Episode 12: How to Strengthen Your Deep Core with Erica Ziel

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Hi, I'm Dr. Tabatha, the Functional Gynecologist. I'm a board-certified OB-GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey, and I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, Then you've come to the right place. I want to be your functional gynecologist. So welcome.

All right, ladies, welcome to The Functional Gynecologist. I'm super excited. We are going to be talking about exercise and movement today with my good friend Erica Ziehl. Erica has over 15 years experience specializing in deep core, fascial, and prenatal and postnatal training. So she is the creator of Core Athleta, the Core Rehab Program, Core Studio Membership, and the Knocked Up Fitness brand, and the prenatal postnatal exercise specialist instructor course. Erica holds a bachelor's degree in health and human performance. She's certified Pilates instructor, a personal trainer, a pre and postnatal exercise specialist, and core exercise specialist. She's also a published author, and she's contributed to many publications. Pretty awesome, including the New York Times, Fit Pregnancy, People.com, Babble.com, The Bump. PopSugar, Oxygen Magazine, the Strength and Conditioning Journal, and many more. Erica has dedicated her career to helping women generate quicker, better results that have them feeling stronger and more confident while saying goodbye to aches and pains, pelvic floor dysfunction, and even more. So that's why she's so important in my space. She's like— targets us women. She says that even just 10 minutes a day can provide amazing results in your physique. It's about working out smarter, not harder. I hope that you enjoy listening to this interview today because she's a wealth of knowledge. So here we go. Well, welcome, Erica. How are you today?

I'm great.

So good, Tabatha. I'm so excited to be here.

Awesome. I'm so glad that we got to connect again. I want you to tell my listeners about your new program, Core Studio. It sounds amazing. Yeah.

So Core Studio is all about getting women moving, even if you only have 10 minutes a day, because I am a firm, firm believer that consistency is key and having even just 10 minutes when you can carve out 10 minutes a day, To really commit to yourself. This is your movement practice. It really can not only— it'll help you become stronger, absolutely, but so many other things can come from that. Like, I'm a big, big fan of really teaching women how to connect with their body, connect with the deep core, doing movements that are really empowering you to become stronger and with better form and things like that. Because a lot of my workouts in there, we have a mix of things from like Pilates flow workouts, core flow, to release videos that are really all about getting into the fascia of our bodies. So we're teaching our fascia to become lengthened and also to become stronger because it's really fascia and like restrictive fascia that can cause a lot of pain and nerve problems and things like that for women, like back pain, pelvic floor issues, and on and on.

Mm-hmm.

And I also have strength workouts in there because I'm a firm believer like we need to have that resistance exercise as well. And so within a week, like, I lay it out for you, like, every day exactly what video to do. And of course you can pick your favorites, but I think it's great to also get that variety. And we get a lot of women that are like, I love this, this is like exactly what I need, it's doable, I can do it, and I'm feeling stronger. And they're like, and I can do these workouts and my neck doesn't hurt. And I'm like, oh my gosh, it's not rocket science, people.

Yeah. It's so true though. So many women get hurt doing those HIIT interval trainings and all those hardcore workouts. So I love your program, but for my listeners, tell them how you got into this. Didn't it start with your Knocked Up Fitness where you focused on pregnancy and stuff?

Yes, it did.

Did that come out of a personal journey or what?

So, okay, the weird thing is the whole pregnancy journey of mine. I actually was very fascinated with pregnancy, specifically pregnancy and exercise, actually in college. I remember I had totally forgotten that I used to do so much research in this area until one day at home my mom said, you've got to clean out this stuff. It was stuff from college. All of my papers in college were some way related to exercise and pregnancy or health and pregnancy. No desire to have a baby or anything like that. I just was very fascinated with the research that was out there and pregnancy and what the body was capable of. That was my first fascination with it. Then I worked with pregnant moms. I did prenatal fitness training courses and things just to learn as much as I could. Then I was 23 when I had my first and I thought I knew a lot. Of course, we do, right?

Right.

And grateful for the knowledge that I did have. But it was really just this culmination of just learning one thing after the other. By the time I had had— well, it was actually my birth, my labor with my second, my son, that actually was a really, really big light bulb moment for me.

Hmm.

So I've been working with a variety of clients. I also work with men as well. But I really loved working with women, especially during pregnancy and postpartum. It's just this magical time when even Between 10 and 15 years ago, the recommendations were like you have to keep— you can only do during pregnancy what you've been doing prior to pregnancy, right?

Right.

And so you'd have these women that were like, well, I didn't work out before pregnancy but now like I feel like I should do something, right? And they didn't know what to do and there's all— it was all this misinformation. So part of what I did was just help to clear up misinformation out there and I was doing a lot with pelvic floor. And deep core training and all of that and really starting to get a little bit more into the fascia world even though we weren't really necessarily using the word fascia at the time. But my birth experience with my second, he was a nuchal cord baby.

Uh-huh.

The cord was wrapped around his neck and so with each push, the doctor is like, OK, or my OB was like, you have to get baby out. You have to push as hard as you can. In my mind, I was like, wait a minute. I've done this before. Why are you rushing this? Baby's going to like just— I don't have to push him out like in push 1. But they were trying to not scare me, right? And so anyway, I learned after I pushed him out in 3 pushes, the doctor was like, yeah, the cord was wrapped around his neck. And so anyway, if I hadn't been able to push him out as effectively as I did, they'd have rushed me into an emergency C-section, which is fine because I get C-sections. I've done that a few times. But I like, if I could prevent it, I wanted to. Like down the road, that was like a lightbulb moment for me that I was like, wow. And I've heard so many stories from women that just— they labored for hours and hours even if they were fully dilated to 10 and just couldn't effectively push baby out.

Uh-huh.

And so after working with so many women in person and I was like, we're starting to get these amazing testimonials from woman after woman and her OB is like, what have you been doing during pregnancy? Because the OB and the nurses on staff would be like, This is a very different experience than what most women go through. Most of the women that learn my techniques during pregnancy, they push their babies out in 30 minutes, some of them 10. I don't encourage 10, as you know, right? You got to let the body adjust. Sometimes they just come out really quick.

I know if you actually lived in my area, I might go back into obstetrics.

But otherwise, I'm out.

It's too stressful. Like, you're right. Just women have Yeah. So much difficulty pushing that out. And I think pelvic floor health is so important. I was actually speaking with Dr. Anna Cabeca last night. She's, you know, an OB-GYN who's a pioneer in functional medicine, and she says there's new research showing that there's progesterone receptors in our pelvic fascia. And that's just amazing to me because so many women in their 40s and going into 50s Their progesterone levels are low, and that's when prolapse comes on. That's when things start to fall and you're— you can't hold your bladder anymore and you're having these pelvic floor issues. So it's just amazing how much we still have yet to learn about the pelvic floor, but I love that people like you have a passion for it and are actually trying to figure it out and help women because it's so important. Oh my gosh.

It is. Yeah, absolutely. And with my third, when I had this amazing experience where like I didn't tear or any of that, to have that experience from, you know, all 3 different— we all have our own personal experiences. And I also feel like I've had such insight, as I know you have as well, with other women and their experiences. And you start to see all these different stories and you start to see the things that are working really, really well. And then you just like want to share it with the world because I'm like, women shouldn't have to struggle and suffer when I'm like, this education is there. And so I started actually creating workout DVDs for pregnancy that were more core safe. Now I look back at that and I was like, okay, that was just a stepping stone and we've really transformed it now. But yeah, that was where I started because I learned so much and I will forever always be grateful. And I still love working with pregnant women. But for me, I see an even bigger vision. Pregnancy is a part of it. But I see an even bigger vision in women's health in particular because I've had so many women over the years. You know, we go into the postpartum recovery, but then it extends to like, oh, my women having babies, oh, and they're moms, right?

Yeah.

So that's where I'm starting to like really expand this age range that we're reaching. And it's more than just the pelvic floor and the core, but it's the entire body. And there can be a little, you know, sometimes we get— Women that I talk a lot about core, a lot of times women think core is just their abdominals, right? Like 6-pack muscles.

Yeah. Will you explain that to women? Like really get— help them understand what their core means.

Okay. So your core, ladies, I want you to picture this, and especially if you're sitting down, this is a really good place to kind of picture this, is I want you to visualize your pelvic floor. I like to explain it as like a diamond shape. Because so many women have been taught Kegels and they think, oh, it's just like the size of a quarter, and they've been taught to stop the flow of urine, right? Well, I think that's not good because you could start a whole set of UTIs and we don't want bacteria backing up into our bladder. So we want to actually picture our pelvic floor as a diamond shape going from our pubic bone all the way back underneath our butt cheeks to our anus, like, and it's not our glutes.

I'm doing this right now. I hope everybody's doing this.

And then from sitz bone to sitz bone. So if you can kind of— and the sitz bones are like the bony part of your butt when you sit up. And I know some of you women are like, wait, I have no bones. There's no bony butt. I'm like, trust me, you have bones in your butt. They are there. So if you're sitting up tall, you have that diamond. Whether you feel this or not, I want you to visualize it because that's a big first step. That is your pelvic floor. And then your The rest of your— it's the base of your deep core, and the rest of your core is the muscles and fascia that runs from that pelvic floor all the way through your torso, along your spine, around your organs, up underneath your shoulders. That is your deep core, or if we say core, it's really your core. I like to say deep core because to me, we want to address internal as well, and I'm starting to use the cueing a lot more of like hugging your organs and things like that because when we can take the visual from just like the external muscles like—

Mm-hmm.

the obliques and the rectus abdominals, and we go even deeper into all the fascia that is from our pelvic floor and around our organs, I'm noticing it's actually helping people unlock their low back, right? We get a lot of restriction in our low back. So when we start addressing pelvic floor issues, low back pain, we have to be looking at the body as a whole versus just the pelvic floor and the back. They are not separate. Everything intertwines together in the body.

Yeah.

And that is a big, big message I'm always preaching because In the medical world, this is why I get so many women that come to me and they're skeptical or they're hopeless because they've tried everything else. They've been to this specialist, they've been to that specialist, and on and on. Maybe they've got a little relief, but it really hasn't solved the problem because we're not going to the root of the problem. The root of the problem is not just one thing. We have to look at the entire body as a whole. whole. And we also need to address our thought process, our mindset, as well as our nutrition and our environment.

Oh my gosh, I love you. Yes. Preach it, sister. Yeah, I see that you have a core nutrition program now and that you're getting into this whole wellness of mind, body, spirit. I'm loving all this work that you're doing.

Thank you.

Give me an example of someone that you've worked with that had some mental blockages and you just couldn't get them to heal until they addressed that? Does anybody pop out in your mind?

Well, what does— when you say that to me, what I think of, and this is because I've been doing a lot more coaching, especially with my higher-level program, my Core Rehab, which is all about rehabilitating, and it's a lot about movement, going back to foundations, which is awesome. Just the program on itself, by itself, is absolutely amazing. But I have found that the coaching along with it It really helps move, as I like to call them, boulders out of women's way to really go deeper because at such a young age, women have really disconnected with their body and we don't even realize it.

Yeah.

We're way more stressed than we even realize. We've got into this cycle of do, do, do and our to-do list instead of our priorities, which should be ourselves, right? We all know the whole analogy of like, you know, we can't take care of others as well if we don't take care and fill our own cup. Right? It's like we all know that. Easier said than done, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, and so I, you know, I guess one of the biggest things that comes up, especially when I start teaching the coaching aspect, which is starting to— at the very beginning, it's really about awareness because we have to be able to have awareness for what's going on in our body if we're ever going to get moved forward, right? But some big blocks that can come up for women is with pain. One thing that I realize a lot of women don't realize about pain is that while yes, some of it is physical pain, a lot of it is emotional pain. A lot of it is due to past experiences or mentally because we've been in pain maybe for a decade or 20 years, then it's like seated in our brain. It's become wired. I explain it as like There's like a loop in the brain that the body has almost become— I don't like to say comfortable, but kind of. Like, it's become easy for the body to almost stay in the pain, and getting out of the pain is almost more scary for the brain. Like, consciously, you know, you might be thinking, well, no, I want the pain to go away. Yes, right?

Right.

But we have to work on like, why is the pain not going away? Like, I'm a firm believer there's some physical stuff going on we've got to rebalance. Structure, we've got to address the pelvic floor, the deep core, all of that. But we also have to address some big things as to what led up to this and how much of your current day-to-day— like, are you really present with what's going on or are you living in the past? I see it all the time and women don't realize it. I mean, people in general don't realize it till they start talking about it. And I will catch my students where they'll be starting to like Talk about something and all of a sudden all they're doing is they're rehashing their past over and over again. Like they had an experience and let me explain this to you. Like it doesn't have to be crazy, like traumatic or anything, right? The brain doesn't always— like you don't always differentiate like what's something super traumatic to something very simple as like maybe you've had experiences with all these different specialists you've been to and they've left you feeling hopeless and alone and like, I'm never going to feel better. But even this has been going on for over a decade.

Yeah.

I've had this scenario happen with multiple women, and next thing I know is we start chipping away at this, and I teach her to— okay, we're going to use breathwork. We work on really being with our body and how to— we almost start talking to our body as like it's a different— I guess it's a part of us, but almost like a person.

Mm-hmm.

It sounds kind of crazy, but we actually start talking to our body and say, Okay, body, I hear you. I recognize that that pain coming from, we'll just say, my right hip, I acknowledge that it's there. How many times has you or anyone listening actually said, I hear you? Actually told your body, you don't have to say it out loud, but said to your body, I hear you, body. I hear that you're in pain. Just sitting with that can be so powerful. It can start the floodgates Like, just open and that's okay. But here's the piece, we can have the emotions flow, but there's this next layer of like actually really letting that emotion leave our body. It could be connected with just like say that you had a, you know, in the past like a doctor for whatever reason that tried to help you and they couldn't help you and you felt like they failed you. Like you could be holding that in your right hip and that's probably why you have hip pain, right?

Yeah.

It's the craziest stuff. But if you can start to visualize as you breathe, you breathe into that pain, and then as you exhale, you visualize that pain actually leaving your body. You have to visualize it leaving. We can't just let the emotion go, but we actually have to— whatever is connected with it.

Mm-hmm.

There's some newer stuff I've read, and they kind of explain it as anger, rage, and things like that that actually we hold in our body. Again, it's like baby steps. We're not going to do a 180 with our body overnight because it didn't get to today and the pain and dysfunction or whatever the body might be dealing with overnight. For women listening that have no pain, that's amazing. That's amazing.

I've yet to meet those women. I don't know of any such women.

Right. Some women don't realize how much pain their body is in until they actually— I had that in one of our coaching calls last week actually with my newest group from Core Rehab. One woman was like, Erica, I didn't even realize how much my body actually hurt until I was listening to you, like, coach me through, like, moving my body and trying to connect and breathing. And I was like, oh my gosh, everything hurts. And I was like, okay, that is your first step, is to acknowledge what is actually going on with your body so we can move forward.

Yeah.

We've got to work to get those emotions, the anger, the frustration, whatever is in the past is the past. Like, we have got to stop living in the past. Like, no one is talking— well, there's a few people talking about this, but it is not mainstream that like we— our past has become so ingrained and looped in our brain because the brain likes negative. Like, flat out, the brain like gravitates towards negativity.

Yeah, it's a survival mechanism. You know, it's protecting us. It makes complete sense. But that doesn't mean we should live in that space, you know?

Right. So how you get out of it is you have to bring awareness Yeah. And sometimes it's not like— that can be the hardest part, is to start to acknowledge this. And like, you got to let those emotions out, and you have to visualize them actually leaving your body. I do so much visualization coaching and cueing and stuff, especially in in-core rehab, because we're working with women that have— some women are there to learn for prevention, and I love that. But as we both know, like, Prevention is awesome. Prevention is amazing. But most women don't come across the stuff like I'm teaching until, like, they're like, I need to fix my body.

Right, right. Until they're almost, like, at the point where they're feeling hopeless and, you know, at their wit's end.

Yeah.

Oh my goodness. That's such important work. I see it every day in my office and, you know, I say the same things. Women are like, I didn't realize how bad I felt until I felt better. You know, until we get them detoxed, get them Get them moving, get them eating right, they're like, oh my gosh, I feel amazing and I was living so miserably before. I didn't even realize it.

I think that's a big key that you just hit on is most women don't realize how good they could feel.

Yeah.

I know for both of us, that's a big mission. I see it all the time, women that don't feel good and I'm like, but you could feel good. You just have to take that first step to number one, wanting it. Exactly.

Oh, well, I'm so glad that we're letting them know you so that they can find you and get connected with you. So what kind of exercise do you usually recommend to your clients?

So it kind of depends on where they're at. But in general, my biggest message I'm always trying to get across to women is to really pay attention to their body as they're working out. The whole working out smarter, not harder mindset, because I, over my 15+ years in fitness and wellness and teaching Pilates and all that, I have helped so many women who, you know, like we get on that hamster wheel, right, of wanting to burn the calories and we've got to work out this hard for this long for whatever reason. And it's actually working against their body. They're fighting their body. And so instead of losing the weight and feeling more energetic, they actually have a harder time losing weight.

Mmm.

They're more anxious and they also— they are also more fatigued. Then it can start a whole cycle of other things going on in their body too because women, I find— I feel like women more so than men, we're more sensitive to things. We have— especially if any women who are still having your cycle, you have to listen to that, right? That is something that it took me a lot of years to do that.

Uh-huh.

We're now like day 1 and day 2 of my cycle. Erica, it is okay to not exercise. If I do anything, it's very gentle. It might be a light walk. But other than that, I have given myself permission to be like, no, your body, you have so much going on in your body right now that you working out, especially pushing it at all, is just going to be too much. But then there's other times in your cycle when you're like, okay, I can push it more. And so I am a big, big, big believer and preacher of like, listen to your body. If you wake up one day and you're just like, I didn't sleep good last night, I am super tired. I'm not saying not to work out, right? I want to clarify that. I'm the person to say do your workout practice. But let's talk— sometimes I like to use the word movement practice.

Okay.

Because when we talk about movement, I feel like it has this like gentler feel to it. Does that make sense? When you think of exercise, Everybody's explanation of what's exercise is very different. I have a lot of clarification conversations that are always going on with my students. When we think of exercise, some women are going to gravitate towards high intensity burpees and running and you have to wake up or work up this crazy sweat and burn all these calories to be exercise. Then we have other women that like going for a walk. Is their exercise and everything in between, right? So for me, I really want women moving their body, but I want them moving their body so that they are also working to strengthen correctly their pelvic floor, their deep core, improving their posture, working the right muscles, doing it with the right form, and maybe it is only 10 or 15 minutes on a day, a day, and I like promise you, working out and doing your movement practice 10 or 15 minutes on a daily basis, which equals say 60 to 90 minutes a week of just like kind of the more strength, deep core Pilates, things like that, versus doing like 1 or 2 60-minute workouts a week is going to give you a lot better results.

I totally agree.

A lot better results because there's something about— because when you are, you know, moving and we're working to breathe and connect with our body, You're also telling your body for the rest of its day, like, oh, I've turned these muscles on and I'm standing taller and I can feel my core. And if you don't do that on a regular basis and you do it once or twice a week, the results just don't come.

Right.

So that's what I find. And I even do that with myself. Like, I went through a whole bunch of like— I dealt with mold toxicity, you know, 2 years ago and I had a little exposure thing last summer. And so even for myself, like just applying that, you know, 10 minutes Whether it's a day when my body just has been feeling not the greatest, because with the mold stuff, I dealt with nervous system stuff. If I pushed it too hard, I'd be like— I couldn't exercise for a couple days. I'm like, okay, I'd rather do a little bit and be able to sustain that on a daily basis. That's actually where I really have started to feel a lot stronger. When you experience stuff like this, you're like, am I— even prior to all of that, I'm like, I never had that issue. But sometimes we have to roll with where we're at, and I can tell you it will make you so much stronger just doing that 10 to 15 minutes on a daily basis. And then we get a lot of women that will do that first workout, and then next thing you know, she's like, oh, I'm feeling better and my energy is feeling better, because it was a workout that was right for her body, wasn't too intense. And then she's like, I can do another workout.

Yeah.

Right? And so sometimes that will snowball, and I love when that starts to happen. But a part of it is just really creating those habits. I'm a big fan of going for long walks out in nature. I know there's the whole, what's the best benefit? You hear conversation about doing high-intensity interval training to train your heart and cardiovascularly, right? Well, I think that can be really beneficial for some people, but it's not for everybody. For everybody right now. This is the thing too. Like, we always try to like— we don't want to compare ourselves to like another person right now because where everyone is right now today is unique to each and every one of us, right?

Yes.

But we can have goals where we want to go. And so if today you doing high-intensity interval training leaves you tired, your knees hurt, your back hurts, you feel like you're peeing your pants, then you should not be doing that, right? But if that's a goal of yours, I absolutely We'll back you 100% that it's going to happen, but we have to take— like, pull it back and work out smarter, not harder, and do these workouts that are really rehabilitative for the body, that are appropriate for the body. Like, I teach high-intensity interval training in my Core Studio membership because I want women to have access to them. But do you know what I do that's not being taught out there is I offer modifications for every movement that I think could be too much for someone. So that way, like, she doesn't have to do plyometric jumps if you feel like you're gonna pee your pants, right? Like, let's not put our body through that. So you can do just, you know, squat pulses, or, you know, I offer modifications because I think it's so powerful to be able to still move but have modifications.

Yeah, that's so important. So important. Like, I know personally, having an autoimmune disease, I have time periods where I cannot do regular, you know, HIIT training, T25, or any of that kind of high-intensity stuff because I will be down for like 3 or 4 days. I went and worked out, you know, I was in California and I exercised with Drew Manning, Fit Fat to Fit, and he kicked my butt and I almost couldn't get off the plane 3 days later because— Like, my little mitochondria were spent. I had no energy left to create, you know, to get me through my day. So I think it's super important for women to respect their bodies where they actually are and work with that and go from there. Like you said, don't compare yourself to every other woman, not even your friends. You just, you have to listen to your body and do what's best for you.

Yeah.

It's super popular where I live to do boot camp. And it's intense, you know, it's like 30 minutes of getting screamed at, music blaring, you know, station to station every 60 seconds. And some women love it and thrive and do fabulous. And a lot of my patients get hurt and can't follow through with it. So they drop out and they get really discouraged. And that's why I think a program like yours is so important because They need to know it's not all or none. It's like, well, if you can't do boot camp, you shouldn't even bother. I think that's where the mentality is, you know, like, well—

Yeah, and across the board, this comes up a lot. I'm glad you mentioned that, like the all or none mentality.

Yes.

Because I get a lot of women in my programs that are that way. It's like, well, if I can't do, you know, everything exactly the way I'm supposed to, then I'm not going to do any of it. And I have to talk everybody down. I'm like, no, no, no, no, we are going to change that mindset moving forward. Because that is going to get you nowhere but feeling defeated all the time, right? That's why women don't follow through on programs, right?

Yes.

I don't call— like my core rehab program, I don't call it a fitness program because it's not. It's really like a rehabilitative program is what it is, and coaching, you know, because it's— because women need that so, so badly because so many women actually get injured in the boot camp type classes and all of that, and then no one's there To teach them how to actually be able to move and do these exercises so they can be stronger as everyone gets older, right? If you're not strengthening your body, then what's happening? You're just getting weaker.

Right.

Right? That's where I've found this huge passion to be like, no, I want everyone moving. I want you to be able to move better when you're 60 than you are when you're 40 if you're having any sort of mobility issues and things like that. A lot of it is just education. It's knowledge. We have to learn this. Across the board in fitness, you're not going to see it. I'm actually speaking— so excited this summer. I'm going to be speaking at the biggest fitness conference. It's going to be in Southern California this year. I'm like, this is my time to— it's like I've seen this vision for so long. It's time to get this in fitness. I came from fitness in the very beginning. I really feel like I left fitness pretty quickly because I was like, I didn't like the way— what I was seeing. I was like, that's not what's getting me results. What's getting my clients results is really educating my clients. When I work with clients, it's like, yeah, they come to me for a workout, absolutely, but my whole goal is that we are realigning their body even better. They are becoming stronger and everything instead of just getting a workout. That to me is—

That's awesome.

That's not what's really giving us a healthy, balanced lifestyle because so many women will push and push and push their bodies until they do have so many aches and pains that like, I can't come to class anymore because I blew out my back or my knees or my pelvic floor, things like that. So let's try to stop all that before things get worse.

Amen. So what is the conference you're speaking at?

It's the IDEA, so it's I-D-E-A, World Fitness Conference.

Awesome.

I used to go in attendance every year in the beginning years of my career, and then it was that place for me where it was too fitnessy and I didn't— it wasn't fueling my knowledge. And so I was the person who I would always search, like, let's learn more about fascia and mindset and all of that. And then now I feel like, okay, it's come full circle. It's time for me to to get out into the fitness world and teach these instructors that I know are longing for this information, because I know they see it, they just don't know how to coach it.

Right.

Because it's not being taught out there yet.

That is so awesome. Well, they're going to be blessed to have you because you are amazing.

Oh, thank you.

That's so cool. Well, I remember talking to you recently about Kegels, and, you know, we wanted to educate women on Kegels, and I asked you, You know, what, what can we make for women to help teach them? And it sounds like you and your team created something.

Yeah, I decided it's time, we need to just write it out on a PDF, how I teach women to activate their pelvic floor. So you want to think of this as how you're doing Kegels, I suppose that's okay, but you have to be open to like learning a new way. And in the very beginning, I will tell everyone, when you first— it's like learning anything new, right? In the very beginning, you're going to be like, am I doing this right? I don't know if I'm feeling anything, but that's very common. It's just one of those things where you just have to keep practicing it, visualizing it, and all of that, and in time, you will start to connect with your pelvic floor differently than you probably ever have before.

That is awesome. Okay, so that is a little PDF they can download. We'll have a link for that in the show notes. Awesome. And you also have another freebie for our listeners?

Yeah, I have a Pilates flow workout which my audience loves. So if you want a taste of a workout of mine, that is a great place to, you know, get us— get a taste for what I teach.

Awesome. I can't wait. Well, thank you so much for doing this today. I, I know my listeners got a lot out of this. Yes, for sure. And I hope they check you out because you will transform them mind, body, and spirit.

Thank you so much, Tabatha. This was great.

Yes, so good to talk to you, and hopefully I'll talk to you soon.

Sounds good. Thank you.

Bye, Erica.

Bye.

Well, wasn't Erica awesome? I told you you'd like her. So just a quick recap, you want to work out smarter, not harder. It's not all or none. 10 minutes a day does count. It does make a difference. You will get strong and healthy. So just get moving every day and don't compare yourself to other women. The fact that you're getting out there and you're moving your body is amazing, and you need to just be proud of yourself and not worry about how successful someone else is, how much they're doing and what they look like. Okay, so next week I'm super excited. We're gonna interview Rachel Varga next week. She is a registered nurse who specializes in skin aesthetics. She wants to make you beautiful from the outside in. It's gonna be an awesome interview next week, so check that out. In the meantime, if you are enjoying this, please hit the subscribe button. button so that we can keep pressing on and keep making these episodes. Tell your friends, write a review, help me get the word out. And in the meantime, go have an awesome kick-ass day. Bye! Bye!