Positively Balanced LLC

Bridging the gap in women's health

Cassandra McCoy

5 Exercises You Can Begin The First Few Weeks Postpartum

Physical Health

*As always, consult your medical provider before beginning any exercises.

During our first month postpartum,  a lot of our attention goes to our newborn baby(ies). Sometimes during this period, our personal health and self care can fall by the wayside. Gentle movements can help you heal postpartum, as well, as improve your mood and so much more. Movement early postpartum doesn’t have to be fancy and by incorporating simple movements throughout your day, you have a better chance of actually getting the movement in. Here are 5 basic exercises anyone can do postpartum and beyond!

Breath Work

Purpose of this exericse: to reeducate the body on optimal breathing mechanics, improve healing, manage intra abdominal pressure, regulate tension, stress and more!

How to do the exercise:

Reconnecting with your breath is key. That is why it is the second step in my P. B. I. T. system that we cover in The Fundamentals of Returning to Exercise After Baby. It helps to reconnect your mind and body and jumpstart the healing process. Start with a basic breathing exercise on your back. Bending your knees with your feet on the floor. As you inhale, focus on expanding through your core and as you exhale, focus on lifting and sending that air up and out through your mouth.

Pelvic Tilts

Purpose of this exercise: to begin bringing movement back into the hips and lumbar spine via a controlled movement, reconnecting with the body and breath.

How to do this exercise:

 This exercise is done on your back with both knees bent, heels slid up towards your bum. Exhale, engage your lower abdominals, maybe with a slight cough to start, and then tuck your bum under like you are a dog trying to hide your tail. Then relax back to start. Important note: Don’t use only your bum muscles, here try to tuck your tail trying to use your lower abdominals as well. This will take time and brain work so don’t get frustrated and stick with it. 

Windshield Wipers:

Purpose of this exercise: To mobilize your lumbar and mid spine and relieve tension and pressure.

How to do this exercise:

This is a great relaxing stretch, think of it as a wave. Laying on your back, feet on the floor, bring your feet and legs together with your arms out like a T to the side. As you inhale, slowly let your knee fall towards the right while keeping your left hip on the ground. Exhale, slowly lift your legs back to start. Now inhale your knees to the left and exhale them back to center. This might not be a very big movement right now and that is ok. Move slowly and try to focus on the middle back and hips feeling a nice gentle release and you moving side to side.

Shoulder Rotations:

Purpose of this exercise: To get the shoulders moving and help improve your posture during this time of increased sitting.

How to do this exercise:

Sitting tall with a pillow or cushion under your bum, you should be stacked over your ribs, take a deep breath in and out. On your next inhale, lift your shoulders towards your ears, and then gently exhale and float the shoulder back and down towards your hips. Inhale, lift the shoulders towards your ears and exhale round them forwards and back down towards your hips. Do this 5 to 10 times.

Neck release: 

Purpose of this exercise: To help with tension in the upper back and neck, help with posture, and relieve tension headaches.

How to do this exercise:

Sitting tall with a pillow or cushion under your bum, you should be stacked over your ribs, take a deep breath in and out. Pull tall through the crown of your head by imagining being lifted up towards the ceiling by your ponytail. On your next inhale, lengthen your neck a bit more, exhale, float the head gently over to the right. Allow both shoulders to melt away from the ears. Take a deep breath here. Return back to center. Repeat on the other side, always growing taller before you move. Do this 5 to 10 times per side, moving with your inhale and exhale.

Find more exercises and important information you need to know immediately postpartum in my Ebook “The Starting Line Postpartum”! Want to receive a free E-book of 15 done-for-you Mama Movement exercises with video tutorials with your purchase? Sign up for updates HERE and be the first to know when the Starting Line Postpartum is available August 17th! https://view.flodesk.com/pages/5f18764f59b56b0026697ee5

My Unplanned Quarantine

Mental Health, Physical Health, Social Health

I had a plan.

The last two weeks of March and the first few weeks of April I would be making some changes and would also develop what I wanted to share with others. So I moved forward, plans were formulated, with announcements to the contributors beginning to roll out. My dad was coming down and I was really excited to see him the first time since Christmas time. There was more but hey, you know what they say about plans right?

At the start of the COVID-19 panic, I was thinking I would be fine. I was actually looking forward to shifting to a slower pace. I have been busy lately. Working a lot and trying to build back up our savings after school. I had been getting sick recently due to some underlying medical problems, but was feeling a bit better. I was even thinking about the potential quarantine as a possible blessing for many to slow down, just as I wanted to.

I began to plan ways to help women at home with my fellow contributors over at Positively Balanced. I had worked with a few of them to set up conversations. I began to formulate the membership I had been sitting on and was ready to launch, coming in April. I was preparing and consolidating content. My goal was to help other women navigate this new challenge we were all about to face.

Work was steady for awhile, everyone was feeling good. Then it started to change to less and less patients around the 18th. Everyone was feeling fine, yours truly included. I had been tired from stress and other health concerns but it was going well. I even did my best workout in MONTHS on the 19th. Boy, did that change fast.

March 20: I started to get extremely tired and fuzzy. I thought it was because I was up every half hour with my son. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But I started getting spacey for sure here and there.

March 22: morning time, I feel good, tired from waking up and taking care of a sick baby. Evening time, sneezing starts then sore throat after I go to bed at 8pm. No fever.

Match 23: morning time, check my temperature no fever, still some sneezing and sore throat. Head to work. Feel progressively more tired throughout the day, practice distancing myself from those around me, disinfecting lots, bleach, etc. No hands on manual therapy, no direct facing patients or coworkers. 4:30pm, I start getting chills. Head and temp is now 100.1. I call my boss, tell him I’m hoping it’s a 24 hr bug, tell him what’s going on, he tells me to stay home tomorrow just in case. I tell him I’ll get a flu/strep test, just to be cautious.

March 24: Nyquil helped me sleep on and off 8pm to 8:30am. I sweated through 2 pairs of clothes. 100.2 temp. In the morning I’m sneezing more now with a headache, lots of sinus pressure, sore throat making me sound an octave lower. I notice decreased appetite. In the afternoon, I’m reading a temp of 98.8. I get a curbside flu and strep test from a local Utica park clinic. They are negative.  She says go home and stay there, they can’t give me a COVID test as my symptoms aren’t bad enough. I tell my boss. Ok, I’m home until the end of the week with the rest of my PTO. Then we’ll see what’s progressed or if it was just a random sickness that’s gone for good by Tuesday night.   That evening,  another dose of Nyquil that puts me out by 8pm. I wake up at 940pm, let out a few congestion filled coughs and find I’m soaked with sweat again. I change clothes, go back to sleep.

Match 25: 4am, wake up and change soaked clothes.  630am wake up with upset/ ear infection ill son. Temp is 98.6. I try to talk, and well, now I sound like a 30 year smoker. Sneezing is a bit less, headache is less, coughing every now and then just feeling the drainage. Noon: temp 99.1.

Did laundry and dishes. Evening: I can’t talk much. I’m coughing more. Somewhere in the afternoon my smoker voice turns into Darth Vader with faulty wiring. Temp 100.2. If I force myself to speak it feels like nails in my throat and it is at a very low deep volume. Go to bed with Nyquil falling asleep around 8pm, wake up at 11pm to change clothes.

March 26th: up on and off all night. Nyquil didn’t work.  Sneezing, increase in coughing. No voice. What so ever. Temp 98.6. No more wardrobe change, just lots of drainage. Up at 6am, can’t sleep, so I start to record my experience as it is pretty clear I won’t be returning to work anytime soon. I can’t get a test because I’m not severe enough to stop breathing but I also don’t wanna go to work, even if I suddenly felt better (not going to happen, I know), because I don’t want to even chance putting others at risk.

So I’m .2 under the 100.4 necessary for testing. I naturally run lower so even a 100.2 is feverish to me. However, that doesn’t qualify.

March 27th. So, still no voice this morning. Coughing was intense and so is the sneezing. My body aches have diminished as has the intensity of headache. My husband woke up with a cough, sneezing and losing his voice. Fantastic.  By noon he’s super fatigued, I’m sneezing and coughing.

March 28th: Coughing, sneezing, sore throat. On repeat. I am super tired. And then around 4pm, the migraine hit. Probably was up until about 1:30am trying to fight the migraine and fall asleep.

So I’m still in it! Today is the 29th. I’m sure a few more days to go. Migraine, sneezing, coughing, sore throat. Yes, it has sucked. I am pretty exhausted.

But let me tell you the amazing things.

The women I planned on helping, giving to and supporting, ended up supporting, giving and helping me and my family. Instead of providing my planned support to other women, I have received support. Instead of giving, I am allowing myself to receive.

My friend brought me cough drops and popsicles to my front door. Several friends have texted me daily to check in. Another friend from anther country sent me a live video of the ocean. I video chat with my dad at least twice per day.

My husband went to the store twice to get me electrolyte and groceries.

I have been able to spend more time with my family then I have since before grad school.

I got to watch my baby eat his first popsicle (he loved it).

I got to help him put together his first block puzzle.

I got to talk (or text after I lost my voice) to my husband for more than just a few seconds at night.

I got to think about how I was to help other women moving forward.

I have the chance to sit in silence (in between sneezes and coughs) for a few minutes each day while my son napped and just be.

I was able to evaluate what I wanted to do moving forward, who I wanted to be and how I wanted to live my life.

I was able to realize just how unhappy I have been with what I’ve been spending hours on in my life.

I was able to take the time needed to realize the effect stress has been making on all the dimensions of my own life.

By no means have I figured it all out. I’m not sure if anyone ever does. But hey, I have another week of quarantine right?

Why does it take a quarantine to take us back to what matters? Why does it take a pandemic to realize who we are or could be?

Society? Culture? Religion? 

I don’t have the answer but I’d love to start a conversation with you. Just like this article: raw, honest and pure conversation.

Professionals Who Bridge the Gap in Women’s Health – Part 1

Intellectual Health, Occupational Health, Physical Health

What is a Certified Athletic Trainer and what do they do? What is a Physical Therapist and what do they do?

What about a Women’s Health Athletic Trainer? Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist?

All of these titles, professions and letters can get confusing, so let’s break down the professions of an Athletic Trainer and a Physical Therapist. Also, in Part 2 I will introduce the role and capacity of a Women’s Health Athletic Trainer and break down how two professions (Women’s Health ATCs/Pelvic Floor PTs) can work together to improve women’s health worldwide. 

Here are a few basics definitions:

ATC/AT: Certified Athletic Trainer

LAT: Licensed Athletic Trainer

PT: Physical Therapist

PFPT: Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist

According to the National Athletic Training Association (NATA), an Athletic Trainer is defined as “Health care professionals who render service or treatment, under the direction of or in collaboration with a physician, in accordance with their education and training and the state’s statutes, rules, and regulations. As a part of the health care team, services provided by athletic trainers include primary care, injury and illness prevention, wellness promotion and education, emergent care, examination and clinical diagnosis, therapeutic intervention, and rehabilitation of injuries and medical conditions.” 

Athletic Trainers are seen in various settings with examples including military, orthopedic clinics, performing arts, physical therapy departments, private practice and so much more. ATCs/LATs do more than just tape ankles; we are medical healthcare professionals who have the education to prevent, rehab, educate, and treat active population across the lifespan. (Myth busting: You don’t have to be an athlete to see an athletic trainer!)

According to the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), a Physical Therapist is defined as “health care professionals who diagnose and treat individuals of all ages, from newborns to the very oldest, who have medical problems or other health-related conditions that limit their abilities to move and perform functional activities in their daily lives.” Physical Therapists are seen in hospitals, physical therapy departments, pediatrics, hospice services, private practices and more. 

Now, there has been a lasting conflict between the physical therapist profession and athletic trainer profession. Turf wars, conflicting opinions and more. In some settings, we see this divide disappearing. PTs are able to send their patients to a knowledgeable AT in order to continue their patients healing and help them return to what they love. ATs are able to work with active population in a variety of settings, patients they believe need more narrowed and concentrated help can refer a patient back to a PT.  

Stay tuned for part two on how these two professions can come together to change the dynamic of their professions,  women’s health and bridge the gap in women’s health.

Resources:

http://www.nata.com

http://www.bls.gov

http://www.apta.org

The Origin Story

Financial Health, Intellectual Health, Mental Health, Occupational Health, Physical Health, Sexual Health, Social Health, Spiritual Health

Everyone loves a good origin story, right? From superheroes, world leaders, actors, and to all the influencers of old, we can always trace their history back. So, here’s a Positively Balanced Origin Story:  Why we are here today, and how we are bridging the gap in women’s health.

Positively Balanced was founded right when I graduated from undergraduate school. I knew I wanted to create something that meant we aren’t going to be positive all the time, but we can be hopeful for better days.   I also wanted a statement that highlighted the aspect of balance in our lives that isn’t always perfectly balanced.

So Positively Balanced was born. For 3 years it was a way for me to share my position of health, fitness, education, class schedule and events. However, I knew Positively Balanced would be something bigger, I just didn’t know quite what it was yet.

A few events started to cause a shift in the direction of Positively Balanced. A friend came to me in search of information on infertility, another with questions about menopause, and then another about postpartum exercise and lifestyle. Each time, I had the same answer: “I’m not sure, but let me do some research on who might know and also how I can help. So my love for women’s health began. I enrolled in and attended courses and seminars. I read books and did the research.

As I did my deep dive into the works of women’s health, I began to notice a significant lack of knowledge, education, and resources for women.

There were some resources and some research; however there are still huge gaps in so many areas and aspects.

Then, I found out I was going to be having a baby and it took my love to new heights. I began to experience first hand the lack of support, lack of resources and knowledge and the consequences of such.   It was like adding fuel to a fire.

This past year, I became so passionate, I shut my business down for 6 months just to focus on what it was I could actually do to make a difference. I graduated with my master’s degree and began working as a women’s health athletic trainer specializing in pre and postpartum health, as well as rehab performance exercise. I saw all types of patients, but my focus and study took me into the women’s health realm.

I realized that women’s  health was the evolution that Positively Balanced was meant for, the work had to be done. I remember telling my good friend about these crazy ideas I had during one of our walks. After I babbled for a good while, she looked at me and said “Well then, why don’t you do it?!”

The Be HEaRd Women’s Health Platform was formed. I only remember posting about searching for contributors twice on social media.   Within a week, I had so much interest I knew we were destined for greatness.

Starting in January 2020, you will have over 20 founding contributors (we call ourselves HEaRd), writing to you along with a few special guests popping in here and there. We will provide you with honest, current, and relevant articles that cover a variety of dimensions of health.

Our goal is to “Bridge the Gap” in Women’s Health. The gap between generations, research and application,  The gap between the phases of life, and so much more.

Women’s health platform is starting the conversations, empowering women with knowledge and supporting you with a wonderful community!

(The dimensions of health is something we will discuss in the Founder’s Note each month, and if you are interested in learning more sign up to be placed on a preorder list of my short ebook coming out soon.)

PS: Stay tuned for more information on and WHY we are HEaRd!

Thanks for joining us on this adventure,

Cassandra McCoy MS, ATC, LAT
Founder of Positively Balanced LLC

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