience, of this transformation, of this shift in identity, they are not acknowledging core and pelvic health considerations, not just in that moment, but long term, knowing what you are potentially more predisposed to, what you are more vulnerable to, based on your history, based on your tendencies, based on how you’re carrying based on your birth mode, based on your birth experience, based on your postpartum recovery, all of these different variables that influence your long care performance outcomes. And I said influence right? Because none of this is none of thing. Nothing I talk about has a guarantee. I want to be really clear about that. Not a single exercise, not a single breathing adjustment, not a single pressure management strategy or tension management strategy will guarantee a specific outcome. And I fully believe, and I have seen now for 12 years, both personally, twice as an athlete, through my own pregnancies and postpartums, and by working with. It a variety of women, from the highest level you can be Olympic athletes, professional athletes, to women who have never exercised a day in their life. I have seen how certain approaches, certain adjustments that can be made during pregnancy, can help the overall experience of being an active, fit mother who prioritizes wanting to feel like an athlete long term, right? That’s what I’m focused on, is the overarching experience. Because when we have people coming in and saying things like, well, you just train like this, and you don’t need to make modifications, and you just whatever, like, just keep doing what you’ve always done, it dismisses and really feels shitty for those who are like I did all of that and this happened to me, or I thought I was going to have this experience. I wanted that I did everything right. I tried to make all these different adjustments, and I ended up with a C section, and I ended up with prolapse, and I ended up with this right like it dismisses the birth trauma. It dismisses that or the birth trauma that these women often experience. It dismisses corn, pelvic health symptoms, and it dismisses that transformative experience where women might struggle with their mental health, whether it’s anxiety, depression or something along those lines, it really overlooks the holistic experience of the mother during this season. If we were solely focused on exercise considerations, we have to look at the bigger picture. When we’re talking about how to navigate these seasons as female athletes, we really have to look at the big picture. And again, that’s the work that I’m focused on. That’s what I’ve been doing. That’s what we have seen success in. Because, again, it’s not about proving can we do this? Can we do that? Is Valsalva, safe, is lifting heavy? Safe? Is all these things safe? Is it well tolerated? Is it whatever? Yes, some of those things are important. I of course, talk about that in the work that I do, and it’s also about acknowledging the variety of factors that influence the experience of that woman, so that she feels supported regardless of what happens to her during these chapters. Because we cannot control everything. We can do everything in our power, but there are so many variables attached to pregnancy, birth and postpartum recovery that are absolutely outside of our control, no matter how fit you are, no matter how educated you are, no matter how experienced you are, there are just so many different variables that influence outcomes. And again, fitness is a benefit. It will always, always be a benefit. But I have a feeling, if you’re listening to this podcast, you already know that. You know that fitness is a benefit. You already know that exercise has been recommended for mother’s health, for the baby’s health, for a long time. That is not new news. That is not new evidence. We have support for exercising during pregnancy and postpartum. We have that what we have sort of overlooked in a lot of these conversations are the these three pillars that I talk about extensively in the work that I do, especially in my coaching certification, pregnancy and postpartum athleticism. It’s understanding that athlete psychology, core and pelvic health, physiology and long term performance goals like those 3p influence a lot of what I a lot of what we have to at least consider. There are no set rules. There are no set formulas. There is no if you just breathe this way and do these exercises, you’re going to have this kind of birth and this kind of postpartum recovery. Unfortunately, that’s the messaging that we’re seeing online. Still, those are the bodies that you’re seeing online that you’re like, Oh, well, so and so is doing that.

Brianna Battles  13:49

She looks like this. Her program says that it is short sighted, and unfortunately, that’s marketing. If somebody is telling you exactly what you want to hear that’s marketing, but that’s not good coaching, and that’s I’ve had to like, stand like, stand on business with this sentiment for a long time. And it is not always sexy. It’s not always appealing. People don’t always like what I have to say, but I’m trying to support the whole person and take all of this into consideration. And here’s the thing, when I work with my really high level athletes, they’re like, they’re so easy to work with, even though they have really, like, tight timelines, even though they have really unique high level performance goals, they’re easy to work with. And I’m going to tell you why, because they have nothing to prove. They’re like, Yeah, I’m fine. Like, why? I don’t need to keep my training exactly the same. I’m not trying to hit prs. I don’t need to go to every class. I don’t need to go to every training session. I can make my workouts this or make it that, like they’re so adaptable in what they’re. Doing. They’re not trying to prove anything to themselves or to others. They save that for after right? They are saving that effort and those moments and that dopamine hit for when it actually matters. Pregnant athletes are not fragile and they’re not invincible. If you can be an adaptable athlete during these seasons of life, you will ultimately be a better athlete in the long run, because that preserves your body. It preserves your athleticism. It’s it’s giving your body Grace while still being active, while still being athletic. There’s a lot to be gained by approaching your body and training differently at all different points in time, not just pregnancy and postpartum. If you talk to any athlete who’s been in the game a long time, they’re not just doing the same grind day in and day out. They have there. There’s periodization across their years. There’s periodization across what their what their goals are, what they’re trying to train for at all different points in time. It’s not always the same. It should shift. It should change. But so many of us come from a culture of, you know, maybe CrossFit or running, we’re like, well, that’s just what I do every day. I go to the gym and I work out pretty intensely, and I lift pretty heavy, and I’ve done that for 10 years. Or runners, well, I’ve been running, and I do this, and I have this pace and this distance and these races planned out, and this is, like, what I do. And look, we could say this about literally any sport, about my jujitsu athletes, well, that’s how I train. This is what I do. That’s my kind of game. That’s my style. All of it, I know. Again, none of this is new. It is louder. None of this is new. There is more voices, and so it can be. I mean, it was, honestly, it was super inspiring when I was pregnant back then and then postpartum. It was really freaking depressing. It was really depressing because I was like, I was fit, I was strong, I did everything right. I did everything I knew to do, and I still got rocked with a really traumatic birth experience, with an emergency C section, I was still rocked by postpartum, with how hard breastfeeding was for me, by what my body had experienced and like, WTF is diastasis? What the hell’s wrong with my abs? Why did they look like this? Why does my belly button look weird? What the hell this was not anywhere in any book that was not online, that wasn’t on the blogs, that wasn’t on social media. What did I do wrong? And like, Why me? Why do I feel like this? And that was like in the

Brianna Battles  17:34

I guess, when we think about all of the different variables and things that can happen to women, I like, got off pretty easy, and it was still so hard. There are women that you know again, they’re navigating prolapse. Their doctor has told them you can never lift again. You shouldn’t CrossFit, you shouldn’t run. Your vagina is going to fall out. Like, that’s a lot of the messaging that is still there. There’s a lot of physical therapists that do not know how to take their athletes from the table at their clinic to what they want to do. And so they’re like, Well, I can’t really help you. Beyond this point, that exact thing happened to my sister, my sister and I’m like, Oh my God, have your physical therapist. Like, frickin call me bro. Like, what you know, this is still happening. It’s really discouraging. And when we are selling just one story, when we are just trying to die on one hill of yeah, you can do this, we don’t have evidence that says otherwise, we are missing the whole picture of the whole person. So that ultimately, if we can provide information and context, if we can give them support, if we can give them more knowledge about their body, of what to expect, if we can give them a better game plan about navigating pregnancy and the postpartum experience, they won’t feel so rocked. They’ll feel like, okay, I’m informed. I know what to do if this happens. I know what to do. I know what prolapse is. I know what diastasis is. I know that I should go see a pelvic floor physical therapist. Like, they already kind of have, like, a loose game plan in place, because they have knowledge. They understand what their body has experienced. They understand that this is, like, you know, it’s kind of a big deal. They understand that this is a growth opportunity for them as an athlete, that, hey, like doing what I’ve always done, that that’s not going to serve me well right now, right now. And that does not mean that athleticism is over, that your life as an athlete is done. No, in fact, you are more than just like you are still an athlete. You’re so much more of you to be unlocked. And I can tell you 12 years later, I guess eight since my last baby, I am a better athlete now in my late 30s than I was in my in my like, mid to late 20s, by far, and it’s because of humbling seasons. It’s because I. Have learned so much about my body. It is because I have an improved training approach. It is because I have improved nutrition practices, a mindset, belief, systems, knowledge. Like, there’s been so much I have gained in the last decade, not even through this work. Like, of course, that’s a huge part of it. But like, just the maturity that you acquire through motherhood and by giving yourself permission to like approach things differently, you are evolving. For a reason. You have nothing to prove to yourself or to anybody else. And in that there’s such a gift there, like that’s such a gift for so many of us, high drive female athletes, where the life we have that we have known is like, more, better, faster, harder and like, keep going. You just don’t freaking stop this is what you do. This is who you are. This is a part of your lifestyle. And don’t let motherhood be the thing that like rocks. You let it be the thing that helps you grow. And you don’t grow by resisting it. You don’t grow by by completely pausing it, either you grow by like flowing with it, by adapting, by having a really open mind, by being willing to just like

Brianna Battles  21:20

it’s letting go of the ego that all of us have, and it’s being willing to say like I am okay, changing my approach, and that doesn’t mean I am weak. That doesn’t mean I am going to lose all of my progress. That doesn’t make me less of an athlete. It makes me a smarter athlete, because I’m controlling what I can because ultimately, there are a lot of variables that influence core and pelvic floor function, for example. A lot of those things. A lot of those variables are out of our control. But exercise is one of those things that is actually within our control that exercise approach learning new strategies and learning new ways to understand our body during season, where they’re just straight up different, like your center of gravity is changing physics, like, literally, the basic physics your the biomechanics of your movements, all of these things are different when you are pregnant, that doesn’t mean that you’re weaker. Again, not fragile. You are not fragile. And you are not invincible. It’s why we need people who are speaking from a perspective that extends far beyond just like, just keep doing what you’ve always done. Just listen to your body. Or on the other end of the spectrum, you know, like the conservative side of things, essentially, like what you know a lot of medical professionals and practitioners have traditionally been told to tell a lot of their athletes, stop lifting, stop running, and then like limitations around that or, you know, over this heart rate, over that weight, over at this point in pregnancy, and it just creates a lot of fear, creates a lot of limitations, but that is why we see that pendulum swing To the end and other end of the spectrum. So truly, it’s knowing, like, who needs to hear what message I know that I am not for everybody. I speak to female athletes, I get you. I get how you think I am you. I was you. I’m speaking to that avatar of person, maybe my like, Gen pop, people that I’ve worked with, they do. They need encouragement. They need to be out of their heads. They need to be less afraid of their body, less afraid of their symptoms. And obviously I can give them a kick in the ass. I’m pretty good at that. Like, listen to me talk. I am. Like, I will get this person moving. I will get them out of their own way. And with athletes, sometimes it’s knowing like, how to help you, like, scale your brain back in a way, like, scale your approach back so that ultimately that will catapult you into becoming a much healthier, happier and honestly, a better performing athlete in the long run. That is what I have seen over and over and over, are the ones that are willing to like just be adaptable. Learn about their body, understand their predispositions to different corn, pelvic health symptoms. Have a game plan postpartum. Understand like none of us are exempt, none of us. You can do everything right, and you can still pee your pants when you do double unders. You can still experience prolapse. You can still have a really significant diastasis. There’s diastasis. There’s just some other variables that influence those symptoms. But if you are experiencing them, and you’re like, all right, I at least know what this is. I know that there’s help. I know I can do this. I know that there is a game plan in place, then that’s empowerment, that’s education, that’s what was missing 12 years ago and left me in tears for a year. Right? Like, I, I’m not even a crying kind of person, but I was so

Brianna Battles  24:49

I like, I feel like I had just lost everything, like my whole image that I built around myself, everything I had died, it just felt like it was crumbled. Like God. I just got I was I wanted to be made for it. I wanted to have all of everything I was saying, everything I was doing. I wanted to have that affirmed by, like, I have a natural childbirth, and it was super easy, and I’m back in the gym and I have, like, no issues, and I look amazing. I would have loved to have that story, but that story is very rare. And the people that you see online who you know, you assume that that is their story, and that’s what they’re sharing. I’m gonna tell you. I talk to these people so often. I have seen these stories unfold where you think like, okay, yeah, they look pretty unfazed by motherhood. It looks pretty perfect, and their body seems like it’s not having any issues. I am talking to them months later, a year later, and they’re like, Hey, so, like, I’ve been really struggling with this. Do you have any insight? Do you have any help? I wish I would have listened to, you know, X, Y and Z earlier on. But everybody is on their own journey. That’s why my most common people that find me are like, second time moms, because they’re like, hey, like, Yep, I learned. I learned a little bit. And again, it’s not always this straightforward conversation around to excerpt, to modify exercises or to not what the approach should be or not be like. Again, it goes so far beyond that. It is really taking into consideration all the variables that influence the experience of female athletes when they become mothers, all of the variables so that you can feel informed and so that you can feel supported. So ultimately, you’re not left saying, Why didn’t anyone tell me? I wish I would have known this. I wish I would have done that. No, you make your own choices, and then you can feel like okay, like you can be at peace, you can own it, and then we can game plan, regardless of what those choices are. But it’s having the ability to feel like you’re really informed that you did the things that were in your control, or at least the things that you know you were able to opt into or not opt into, and that’s a disconnect. That’s why people that have experienced birth trauma, people that have experienced mental health struggles, people that have experienced core and pelvic floor symptoms where they’re like, had no freaking clue this was even a thing. Why me? What did I do wrong? I mean, that’s how anybody feels who’s experienced those three, those three specific variables, you can just feel like, Why me? And it kind of like clouds your perception. When you see fitness sold as some guarantee of an outcome, when you see like this eagerness to prove that you can still do X, Y or Z, or how soon you can get back to whatever postpartum, it just doesn’t work like that. Just like for women who’ve experienced loss and miscarriage, it clouds your next pregnancy pregnancies, because there’s always a little bit of you that’s like, God, like, I know, like, you get you get freaking humbled. You gain perspective, and it sucks. It’s shitty perspective to gain, but if you’ve had loss, and you know what I’m talking about, and some people like experience it different than others, but it’s still part of your story, and it’s part of the perspective that you gain. And ultimately, I’ve said this before, and it’s pissed off people, but like every mother has a fucked up experience at some point in the process, every mom does, and I don’t like saying that. I don’t I would love to tell you. I mean, maybe one of you will, you know, DM me and say, I’m wrong. I’ve worked with women for 12 years, specifically through pregnancy and postpartum. Every one of them has struggled with something you just don’t always know what it is. It might be conception, it might be pregnancy, it might be miscarriage, it might be severe nausea and vomiting and fatigue during pregnancy. It could be been a really rough vaginal delivery. It could have been an unexpected cesarean. It could have been an infection with the C section scar. It could have been pelvic organ prolapse, because you pushed for four hours. It could have been struggles breastfeeding. It could have been struggles with your baby’s health. It could be struggles with your mental and emotional health. Anything there is something, it is a hard

Brianna Battles  29:19

season of life to navigate, because there’s just once again, I’m saying this a million times variables that are outside of your control, which is why exercise is a gift. It is a gift to use exercise as a way to like, leverage what your body and your mind needs through these seasons, and how we approach that needs to support the whole person and the whole experience, not who we were, not who we like, want to be again, but who we are in this moment. For my strength and conditioning nerds, like, your needs analysis changes during pregnancy and postpartum, that’s where we look at like, Who is the person in front of us? What’s their training history? What’s their training goals? What is like their their stats, right? Like, who is this person? In front of us. Okay, that needs analysis from a year ago is going to look very different than it does right now, whether you’re pregnant, postpartum, wherever you’re at in the process, your needs analysis changes during pregnancy and postpartum. Therefore, we can structure the game plan to support who you are in this moment on behalf of this lifetime of athleticism, not just this temporary season, even if it feels like a long season, but what you want, on behalf of this lifetime of athleticism I mentioned before, at the root of all of this, I’m a strength and conditioning bro. I’m a coach. That is who I have been since 2008 and now I sound old, but I have been in that world for a long time now, since 2008 I speak about performance, and I after experiencing pregnancy and postpartum myself, I realized that these seasons weren’t about trying to remain who I was. It needed to be about reverse engineering, the process of who I wanted to be on the other side, there is no set path. There is no right way or wrong way. But I do feel that if we can connect the dots and make adjustments around the mindset, the psychology piece, our physiological changes as it relates to core and pelvic health, symptoms or predispositions and our performance efforts, whether it’s like how we’re training or what we want to do, that is the recipe, and that looks different for everybody else. But those are like the main themes. Those are like the building blocks of longevity and this lifetime of athleticism is being able to reverse engineer that process so that these women can feel informed, so that they can feel confident, so that they are not left feeling pissed off, overlooked and just really sad and lonely. Why me? Why did this happen to me? I thought I did everything right or now, I’ve been told this, and I’ve been told that, and it makes a challenging and confusing season that much harder. And look, if you can’t relate to this episode, good, good for you. And the majority of women will relate at least to some degree, okay, like there is a lot of value in letting yourself evolve as an athlete, because you’re going to whether you want to or not, if your goal is to still be an athlete when you are 60, if your goal is to still be really independent when you are 96 like my grandma right now, who takes a lot of pride in the fact that she still wipes her own ass. Seriously, this is a conversation I just had the other day. Was like, okay, cool grandma, if that’s the goal is that like longevity and that ability to be really self like sufficient, to be present and active with your future grandkids, then this is a big opportunity to learn how to adapt your relationship with exercise through all life seasons, because pregnancy and postpartum might be the first time you’re like, damn, this is like, not really what I want to do, but maybe what I need to do right now, or that needs to look a little bit different, and that’s okay, if This is your first experience, kind of having to make some like, adjustments around what your training era looks like, great like it’s a good opportunity, and it will only continue to help you. It is not for nothing, I promise you. It will make you a better athlete, guaranteed every time

Brianna Battles  33:37

you have to scale back, take a step back, learn about your body, learn about your training, reassess your relationship with all of it. It makes you a better athlete. I have seen that constantly, even with people have really significant symptoms, they become better athletes, even if it looks different, different truly is this opportunity to improve, to learn and to like, unlock a new and oftentimes, like better version of yourself, because there’s a healthier, happier and more mature version of yourself, you have a deeper level of appreciation for your body, for your patience, for the process, like that’s so beautiful, it’s so beautiful, and it’s freaking frustrating. It’s hard to be in it. I get it, but there’s a lot to be learned from that process. And you know, ultimately, life is going to throw different variables at you over time. There is there’s sickness and illness and injury. There’s just that’s the nature of mom life, where you know your training is going to have to keep adapting around your kids, because eventually your kids have training. That’s the era I’m in where I’m like, Oh, I can’t do that because we have football practice or games or whatever it might be. And then there’s life changes, there’s relationship struggles, there’s there’s just, there’s so many different variables that you’re going to experience across your life, where you have to learn to be an adaptable athlete at some point or the other, where how you approach fitness is going to need. Change, whether it’s aging related or or any or whatever else, like, literally, whatever it else, either way, it’s going to evolve. And when you can let it evolve and get adaptable with letting that happen and being able to just kind of, like, roll with like, yeah, I can make I can do this. I don’t need to do that anymore. I can scale back here, take a step back on this. And ultimately, I know I’ll do muscle ups again. Ultimately, I know I’ll be running that distance again. I don’t even care. Whatever. The thing is, it’s that athletic maturity, knowing that it’s not about right now, it’s about this longevity of being able to do it later, and honestly, it is sooner than what you think. There’s a lot of hope, there’s a lot of help, there’s a lot of support, and most importantly, there’s a lot of nuance to this conversation. So don’t fall into either extreme, okay, because the if we’re really supporting the whole athlete, then it’s this messy middle that that we have to navigate that is very individualized, and that acknowledges the big picture of this transformative season in your life as a female athlete, if you’re a coach, listening to this god, this is why you’re needed. Like this is why you’re needed. This information is not common sense. It is not always intuitive. We are given so much extreme information, extreme examples, comparisons, instead of unique considerations, and that’s why coaches need to be the people that can like, help steer right. We’re not there to like force anyone to do anything, but we’re there to provide information, insight and resources, because it is needed. It is so needed, you represent that middle ground, right? Because they’re getting the conservative information, they’re getting the extreme examples. And we have to be here as coaches, we’re so good at this, like, we’re naturally so good at, like, navigating just the there’s a lot of nuance to all of this, and individualized considerations. That’s what you can do a great job of, and why you’re so needed. Okay, that was 40 minutes of a lot of rambling. I know I talk fast. I know sometimes I like, I like, lose my train of thought a little bit. Thank you for listening to this. I know I need to start doing some more solo episodes where I can, like, lock in a little bit more. But this was on my heart. It’s wild what we see out there, but it’s also not new. I’m just like, reminded that it’s like, it’s just same shit. But one thing has remained true, and that is the work that I’ve been putting out there into the world. And you know, if it’s for you, it’s for you, and I’m with you. I get it. I’ve been there. I’m here to support if you are a coach, if you’re a practitioner, or, honestly, if you are a female athlete, and you’re like, I want to learn more. I want to do everything that I can learn, everything that you can about being a pregnant and postpartum athlete and navigating this season. And you know you’re going to have friends who have questions for you. My signature course, my certification program, pregnancy and postpartum athleticism, is going to be on sale in October. So we do this twice a year, where the certification is on sale.

Brianna Battles  38:33

And if we vibe, if you like this, if you like this angle that I come from, I would love to have you join we. We need more coaches. We need more practitioners. We need more people in the medical field, and we need more women who feel supported and informed with their training. And I would love to have you join us. We have over 5000 coaches around the world, which just blows my mind every time, that are certified, that are helping women in their local and online communities. And if that sounds like something you’d want to do, whether you would do it just for your own information as, like, a side quest, or ultimately, like, start a small business, scale your coaching business, bring this to your gym, whatever it might be, we have, like, every kind of iteration of how this info is being used, how this knowledge is being used. I’d love to have you join us. So thank you so much for listening to this podcast. I appreciate you. On October 1, I will be hosting a free workshop called the no BS guide to coaching pregnant and postpartum athletes. As usual. I will be really direct, but also really practical in ways that we can better support female athletes through pregnancy postpartum and on behalf of their lifetime of athleticism. It’s so much more than exercise modifications. I will be talking about the three core truths of coaching pregnant postpartum athletes, practical coaching strategies and case studies as well as. How to actually apply it to your coaching. Today, I would love to have you join me. We will have two different teaching times, and you can make sure that you register in the show notes. So again, that’s happening on October 1. I would love to have you join thank you so much for listening to this episode of the practice brave podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review and help us spread the work we are doing to improve the overall information and messaging in the fitness industry and beyond. Now, if you are pregnant and you are looking for a trustworthy exercise program to follow, I have you covered. The pregnant athlete training program is a well rounded program for pregnancy with workouts for each week that are appropriate for your changing body. That’s 36 weeks of workouts, three to four workouts each week, and tons of guidance on exercise strategy. We also have an at home version of that program if you are postpartum and you’re looking for an exercise program to follow the eight week postpartum athlete training program would be a really great way to help bridge the gap between rehab and the fitness you actually want to do. From there, we have the practice brave fitness program, which is an ongoing strength conditioning program where you get new workouts each week and have a lot of guidance for myself and my co coach, Heather Osby, this is the only way that I’m really offering ongoing coaching at this point in time. If you have ever considered becoming a certified pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach, I would love to have you join us. Pregnancy and postpartum athleticism is a self paced online certification course that will up level your coaching skills and help connect the dots between pelvic health and long term athletic performance, especially during pregnancy and postpartum, become who you needed and become who your online and local community needs by becoming a certified pregnancy and postpartum athleticism Coach, thank you again for Listening to the practice brave podcast. I appreciate you, and please help me continue spreading this messaging, this information and this work.