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, I’m here with Alina Alzru, and we’re going to be talking all about her pregnancy and her postpartum, and what it has looked like for being a high achieving female athlete in your 40s or at 40 to have a baby and to enter this season of life. So, Lena, thank you so much for being here.

Alena Alsruhe  01:13

Oh, thank you for having me, Brianna. I’m excited to be here.

Brianna Battles  01:16

Absolutely. So, give us a little bit of your your background prior to becoming a mom, like who are you at your core?

Alena Alsruhe  01:23

Yes, yes. Okay, so so many things to share, but yeah, 40 years old, 17 years of marriage. We get this miracle baby girl, Ellie Brave. Backtracking a little bit, girl. We were just talking about Hawaii. I was born in Hawaii. I love movement. I love sunshine, and that’s a huge part of who I am. I work as a counselor, so I’m all about helping people get well mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally. I started off as a you know a played sports my whole life, but I got interested in personal training, and that’s where I started with helping people get well physically, and I just enjoyed it, enjoyed lifting, and then I quickly learned, hey, you can share all the great information, but total transformation doesn’t happen unless that person’s emotionally or mentally in a in a good place. So I went to become a counselor, and had been working with people ever since in private practice, helping them get well. Super passionate about helping people not just cope with life, but actually thrive and live an abundant life. So that’s at the core of one of the things I’m passionate about. Who I am, I just love love people, love God, love movement, love seeing transformation take place and uplifted for ever since I was 18. So I’ve been doing that for a while.

Brianna Battles  02:48

No, absolutely. Like it. I mean, you. You. When I first met you, I was like, you’re just you’re so solid. Like sometimes when I coach pregnant athletes, I know there’s gonna be like this this steep learning curve of like identity and who they are, and having to sometimes go through like an ego death and then rebuild like who am I and like this transformation. I think that happens no matter when you become a mother, but with you, you were just so bought in on everything. Like you wanted to learn, you just were like, I’m willing to kind of do whatever, and that open mindedness was just-it was really refreshing. When I first met you, that was the thing that blessed me is you were just like so solid in who you were and like what you wanted, and you did it from a place of like openness and not rigidity.

Alena Alsruhe  03:35

Oh, thanks for sharing that. I was reflecting on like, oh, what are we going to talk about today? And I was taking a walk with Allie, and I was like, you know, identity matters so much in this season and in life, right? Especially as women, like, who are we? What are what are we doing? And I think that was a big thing walking into this at 40, knowing who I am, what I care about, and you know, the world has a lot of lot of noise out there about what we should look like, what we should sound like what we should, you know, show up as, especially as an athlete, especially as a woman, especially when you’re pregnant, postpartum. And I just, I’m so grateful. I was thinking about, I’m always looking for people who kind of break through the noise, and that’s when I found your work. You know, when I got pregnant, I was like, all right, you know, I want to make sure that I am well on the other side of this. Always looking ahead and saying, “Okay, how can I show up really well for this child, this miracle baby after after this life, this transformation of my body? And so I was seeking out someone, you know, and I found you. And I don’t, I’m not a big scroller, but I did somehow see your your work and I was like, huh? Let me check this graph, and and then I was like, I gotta learn

Brianna Battles  04:46

opinion or voice or whatever. Yeah, I know it’s hey, I’m like not for everybody, but when it lands, it lands, and say like, but I can be if you’re open to it.

Alena Alsruhe  04:57

Yeah, no,

Brianna Battles  04:58

I’m so glad, and I. I feel, you know, I talk to a lot of female athletes about the athletic maturity that is acquired through motherhood. But again, I think by the time we’re 40, we’re like, hey, we’ve like lived through so many different iterations of ourselves as athletes and our relationship with our body and fitness and where we’re at in our career or even in our marriage. Like we just you go through so many shifts in identity that I think that that was probably a huge contributor into like just how you entered your pregnancy and how willing you were to learn and um just honestly like I I would just we were so impressed with how willing you were to like get the coaching certification. She flew out. I mean, yeah, Alina flew out to the Boise area, and came and trained at our gym in the winter. Like, okay, crazy lady, I go. But just to like have like a solid consultation, she, you know, you consulted with a pelvic floor physical therapist, Carrie Pagliano, Carrie, colleague of mine, and have just like you just wanted to gather a lot of information. I really admired how proactive you were, and I think so much of that connects to the work that you do, and being able to see the big picture instead of like just that tree in front of you. Like you know, you see the forest through the trees instead of being so hyper focused on the tree that is oftentimes pregnancy for a lot of athletes.

Alena Alsruhe  06:16

Oh, thanks for saying that. Yeah, when I was reflecting for today, I was like, what what did I do? And I think it’s like the oxygen mask. You guys have probably heard this from a therapist or somebody before. You know, got to take care of yourself on an airplane. You know, get your oxygen before the your your whoever next to you. And that’s kind of how I approached it. I was like, all right, I want to. I cast a vision on the other side of this. Like, what do I want myself to show up as I don’t want to be depleted. I don’t want to worry about you know feeling good in my skin. I want to be well prepared, and so I began to almost kind of gather a team and kind of get excited about learning. I’m like, you know, I’ve never been pregnant. I can learn about this, and oh wait, here’s this cool certification course, and oh wait, this is good stuff. Like I’m into it, you know. And I needed to learn so much about this. You know, I’ve been a coach for a long time and had never even incorporated different types of breathing. And I’m a huge, you know, some of you may know my husband Brian Alzero. He like kind of coined the the belly breath, honestly, and did a lot of teaching and training about that. And that kind of breathing, the valsabid breath, helped me. you know, lift free time, body weight, deadlift, you know, and like squat two and a half, like I it works right, and I had to really reel it back in and be like, I gotta listen, I gotta change, I gotta grow, and so being open minded and learning, and then gathering a good team, and then kind of saying, hey, you know what, when I learn, I don’t want to be like a passive learner. I want to be an active learner. So I flew out, like did the course. At that, before that, my husband and I were in Colorado because we were like, “Hey, you know what? This is a new adventure. Having a baby, let’s go have an adventure because it is an adventure. It’s like it’s it’s you can look at it lots of different ways that we wanted to look at it like that. So mindset’s everything, and then when I found you did the course, I was like, ah, I gotta go get get some get some coaching, and you know, and I’m I’m learning and just trying to take that humble approach because I don’t know everything about this. I had, you know, just kind of that athlete brain, and and you spoke to that a lot, and that’s honestly what really helped me say I need to grow in this because I will have an athlete brain when it comes to coming coming back, you know, and all those things people say. Oh, you’re going to bounce back so fast. I’ve heard that a million times. Like, or oh, don’t lift too heavy when you’re you know training or you’re pregnant. And I wanted to silence the noise beforehand, so I was like, I’m gonna go learn from super high level, you know, qualified person, and kind of follow what you shared, and then it kind of silenced a lot of people’s comments, and that was actually really nice. Yeah, because I

Brianna Battles  08:58

think it’s so tempting, like our our culture and the pendulum swing of the messaging has swung so much that I feel like it’s truly come to this full circle of like we’re back to where to like what got me in this place in the in like in the very beginning, which is you know you’re not fragile and you’re also not invincible, but we really are only given like those two ends of the spectrum in terms of messaging. Like you can keep doing this, you should keep doing that, and like all these badasses that are doing all of these things, like basically doing the most during pregnancy and then getting back ASAP and postpartum. Like we’re given that highlight reel, and then we’re also told of like it’s all over when you could become a mom. Don’t lift over this, and you have these symptoms. So it’s like we have these two narratives, and the common, like the middle ground, is the way. It’s been the way, but that’s not the thing that like gathers a lot of traction. So I’m so grateful that it found your ears and your brain and your heart when it did, and that it wasn’t like you kind of had to learn through your own experience. That you were able to like catch that the psychological piece of it early, because if you can do that and you can acknowledge the athlete brain and what your tendencies are, what your underlying belief systems or fears and whatever are, then that’s going to change the trajectory of your overall experience and a lot of times your outcomes.

Alena Alsruhe  10:20

100% because I told myself, “Hey, you got to be mentally well. Because you know, I work with women all the time in fitness, health, and mental health, and I love combining it all. And so I was like, “Hey, you got to do this well. And I know the physical will fall into place as long as I learn what I need to learn and then follow through and get disciplined about it. But the mental piece was the part that I knew I needed to get community support, and then the other thing I wanted to say: like you have a community that’s doing this, and I wasn’t alone. So anybody listening, like don’t go through this alone, because you will fall into a dark hole, you know, and you will isolate yourself, and you’ll think that just because you’re looking at all these people doing things online, that you have community and you really don’t. It’ll make you lonely, and that’s why I wanted that like contact and then talk talk to different people and practice it and and you know talk to friends. Just don’t be alone in it. And and that was another really helpful helpful part.

Brianna Battles  11:16

Yeah, it’s so easy to get into the comparison game, whether it’s like in real life, or it’s just on social media, where you’re like, this person is also 27 weeks pregnant, but she’s doing this, or this person, we had a baby within a couple weeks of each other, and she’s already doing this, and like it is in your face, even when you try to like have certain boundaries in place, you can’t help it. Your algorithm literally knows everything about you, and it feeds you this these comparisons, and that is so hard as a new mom, honestly, as a person in general, but especially during a more vulnerable season, especially for people. It’s where you’re like, well, God, if she can, I can. We just sort of override the mental and try to out athlete everything that

Alena Alsruhe  12:00

we’re feeling or dealing with, and we don’t really know how to navigate it. Absolutely, I couldn’t say about it myself. Like comparison is the thief of all joy, and that is something that I try to keep in my head all the time. Like comparison is a thief of joy. So when you begin to like want something somebody else has, just take that step back. I’ve taken that step back and said, okay, what do I really want here? Okay, I want to thrive. I want to do my best, and I can’t just you know want what that person has because it’s going to make me feel bad. But what I do want to do is do the best that I can, and so gathering the tools, gathering the resources to be able to do that is kind of the how I begin to do things. And so I was like, okay, I want what what’s going on here? I want to stay strong. I want to work hard, you know. And I was able to train throughout the whole pregnancy, and I put down a couple certain lifts, you know. But everything got modified, and it was fine. It was great. I’ve been through so many seasons of lifting, you know, from like strong woman athlete, top five in the nation, competitor to row lifter or trail hiker when I was in Colorado, like loving movement is all about allowing whatever season you’re in to help transform you. But lean into it. That was the other thing. Like I really just tried to lean into whatever whatever was going on and not like shrink back from it and embrace wherever I was, and and then that worked out. You know, in Colorado, we we didn’t really have a gym, so body weight stuff, a lot of beautiful hikes in the sunshine. It was, you know, maybe like sneaking into the local gym, trying to get like a couple days free, whatever, keep it going. But being okay with what was in front of me really helped my mental state, and then having a plan for when I was back in what we call the baby gym here. My husband put this together; it’s awesome. So I don’t have to travel very far. Had a plan and felt good about it. Didn’t feel bad. The workouts were a little shorter. And

Brianna Battles  13:56

it’s so powerful when you can like tap into different versions of who you are as an athlete. When you’re like, actually, I’m not just a powerlifter, or I’m not just a CrossFitter, or not just a runner. Like, I can dose in a lot of different training throughout my lifetime, and ultimately, it’s going to help me in the other things that I decide to do or come back to at a different point in time. And I always tell my runners, like, one of the best things you can do to improve your postpartum running is to lift weights during pregnancy, and they all think like it’s about distance and and trying to like maintain speed or cadence or whatever volume, and like so much of it is like no, just like do something a little bit different. They incorporate more weightlifting, and you’re gonna be better off in the long run, is what we consistently see, and it’s hard though because I think we get so attached to like this is what I do, this is how I train, and we almost like attached to like is it even a good workout or am I even like getting fitter or stronger or am I losing weight if I’m not lifting that much weight or if I’m not training for that long or that many days or whatever and like we have all these weird. Conversations like mental conversations about our relationship with training.

Alena Alsruhe  15:06

Oh yeah, especially if you know what’s worked for you before, and you’re like, “All right, that’s going to work again, you know. And and I I was able to just again try to enjoy movement wherever I was, and then work a work a program that and be okay modifying it, and I was able to, you know, it felt good throughout. And if something didn’t feel right, well, check in with you, check in with some, you know, okay, let’s not do that today. And some days felt better than others, and that was okay. But I just never stopped trying.

Brianna Battles  15:35

Yeah, that’s like the competitive advantage, and not even just like for competing. It’s the competitive advantage for having like longevity in fitness and longevity in our body is like not basically it’s like not ego lifting right or it’s like not being ego driven with your training and it’s really hard for us as athletes to do even if we’re like I’m not trying to have an ego like we just all do that’s just part of being an athlete and being driven and and passionate and structured and disciplined and it’s hard to adapt that a lot of times throughout throughout our life.

Alena Alsruhe  16:04

Yeah, a lot of times I was we were always chasing the PR, right? And chase the PR, got to get PR, pregnancy PR, this PR, that PR, and then it became less about PR and more about like, I’m so glad I I’m healthy. I’m so glad I can do this. I’m so glad I know that lifting and becoming stronger physically helps me mentally, helps me emotionally, and I’m telling you that helped me show up strong. Not that I did not train for my delivery or labor, but the mentality of hey, we just show up and we do we do the next thing, and it makes you healthier mentally to be strong physically, and I’m just grateful for that.

Brianna Battles  16:43

Yeah, that like adaptability. I tell everyone it’s like the adaptability in your training then influences your mindset, and then the adaptability of your mindset influences your training, and those two together will influence how you navigate whatever variable motherhood throws at you, starting from the moment you go into labor. Is like if you’re really rigid of like I have to have this kind of birth, or I’m going to be so disappointed if I don’t, and you have like a lot of like harsh belief systems around birth, it just sets you up for disappointment because so many variables are not within your control, no matter how driven and disciplined you are, no matter how you prepared or whatnot, there’s just too many variables. You can’t go into it rigid. You have to go into this entire season of motherhood with adaptability, mentally and physically.

Alena Alsruhe  17:32

Totally. One of the things that I got inspired to do was to create. I did this. I do webinars, right? And I kind of like how I call it trusted voices, where it’s just like I gather mental health professionals, fitness professionals. I just gather people together and create a space where people can come learn, and people that I’ve trusted. And I ended up doing like a whole women’s strong and beautiful conference out of this experience that I was in, and actually was so healthy for me because I was like, “This is beauty, right? Being pregnant is beautiful. Embracing a new style of training, helping people get strong and and feel beautiful, know that they are mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and was such a cool opportunity for me to realize that I am my identity. I am beautiful. I am loved. I look a lot different than I did before. But what a beautiful what life! Life is happening through me, you know. And and like you’ve said, like 80% of women go through this, and I had not been through it, and it was just really trans. It’s been transforming me, and still is. I’m sure if we talk in a year, I’m going to be like, oh wait, I have so much more I learned. It’s my brain’s so foggy, right? I’m still trying to remember,

Brianna Battles  18:42

right? Yeah, you’re in the crunches of like early postpartum right now, but I think again, just getting to know you through your pregnancy, you were, you had already learned a lot of what takes most women an entire first pregnancy and first year postpartum to gain perspective on, and I think it’s just like the work that you do in mental health, and then the longevity. I honestly like the millennial, 40-year-old millennial, who’s like, we have seen it all, bro. We have seen so much of like skinny was trending a long time ago, and then like get strong, they’re strong as the new skinny and healthy. Like we lived, starting up, and we lived through the CrossFit era, then we lived through all the girls getting really buff and strong, and then we lived through body positivity. It’s like we’ve seen all this shit, and now we’re like settling in on okay, like I actually really have a solid understanding of my body, what I like, what I prefer, and what I want long term-not just what fills my cup right now, but like what do I want the rest of my life to look like and my quality of life as a mom.

Alena Alsruhe  19:41

Oh my gosh! Yes, and like like seeing the vision, seeing who you want to look like, be like ahead of time, and then building towards that in in everyday decisions, right? Because all our decisions push us closer to or farther away from our goals, and that that’s what helped me kind of get up and be like, all right, I need sunshine today. I need movement today. I need some strength training today. I need to talk to a good friend. I need to make sure I’m, you know, doing certain things that help me kind of begin to be hopeful about my life and say, you know what, I really want to hike a lot of mountains. You know, I really want to see some beauty. I love seeing beauty. I try to put that in every single day. And even coming out to see you, I was like, I get to I get to hike. Where’s the closest place to hike? You know, and I’m like slipping and sliding, you know, however many months pregnant, eight months pregnant on the like the hiking like trails in the snow. I was like, I got to do this, you know. But that’s like, that’s who I want to be when I’m 105, you know. And and I know lifting is gonna help me get there for sure. And I want-I didn’t want to abuse my body while I was pregnant because I didn’t know about pelvic floor, girl. I mean, we’re you know in a gym where girls are just deadlifting crazy weights, and I’m like, you’re being, you know, and I’m like, I-I gotta change my life. I can’t be, you know. That was important for me to hear and have you speak to that. And I knew I was a little late to the party about it, kind of because I didn’t want to hear about it, you know. And I had to change my life so that I can not have issues postpartum. And I was like, I got to do this now. And so meeting Carrie, talking to you, because when I’m an old, old lady, I want to feel good and do stuff and enjoy my life.

Brianna Battles  21:19

Yeah, you know, and it’s you know you have the strong woman and powerlifting background, and we know it’s so normalized in those communities to be a strong woman, whether you’ve had babies or not, and be peeing yourself. And like, there’s so many contributing factors to that. It’s not that oh, they have a weak pelvic floor and they just need to do more Kegels, which is again like the the belief system, like

Alena Alsruhe  21:42

what you hear, yeah,

Brianna Battles  21:43

yeah, like it’s like the bro belief system, but that’s just like not how it actually works. So then there’s it takes sometimes a season like pregnancy where like my body is truly changing. It has even more considerations than prior. Now it’s really worth it to turn into, so that we’re not like creating an injury, like that’s kind of what it comes down to. It, but no one really wants to say that internal injury. Yeah, we don’t want that because again, you want to be lifting, you want to be running, you don’t want to be thinking about your pelvic floor every time you’re exercising. So, what can we do proactively, at least in the ways we can control? Because there’s so many things. Once again, we don’t have control of, but it’s hard in certain like communities and cultures within the fitness industry, where you know, like it’s almost a sign of being strong. Really, well, if you’re peeing, that’s just really strong. That’s just what happens, or that’s just a part of being a girl who lifts. But I know there’s so much that we can actually do from the outside in. That’s not just like do more Kegels or stop lifting. They don’t need to do that.

Alena Alsruhe  22:40

Yeah, absolutely. Like I want to be able to do stone work again, stones and sandbags, and that those movements will definitely trigger that. And so I want to be able to do that. Like you said something recently that I was like, I really hope this is true. And I was like, you’re like, you’re going to be a better athlete after this experience. And so I’m working towards believing that that’s my truth, you know. And that gives me a lot of hope that I can do these things better or differently, and and be healthier, right? And so I don’t look back and be like, “Oh, I did something wrong. I’m like, “Oh, okay, like this is just part of the learning process. Like I’m super proud of my strength, but hey, I’m this is a brand new type of strength. Believe me, having a baby was probably the hardest thing I ever did. I’ll squat whatever you want me to squat before I do that. Like that was so hard, but you know what? Those hard moments that I practiced in small incremental moments of leaning into discomfort through hard lifts taught me what I had capacity for during a delivery. You know, or now waking up every day and be like, “Hey, I need to do this. This is hard, but I’m going to do it. So it changes your brain.

Brianna Battles  23:44

It really does. And you know, to your point about becoming a better athlete on the other side of motherhood, I truly I see this often, but it’s not always in the ways that people anticipate. They’re like, “Oh, that means I’m going to be stronger. I’m going to be faster. And maybe, but it’s also a lot of the time, it’s because they really understand their body for the first time in their life, like the body education that is acquired through partum, and then the perspective you gain of like, my body did that, it survived that, it sustained that, and it’s a lot of like deep perspective and appreciation as long as well as that education and all of those things like contribute to that athletic maturity and that perspective and how you approach your training, you’re just smarter with it. And ultimately, the smarter you are, like I guess you just approach your training differently with like a different perspective. And then you’re like, wait, I maybe was making it harder than it needed to be. I didn’t need to be in the gym for two hours for it to be effective, or I didn’t need to be training as much as I was, for it to be, you know, to still be a really good athlete, and then you start focusing on the quality, not just the quantity. Absolutely, and so many of us been focused on quantity of training for a really long time, and you can of course dose that and scale it over time. But I think that era of early motherhood, where you’re really having to just peel back some layers. Of your, like, of everything and rebuild. It’s it’s not for nothing.

Alena Alsruhe  25:07

No, I’m glad you said that because before being pregnant, I’m going to write this down. The word mindfulness came to me when you were just talking, and then what you’re speaking to now. I almost feel like I’m in a cocoon right now, where I’m like having this. I’m having to a good day is getting up, watering the plants with baby. You know, she’s struggling with her feeding right now, and so I’m having to like learn to calm my nervous system to show up for her. And I’m, you know, my lifting is going to be 10 minutes, and that 10 minutes, 15 minutes, that’s going to be. I’m gonna make that worth it, right? And I’m gonna be like, I did that, and it’s gonna feel good. And we’re gonna go for a walk, and we’re gonna. Yeah, those are the small wins right now for me. And oh yeah, I made a dinner. You know, good job, me. Yeah, like. But to your point, having to be quiet inside and really kind of see what you’re made of. Will I know it’s going to make me better? And what really matters. And and I I know again, like if we talk in a year, I’m going to have so much more wisdom from this time of humbling. It’s a totally an equalizer for sure. It’s a governor of what you can and can’t do. It’s it’s I love it because of that. And I I couldn’t imagine not now having this experience of such raw living,

Brianna Battles  26:24

and I love that you’re not fighting that either, because I think for so many women, myself included, I like freaking fought that. I was like, no, like I need to like reclaim this, and I can do it all. And like,

Alena Alsruhe  26:36

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brianna Battles  26:36

I did not like accept where I was. I tried to either fast forward or get back, but I could not just be. And there’s a lot of like, God, I wish I could like get a do over with that. And I just I have so much respect for again like just this perspective that you already have.

Alena Alsruhe  26:53

Oh no, thank you. I think it’s becoming a daily decision to be like, all right, surrender. You know, like 12 step, like I surrender. I can’t do this by myself. God help me do this next step well, and not run away from it because that’s easy to want to do. And I wrote down the word yesterday: striving. I found myself striving to have to try to do this or that, or like like kind of like you said, it is a slow back process right now. And I I want to do a lot of stuff, you know. I’m like, I hate it when a pull up feels hard. I don’t want a pull up to feel hard. Like, I want to get in there and practice now, so it doesn’t feel hard later. And I don’t want 185 to feel heavy for me on a squat. Like, I don’t like that feeling. But you know what? Too bad. I have to wait, and that’s okay. And that waiting is going to teach me and almost like purify me. I feel like it’s a purification process that I’m in right now, and all this to say, like you’re right. I will be a much better athlete on the other side, better mom, better person, better therapist. Like I didn’t know what moms went through before this, and always felt kind of bad, like not knowing. But sat with many women postpartum, struggling with anxiety, depression, like all the hard things that come after and during a pregnancy. But now I have more to speak to. But one thing you said earlier about being mindful, I think it helps prevent injury. Just on a side note, like I always found myself to be a very mindful lifter, and knock on wood, not a ton of injuries. Okay, and so I felt like, and even now I’m much having to even you know, guys, breath, breath centers us right more than anything else in the world, and and having to re to change the way I was breathing through that dynamic, just you know, it’s so different than breathing and hold. You know, get that belly breath and hold

Brianna Battles  28:50

connection. You know, and it’s not like

Alena Alsruhe  28:51

totally. I

Brianna Battles  28:52

tell people like it’s not that like El Salva is bad. It’s just like that’s all we were taught lifting community. You know, like in different variations of El Salva, but not really through the lens of like, oh, how is this affecting the anatomy of a woman? Like that just wasn’t part of that conversation in any of the strength conditioning communities that you or I have both been a part of. And when you can teach somebody how to like leverage that or change it slightly, like not only will their performance improve? But hey, maybe they’re gonna stop peeing themselves, and then that’s like gonna act as a. I mean, you know how much like the mental side of things go into performance. If you’re off even for a second mentally when you’re starting onto the platform, thinking like, “Oh shit, I hope I don’t pee. Like that already is like up for like it’s gonna buffer your performance a bit. So, like, there’s just so much that we can do proactively with with that breathing and and just playing around with different strategies. There’s not one right way. There’s just we got options, but we just haven’t been taught those options.

Alena Alsruhe  29:52

Yeah. No. And and totally, I love that. Like, you have different tools. You’re not just like a OneNote machine, right? You can use different pull out different things that you. At whatever time, and hey, believe me, if I’m feeling I’m rehabbed well, and I hit 80% 90% and whenever I feel like doing that down the road, you better believe I’m gonna to use that and keep myself nice and safe, you know. But I’m not doing that right now, and I think that was the thing I always was taught. Like, and it is true, like keeps you got it pretty safe, you know. They poked me five times for my epidural, and the guy was like, “You are strong, like your ligaments are real tight back.

Brianna Battles  30:29

Yeah. Oh man. Well, I want to like rewind a little bit, but also talk about like what was your journey into motherhood like? We’ve talked so much about who you’ve become and who you currently are right now, but you mentioned that you were married or been married like 17 years. Did you know you wanted to be a mom? Was it like part of the conversation? Like, what was that journey to motherhood like for you?

Alena Alsruhe  30:55

Sure. Yeah, we have, and if anybody follows Brian on YouTube, like he definitely is so much more open than I am about our story. He’s a good, just great storyteller. But no, I am

Brianna Battles  31:06

like, let me let me just poke. It’s good.

Alena Alsruhe  31:09

Yeah, no, it’s really good. I love sharing because someone out there might be experiencing something similar. You know, we were married at a right 18. We started dating, so we dated like five years before we got married, and then we got married. And a couple years into our marriage, we experienced a separation, and then we experienced a he got really sick, and had he worked he did a crazy job and contracted schistosomiasis, and so I definitely walked into our marriage thinking I was going to be a mom. No joke. I’m the oldest of five kids. We’re Armenian family. We’re all about you know family and food and fun, and and I thought that was going to be like a no brainer, but never used birth control. Never really was like, what’s going on? You know, kind of didn’t address it. I was getting my master’s, going to be a counselor. It had a lot of goals, and then when he, you know, our story, you know, we can have a marriage talk podcast and how to work through hard things later. But yeah, like we were separated for a year during seven years into our marriage, and then after that, we got back together. And then he started Never State Athletics, which was a strongman gym, which was like you know top 50 gyms nation. Like we took people to nationals and all this stuff for a good seven years before COVID, and during that time we found out that he had schistomiasis. And actually, Dr. Gabriel Lyon, yeah, so she was the one who helped us because we connected through Mark Bell, and we got went up to New York City, and she’s like, “Yeah, like here’s here’s we gotta help you guys, you know. And so he began a journey of getting well, and that was kind of the focus. So when there’s like something that happens in your life, like a chronic illness or something that you didn’t expect, that shifts at all. And so for me, I kind of like put that dream aside. I was like, we gotta focus on getting better. Like this isn’t okay, and and so and he and it was just something that we didn’t talked about for a while, and then I started being like, yeah, I’m gonna be 40 soon. Like, what? We got to talk about this, you know? We got to address this, and it just hadn’t been, you know, we hadn’t prevented pregnancy, so we were kind of like, hey, if it happens, like this is going to be a miracle. And after COVID, we end up closing the gym, and we bought this property that was on the woods. And he got well, and was able to just his body was able to heal. And so then when we we downsized, we moved into this house here in Maryland. We begin to talk about it a little bit more. Like, what do we want our lives to look like? I’m going to turn 40, and I felt like I don’t know if anybody out there has experienced this. Like, you have something that you want, but you’ve surrendered it and almost already grieved it, and you weren’t really in touch with that desire strongly. It’s kind of strange to hear, but I’ve done a lot of reflecting, and I had a really important mentor. Always, coaches and mentors have always been part of my life. Right, therapists, like a practice would have reached, and and she was like, “Hey, you, you, when I listen to you talk, like you’re so nurturing, like you want this. You have to honor this in you, and you may have put it down for him, but make sure you’re not whatever people pleasing, or just trying not to like go after something that matters. You know, you might as well try. So she, we became a lot more intentional about it and agreed about that. And and he, you know, it. I turned 40. We went to Hawaii. It turned 40, and then the next month I got pregnant. I was like, “What is this? Like, this is crazy! And I had literally grieved it like about six months prior. Was like, “I, you know, why? This might not just be my story. Like, I can help people in other ways. You know how? And that’s great. Like, been doing great, but I was.

Alena Alsruhe  34:59

I was just broken about it. I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t believe it, Brianna. And then it was a-it’s been a crazy road, to be honest. 17 years of marriage, and then having a miracle baby, Ellie Brave, has been completely transformational. But there definitely was a lot of hard steps and hard conversations, and in the middle of it all, and advocating for something that I knew I really wanted deep inside, you know. And now we’re just in love with her.

Brianna Battles  35:28

Yeah, that’s so special. And I think anyone who’s been married a long period of time, like you, you go through a lot of versions of yourself and a lot of fires that get put out, and a lot of fires are absolutely destructive, and when something beautiful can come out of that, it’s just like it’s you don’t take it for granted. Like it, it just it hits so different. And I’m so happy for you that you got a baby out of all of the fires you guys experienced. Yeah, it’s

Alena Alsruhe  36:00

and then that’s not always everyone’s story, and like because I, you know, sitting on the other side of so many people’s stories. But I am so thankful to God for, and then we’ve talked about faith before. You know, faith is such a huge part of my life, and finding purpose through hard things, you know, and not giving up hope, but also staying in reality too, so I I do I am so humbled and so grateful that what a beautiful gift, and so it motivates me even more to take care of that gift, and it’s going to help me help other people better. You know,

Brianna Battles  36:36

no, I love that, and that’s like I think I think everyone’s entrance into motherhood is so different, yet there are like parallels and themes that connect all of us. All of us. It’s just it looks it looks different. And again, even with marriage, anybody who’s married been married for an extensive period of time, like there are seasons we can all look back on and be like, “Wow, I’ve been five different people since then. Especially you guys said started dating at 18. Like who you are at that age versus 40 is dramatically, dramatically different. And there’s just so many versions of yourself that get birthed during that period. And again, when you become a mother,

Alena Alsruhe  37:19

no, it’s so cool. And now he just graduated with his master’s in counseling, which is crazy. So now we’ve got two counselors in the house. Very different people to show up. We show up differently to the counseling space, right? Yeah, he’s like the yeah, he’s he’s helping men just learn how to talk about them. You know, he was in jujitsu. He, we love what y’all are doing with your lives. He went to karate school when he was younger, did jujitsu, and did the counterterrorism, and went to gym, and now here we are trying to help people grow emotionally because you know, like we can physically. There’s so many people who can do things physically, but you know the difference is is the mental and emotional piece, right?

Brianna Battles  38:00

Yeah, the equal growth will only get you so far. Absolutely, like I think you used the word surrender earlier, and that’s that is the I think the hardest thing for like high drive athlete brained people to even consider is surrender. I’m like, no, I like control. Like, hello, that surrender, absolutely not. But I think after you’ve had your ass kicked enough through different life seasons, you realize I have to surrender, whether that is to God or to just like whatever your reality is. Like you just-it’s that that surrender and then faith in general of guess being able to trust like what the redirect for your life is going to be.

Alena Alsruhe  38:41

Yeah, absolutely, and that hope where that hope comes from, and knowing who you are, I think that matters. And because you can get really, again, like our world wants to push in so many directions about what what it takes to feel good and look good, and and all that. And so knowing being solid, and then I want to share that with other people. How do you be well and live an abundant life, mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally? So,

Brianna Battles  39:06

well, I’m so grateful that this has been such a catalyst for you in your own growth as a counselor, in your growth as an athlete. I’m so glad that we connected. And can you please share like where people can learn more about you and what you are creating with with all of the perspective that you have,

Alena Alsruhe  39:22

yeah, absolutely, Briana. So you can find so I’m on Instagram, but I’m also I have a website just my name, Elena Aldrew, and I so I I love to bridge the gap, like the mental, physical, spiritual. I try to bring all that together. So I’m my main work that I do as a therapist, but I’m specialized in attachment and trauma. So I’m an EMDR certified therapist, so I help people, you know, with any trauma, especially labor trauma. That’s an area that I’m stepping into, just like pregnancy and postpartum work with mental health, with trauma, because your nervous system goes through so much. And so, being able to speak to what goes on in the nervous system, whether it’s a trauma during delivery or if it’s just the transformation process that your body goes through through pregnancy or anything, so I’m leaning into that a little bit more. But yeah, you can find me alinaalsry.com or on Instagram Elena Alsrue, but I do fitness like strength coaching. My main work right now is trying to bring all that together through a therapy lens, just because there’s not a lot of that out there.

Brianna Battles  40:35

Absolutely. Well, I’m so grateful that you shared your story and just the perspective that you’ve gained, and I really loved leaning into like the mental health side of side of this conversation because I think for any pregnant and postpartum athletes, athlete mom listening to this, like that’s this isn’t always the message that we necessarily want to hear, but it’s the one that we need to hear and the one that’s going to have the most impact. And for those of you listening, thank you for keeping an open mind and for listening to, like some of the nuances that are shared here, and the growth, and the experiences, and the approach. I think all of that is, it just it sets you up. It really does, even if it doesn’t feel like it other times. Absolutely no, thank you so much. This was awesome. Thank you. Talk soon. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Practice Brave podcast. If you enjoy 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 from myself and my co-coach Heather Ozzie. 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 uplevel 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.