Kate Northrup: Hello. Welcome to Plenti. Today, I have an incredible guest for you. Her name is Lauren Ohayon, and she is the founder of Restore Your Core®, which aims to help women have a sustainable fitness and movement practice that helps them be strong, long, and functional for their entire lives. Her approach to mobility, movement, strength, and common pelvic floor issues like diastasis recti and back problems and pelvic floor instability is absolutely Revolutionary. I cannot wait for you to dive in to this episode. Enjoy. Lauren, thank you for being here Hi. Again. I just wanna say publicly the generosity of Spirit. When you came the first time, that footage was corrupted. I don’t know what happened. And so you were generous again to come here. And I really appreciate you. And I just want to say that.

Lauren Ohayon: Thank you. I love talking to you. 

Kate Northrup: We’re going to have so much fun a second time and go even deeper because we’re super warmed up. We are looped out. Oh, this is We are hot and ready. So I wanna ask you, number 1. When we have pelvic floor issues no. Backing up. First of all, what are the things that are really common health issues that people don’t realize are actually connected to pelvic floor dysfunction? Or maybe you would say dysfunction in a different way, but yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: No. That’s okay. We can Or imbalance. Yeah. Patterning. Patterning. Thank you. Yeah. Pelvic floor dysfunction can manifest in low back pain, hip pain. Both of those are very commonly associated.

Yeah. Low back pain and hip pain. And with males who have, like, pelvic floor dysfunction, they almost always have those as well. So that’s interesting. Hip pain, low back pain.

Yeah. And then, of course, there’s patterning in the feet that are commonly correlated with pelvic floor stuff like excessive foot pronation or excessive foot supination and we will see transfer up the chain, but we don’t make like, causative you know, we don’t we don’t make comments of,like, if you have flat feet, you will have pelvic floor dysfunction, but we do see those relationships all the time.

Kate Northrup: Mhmm. It’s all related.

Lauren Ohayon: It is all connected indeed. Like a spiderweb, you pull on one

Kate Northrup: end, the other end gets tensioned as well. Why would the way our foot responds to the floor or interacts with the floor when we walk have anything to do with our pelvic floor? Because when your foot rolls in like a foot pronation,

Lauren Ohayon: it creates what’s called internal. So then your inner your leg bone, your shin bone internally rotates, generally speaking, unless there’s a torsion, and then your thigh bone will internally rotate. And when your thigh bone internally rotates, it has an effect on your pelvis and all your pelvic floor muscles are right there, including some of them that attach to the hip.

Mhmm.

Kate Northrup: Okay. So we have hip pain, low back pain. What else could be related to pelvic floor floor patterning that that we’re sort of, like, looking in all the wrong places for solutions?

Lauren Ohayon: Like upper body upper body patterning. So people who are very gymnast or like like like yeah. The arch back this way back, or people who are very hunched over. So that when because because think of your pelvic floor and core as a canister, like a liquid filled canister. And when the bottom, which is the pelvic floor, is over pressurized, we can get the patterning, the the dysfunctions and disorders and imbalances.

And what will disrupt that kind of integrity of that liquid filled canister is too much pressure. And so if you’re hunched over, just even do it in your own body, you pull everything in. It pushes everything down. It’s like you’re always in a bear down. You’re always bearing down.

And so any sort like anything you do with your legs and your upper body will can affect the pelvic floor. I mean, the pelvic floor is right there, the conduit. It is the conduit. It is the center. It is the transmitter.

It is the shock absorbing location. I mean, it is literally just taking it all in and on. But because we live in a culture that doesn’t like to discuss the pelvic floor health unless we’re discussing, like, urination or defecation, then nobody really pays attention to it as a vital location of inception, conception, reception. It gets all of it. Inception, conception, reception, deception.

Kate Northrup: Deception. 

Lauren Ohayon: it is literally just all of all of it.

Kate Northrup: So putting our energy and attention there, we would be well served physically and potentially For sure. In other areas of our life as well. I went to pelvic PT, after both of my births. I’m so grateful I did because they attached these biofeedback sensors to me internally and helped me to really begin to map how my patterning was impacting my bowels, my, my vaginal opening, pain, restoration, you know, all of it. Yeah.

Kate Northrup: And I found out that that’s not normal in the United States to go Public for sure. PT and, like, even do any kind of Correct. You know? And so what’s what’s told to women after we give birth is you need to strengthen your pelvic floor and do kegels. Yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: Is that true? It’s not not true, but it’s not entirely true. That’s like saying, oh, your shoulder hurts. How about some bicep curls? I mean, kegels is one form of contraction for the pelvic floor, and it’s not always called for because, unfortunately, a ton of people, even if they’ve given birth, their pelvic floor is actually operating at too high tone.

We live in a society that creates too high tone in the pelvic floor because we live in a society that creates or we live in a world that creates too high pressure in the core and pelvic floor. So when there’s all this pressure in the core and pelvic floor, the pelvic floor is highly intelligent. It feels this pressure, and it reacts by tensing up. If you put a bag on your shoulder and you walk around with a handbag, your shoulder will tense up in response because people think

Kate Northrup: it, like, drops it down. It actually tenses up. Yeah. My right shoulder is higher from wearing a purse there Correct. For many years and also holding up the baby Yes.

On that hip.

Lauren Ohayon: And the body is so intelligent. So if you’re constantly bearing down so right now, imagine you’re pressing a baby out of your vagina, or if you don’t have a vagina, you can also imagine you’re pressing a baby because males have basically an identical pelvic floor to females. I like to tell all my male clients, like, within your penis is a vagina. So Wow. Yeah.

Their pelvic floor is identical. Cool. I know the male in the room is crossing his legs. He’s like, I do not have a vagina in my penis, but the truth is the pelvic floor musculature is this very similar. And so if you imagine you have something there, like a grapefruit or a baby, and you wanna push it out, just go ahead and push down.

That’s bearing down. Yeah. Now if you were bearing down all the time because of how you sit, stand, breathe, hold your body, tension patterns, then your body is smart, and it’s not going to allow you to constantly bear down. And it’s gonna be like, wait, Kate. Hold on.

Let’s tighten that up. Then we get tighter and tighter and tighter. So people assume that because you’ve had a baby, your vagina is stretched open and loose. There’s a lot of conversation about loose vaginas. Your vagina can’t be loose. Let’s talk about tissue in the body as never be loose.

Kate Northrup: Like Your vagina cannot be loose.

Lauren Ohayon: It cannot ever be loose. It might feel stretched out to you, and the sensation might be that. But if, like, things were loose in your body, your eyeballs would fall out of your head. Head. It’s like physiologically not possible for tissue to be loose in your body.

And yet we hear this all the time about our vagina, that it’s loose. And people will come to me and describe their vagina as loose because they’ve been described too as loose. And even people in the very woo woo holistic space, utilizing Jade eggs will come to me with terminology that is very, very not factual I’d love to reframe the tissue that you’re utilizing it with. I’d love to reframe the tissue that you’re utilizing it with. It is not loose tissue.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. Do you think that sometimes though there’s a sensation

Lauren Ohayon: For sure. Of it being stretched out? And if so, what’s happening in there? First of all, sensation is subjective. Right? Like, somebody can do something that is, like, another person would perceive to be incredibly painful and discom full of discomfort, like a tattoo. And they’re loving the moment and the other person is like, get me off this table. Yeah. So when somebody feels something, we can’t take that for truth or gospel. We can just take that for experience.

Oh, your experience of your body is. And, yes, when you’ve if you’ve given vaginal birth, the tissues are indeed in a different, like, position and their tensile strength is different. It doesn’t make them loose though. So having connective tissue that is, under a different tensile load doesn’t still make it loose. So, yes, people can feel that way.

Kate Northrup: They can feel that way. Yes. But what’s necessary is not necessarily kegels.

Correct?

Lauren Ohayon: Yes. Correct. We need to stop using this binary instruction, which is basically reduct it’s so simplistic. It’s ridiculous. And foisting it on the pelvic floor.

Just because you can stop your urine midstream doesn’t mean that’s how you strengthen the body part. Right. Right. Right.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. And what I was you know, through the biofeedback, through all the work that I did, I found after both births that actually my pelvic floor had maybe a little was just holding. Yeah. Was just was just holding. Yes.

Perhaps it was freaked out. It had had a lot of activity.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. I mean, there was just a lot of It happens. And so I needed to actually learn how to release Yeah. My pelvic floor, not strengthen. My pelvic floor was perfectly strong.

Correct. I needed to learn to let go, which is, of course, a metaphor for Many things.

Lauren Ohayon: Yeah. It’s a great teacher. Listen. The top pelvic floor is a great guide. Yeah. It really is. Medicine. So, like, what else we can inform in our bodies?

Kate Northrup: Now you mentioned before we started recording that ED, erectile dysfunction in men, can also be very related to pelvic floor health because why?

Lauren Ohayon: Well, I’m not, like, as per a male, I love hanging out with females more. But because Yeah. Yeah. Because the pelvic floor muscle, the pelvic floor is, is controlling the organs. Our organs are working in concert with our pelvic floor muscles.

So when the pelvic so so for females, for example, females will ex will have less pleasurable orgasms or not be able to reach orgasm or less sensation or, and they can be very aroused.

Arousal is very, very different than like the, the inter like the orgasm. Yeah. Right? So a female can get very, very aroused and then not be able Sure.

To have an orgasm. An orgasm to reach peak, to reach client x. So that is often very tight pelvic floor muscles because in order to reach climax, your pelvic floor has to now, under tension, have all these tiny, tiny, tiny contractions, and all of that is bringing blood flow. Your clitoris, your vulva, everything’s getting engorged with blood. All this blood is flowing in.

How does blood flow in? The muscles need to be able to be available for that. Relax and contract. And the muscles need to pull the blood in, and you need you get all these tiny contractions. If your pelvic floor is already in a held state, nothing’s happening.

So the blood is not flowing to those areas. Males are no different. They or or they might many males will, well, ED is different for every male. Yeah. Some males will ED can be pain post climax or it can be inability to stay hard or it can be pain during erection.

I mean, there’s just so many things that can happen. Right. But again, like the muscles need to be able to go through they need to muscle. Muscles need to muscle.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. Right? And that requires being able to let go as well as hold.

Lauren Ohayon: Requires a functional system. Yeah. Absolutely. If somebody holds a muscle too tight, right, or they sit all day long and their hips are in this position, when they stand up, their hips are still in this position because our bodies are intelligent and adaptive. They’re gonna hold your body in the position you do most with it.

So when you sit all day long and your pelvis now stays in the sitting position, you also restrict blood flow to the area. Mhmm. And the pelvic floor is that area.

Kate Northrup: One thing I noticed when I came to your studio is you don’t have a desk. Yeah.

And you also told me that, when your kids were younger and they had, like, less feelings about how things should be, you also didn’t really have furniture. Yes. Yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: Why? Because I really believe it’s good to move more, and I love the idea of moving more. So the more opportunity to get up and down off the floor, the better. We get very comfortable in our seats and couches, and it’s not always advantageous for the body. Like sitting on a couch is a lot of people get off a couch and they’re like, and then they go right back into it. It’s like, hi. Did you notice how you felt when you got off the couch? Yeah. And I’m not saying everyone needs to sit like a monk all day long, you know, rigid, but..

Kate Northrup: You don’t sit like that.

Lauren Ohayon: No. I change positions as off like, the next possession position is the best position.

Kate Northrup: I love that. So I change positions a lot.

Lauren Ohayon: Movement. I’m in movement a lot.

Lauren Ohayon: You’re not stagnant. Right. And when I have to work, I try to work standing at my counter.

Kate Northrup: and not like it in. Kitchen counter?

Lauren Ohayon: Yeah. So I can stand. Okay. I haven’t, like, been industrious enough to set up a workstation upstairs where I can stand. So I’ll go downstairs.

I like to change environments too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. And your kitchen has great light, so just perfect.

Lauren Ohayon: Well, there you go. Yeah.

Kate Northrup: And, I mean, it’s all about the light.

Lauren Ohayon: Well, that’s because I do a lot of work on Zoom, obviously. 

Kate Northrup: I guess if I’m just, like, writing, it doesn’t matter how the light is. So one of the things that you talk about is the mapping and the anatomy of the pelvic floor. Mhmm. Most women do not know what their anatomy is. Yeah.

We don’t even know what the parts are. We don’t even know. So can you just kind of walk us through what is in our pelvic floor so we can visually map it and also feel it right now while we’re Listening.

Lauren Ohayon: So it’s interesting. I mean, I think that people like, if you if I say leg swing, you know exact you don’t need to do a leg swing to feel the leg swing. You know what I’m talking about. If I say arm swing, you know. Push off with your foot. You know. Kick them all. Right? So there’s all these functions that our body can do that people allocate a feeling to. We have this three-dimensional mind, body, like, understanding of that.

The pelvic floor is a little different because it doesn’t reach, grab, push, or pull. It does none of those things. It is more like a dome that it’s like a jellyfish, and it it can shape your diaphragm.

Yes. It’s a responsive it’s completely in mirror to the diaphragm.

People want to exert force on it the way we exert force on, like, our arm, which is part of the problem, which is where squeeze makes sense. Contractor pelvic floor squeeze makes sense because we live in a society that likes to foist a immediate, like, oh, you don’t feel it? Squeeze it.

Okay.

Kate Northrup: Well, maybe That’s a metaphor.

The Connection Between Breathing and Pelvic Floor Function

Lauren Ohayon: Yeah. Maybe we don’t feel it because it has a different feeling tone. You gotta change the radio station and tune in to a little bit of a different radio station right now. Yeah. And so part of it is like so I could tell you how to feel it. It would take me a little while. We don’t have time. I’m actually teaching a webinar on it tomorrow. But basically It is. 

It’s it’s about quite like, you’ll find on, like, my a lot of my socials, I talk a lot about being able to wag your clitoris or being able to wag your tailbone. So the tailbone is moving from the back, and your tailbone actually has the ability to wag, and has all these muscles connected to it, and it has a joint in there. So just like if you’ve imagined a sailboat with all these like, the mast connected, you know, and the sail’s connected to the mast. 

Your pelvic floor, your tailbone is like that mass with all these sails connected to it, and it’s capable of moving and being moved. So sometimes you can feel your pelvic floor just by moving your wagging your tailbone forward and backward, and it might create that squeeze, but you might also be able to tune into a different element of movement there. And for some people, it’s almost like a parachute lifting and lowering. I don’t like to foist. I don’t like to define what you could, should, and would be feeling, but I will say, like, in my body, it can almost feel like that.

Lauren Ohayon: Like like, you drop a scarf and it goes down and up, and then sometimes it has more intensity and less intensity depending on, of course, the activity. And it can feel like a squeeze because we’re so used to thinking about squeeze with the pelvic floor, but it’s so much more three-dimensional than squeeze. It’s the entire bowl lowering and lifting with all of its myriad of attachments. So you can find that attachment through your tailbone. You can also find that attachment by nodding your clitoris.

If you sat in front of your mirror with your legs open and no clothes on and you looked at your

clitoris, your clitoris, like a penis, can nod backward and forward like a little button that can go up and down.

Kate Northrup: That’s amazing.

Lauren Ohayon: It’s phenomenal. 

Kate Northrup: Did it take you a while to figure out how to do that?

Lauren Ohayon: Well, I’ve been playing with my clitoris for a really long time, and I don’t mean sexually, but I do that too. Yeah. I really mean, like, I love mapping my brain to my body, and I love feeling, like, can I open and close my labia? Can I like, I’m really into that?

Yeah. What what can I do with my anus? And again, people get so uncomfortable. They’re like, oh my god. She’s talking about sexual things. I’m like, oh my god. She’s talking about organs and bodies and tissue, and it’s all alive, and it’s all patently. And it’s like, you wanna make it sexual. 

Kate Northrup: You go right ahead and freaked out if you were talking about a pinky finger. I mean, they might think you were weird by being fascinated by how it could move, but they wouldn’t be like, oh. 

Lauren Ohayon: Well, I mean, if you didn’t have the use of your hands, you would not be a happy human. Right. And yet when we start talking about the pelvic floor, like this wondrous thing, people panic because they’re like, you know, these days and I think people paying attention to me these days are much more comfortable with it. 

So one of the ways to feel your pelvic floor is to embody all the kind of areas around it and mobilize those even, like, doing work with, like, sliding your sitting bones back and forth. Like and then again, you’re tuning in less.

You’re you’re starting to try to tune into a different feeling tone of what’s happening within you the bowl of your pelvis because it won’t swing, reach, grab. Like, it won’t do those things. No I’m

sorry. I, like, I wish I could change anatomy for you to give you a different experience, but that’s not life. 

Kate Northrup: One of the most common things that comes up, of course, with women is like, oh, I can’t jump on a trampoline. I can’t go for a run because I spontaneously leak. Right? And I and I just pee my pants.

Is that a forever thing? Like, if if somebody is doing that, does that just mean that’s how their body is forever? Or are there things that we can do that how their body is forever, or are there things that we can do? And is there a certain amount of time past giving birth that it’s too late or not?

Lauren Ohayon: Well, so many people who’ve never given birth have this issue too.

Good. And I think, like, we assume that it’s a you know? But I also I know a lot of teenagers with

Incontinence. Really?

Kate Northrup: Yes. Unfortunately the pelvic floor patterning?

Lauren Ohayon: Yeah. I mean, it’s generally incontinence is, again, people think my pelvic floor is too weak or IE too loose, therefore, I leak urine. It’s actually usually my your pelvic floor is so tight that that function again of controlling urine is a little bit muffled and muted. It’s not it’s not sharp it’s not a well sharpened tool right now. It can absolutely change.

I think the thing about it is, like, your investment, and I don’t mean money. But, like, we are not taught to value to value we’re taught to fix broken things. So when you leak, you wanna fix your problem. And people are like, people DM me every day. They’re like, do you have an exercise for incontinence? I’m like, no. I have a protocol. Like, I have a system, but I don’t have one exercise. And whoever does have that one exercise is also lying to you, by the way. Yeah.

So it’s like, yeah, incontinence is definitely something for most people that can be improved a lot if not fully resolved. I’ve seen the spectrum. I’ve seen some people fully and I’ve seen other people less resolve it. But, yes, it is completely generally resolvable.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. It just takes a commitment that most people are not willing to invest. That investment. And you said you have a protocol. And so, obviously, you’re not gonna give that to us today because it’s your entire program. But, like, could you want me to either. 

Lauren Ohayon: Yeah. How many hours do you have? Exactly.

Kate Northrup: But I am curious if you can paint us a picture of what some of the, like, core pillars are or what the framework is so we might imagine, do I want to make that investment?

Lauren Ohayon: Yeah. It all comes down to how do you do what you do when you do what you do? So when you do when you go to open a door, your arm muscles work reflexively. You don’t direct your fingers in your arms. They go.

The Korean pelvic floor is designed to be used reflexively as well. The korean pelvic floor is not designed to be utilized under instruction. However, somehow, somebody thought it was a great idea to start instructing the core and pelvic floor on how to behave for activities, and we’ve overridden the body’s natural ability to manage and disperse load. So, you know, movement is shock absorption, propulsion, and and and load management. And the core and pelvic floor are the places where that happens. So what we look at is, like, how are you how are you the first thing is, like, how do you breathe?

Most people are chronic belly breathers, and it doesn’t help that systems like yoga tell people, like, the best breathing for pelvic floor health is the belly breathing. It’s actually not. Like Really?

Kate Northrup: It’s not.

Lauren Ohayon: Well Tell me more. Put your why don’t you put your hands on where your diaphragm is? Yeah. Is that your belly? No.

What part of your body is that? My solar plexus. Yeah. That’s your rib cage. Right.

Your diaphragm is in your rib cage. And in fact, it’s so in your rib cage that your heart sits on your diaphragm. So put your hand on your heart. Now your diaphragm is right there. That is not your belly. No. Why are we telling people to belly breathe when the diaphragm is in the rib cage? 

So that makes no sense, and I think it has to do with the fact that probably people were terrified of, like, panic breathing, which happens up here high. Like, accessory muscle use. Collarbone.

So the antidote that people discovered for that was, oh, they’re a belly breather. Oh, just I’m

sorry. They’re a Chest breather. Chest breather. Make them a belly breather.

Kate Northrup: But belly breathing is not an appropriate antidote to chest breather, we need to work on that pattern, not send you down to your belly.

Lauren Ohayon: Constant chronic belly, like, do it. Take a big do do you wanna sit on your perineum? Can you? Yes. Can we put your hand under your perineum?

Yes. Come on. Let’s do this. Yeah. Good.

Okay. And then put your other hand on your belly and then take a big huge belly breath for me and notice if you feel that you’re bearing down.

Kate Northrup: I mean, it would create pressure. Correct.

Lauren Ohayon: Now put your hand on your ribs. Yeah. And go ahead take a take a rib breath, not a collarbone breath, but a rib breath. Does that feel different in your pelvic floor? And you can go back and forth a few times. Yeah.

Kate Northrup: Let me just see.

Lauren Ohayon: And just map it. Kinda map what you feel when you big belly breathe. And when you belly breathe, don’t move your ribs that much because most belly breathers are Oh, okay. Not moving their ribs.

Kate Northrup: I may be more of a rib breather. I’m probably patterned for for that. But, Do you

Lauren Ohayon: feel the difference in your perineal feel the difference of, like, you know, like you said, it’s like the jellyfish. So I feel, like, more of a pressure Yeah. Down when you belly breathe. When I belly breathe because I’m sending breath. Well, you’re sending movement down. 

Lauren Ohayon: Breath goes into. The breath is gonna stay in the breath is gonna stay in your bronchial tree no matter what you do. Air is gonna stay there. Air is not going by. It’s not. But your breath it’s fine.

Kate Northrup: Thank you for that. You’re fresh.

Lauren Ohayon: Yes. Well, I only clarify because I hear you like yoga people say all sorts of things about like breathe into your baby toe..

Kate Northrup: I’m like, you can’t do that. Why is my belly going out when I’m breathing into my belly?

Lauren Ohayon: Squeeze the top of a balloon. Yeah. It’s just doing that. It’s just expec it’s it’s actually not expanding. It’s increasing in volume.

Kate Northrup: Because the air couldn’t possibly leave my lungs. So then why is my belly going out? 

Lauren Ohayon: The air is you would have a collapsed lung if the air was leaving your lung. That would be an ER situation because it’s movement. Air and breath are 2 different things. Air is what you pull into your body. Breath is what you do with that air. Breath is shape change. Air is like oxygenated stuff going into your bronchial tree. Air and breath are not the same thing.

Kate Northrup: Okay. So when I’m being told this I’m but you are blowing my mind right now.

Sorry. No. It’s great. I’m, like, unraveling so much training.

Lauren Ohayon: This is great.

Kate Northrup: So just so I understand correctly, when I’m breathing into my belly, when I’m belly breathing and you did identify that I actually do breathe into my ribs, which I actually did some training around, which was great. We could talk about that in a minute and why. But so that’s, like, habitual at this point, it seems. But when I am expanding my belly, the oxygen is staying in my lungs, like, the actual Totally. Air. But what’s happening is my body is just moving my belly?

Lauren Ohayon: Yes.

Kate Northrup: Like, how does shape change?

Lauren Ohayon: So is it from pressure? Well, we okay. So in this is a great question. In order for our bodies to pull air in, so atmospheric pressure is pressing down on every square inch of your body, like £14 of that on every inch. It’s amazing.

You’re under pressure. Love it. Now in order to not, like, implode, explode, die, you take a breath. Yeah. We have to we have to balance out the pressure between inside our body and outside of our body, which is why when you go to space, you can’t do that and you need machines to do that for you.

Okay. So humans with under gravity can pressurize, can equalize the air inside the body with the air outside the body, the pressure. The only way you can do that though is by changing shape somewhere in your body to pull the air in.

Kate Northrup: Mhmm.

Lauren Ohayon: So the lungs do that. Will the will the air go into the lungs and the lungs do that? When you pull air in, you create a system of low pressure. Yep. Okay.

In order to create a system of low pressure, you have to create high volume somewhere else.

So you have to over volumize somewhere in your body. Like, how do planes fly pressure and volume?

Kate Northrup: Yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: So pressure and volume. You cannot have a state of high vol like, it’s gonna be really hard to take a breath in your body if something doesn’t open.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. I mean, when I was pregnant with Ruby, which this is my belly over here that you can see, right in the in the trees. So when I was in the wings. When I was pregnant with Ruby my second, I got really sick. And I think we don’t have way of verifying this, but I think I broke a rib from coughing so much and so hard. Yeah. And then it hurt to breathe so badly, and I couldn’t take a deep breath.

Lauren Ohayon: There was no space for that volume. You couldn’t create volume in your ribs.

Kate Northrup: Because it hurt. That’s right. Yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: So we do have to create in order for, like, to help air come into the body, we do have to create volume somewhere. Yeah. So when you, you can create volume in your belly,

you can create volume in your ribs. Yeah. When you create volume in your belly, you generally will leave the, like if the ribs will do nothing, they won’t actually expand.

Yeah. The belly will just get, it will increase in volume, which then will press the pelvic organs downward a lot, which is what people feel when I ask them to sit on their perineum. And usually in an actual setting, I would quiet them down. We like, what I did with you in 20 seconds, like was very quick. We would do yeah. It was a quick do more drive by. Practicing. Like, this is this is I’m I’m having a rewiring right now just live. This is great. Like Yeah. And so I did this, program called Birthfit.

Kate Northrup: Mhmm.

Lauren Ohayon: Do you know Birthfit? Maybe.

Kate Northrup: Okay. Not yeah. 

Lauren Ohayon: One of the things that they and I love Lindsay, the founder. She’s, like, wonderful. I think you would love her too. So one of the things that I learned, though, was about breathing into my side ribs, into my back ribs as a way of of restoration. So I wanna know more about why creating that volume in our ribs as opposed to our belly.

I mean, I do understand what you said.

Kate Northrup: Why is it better in the ribs? 

Lauren Ohayon: Wise because it’s closer to the diaphragm. 

Kate Northrup:  But is there anything else we should

know?

Lauren Ohayon: Yeah. The ribs are capable. If you look at the architecture of the ribs versus the architecture of the belly, the belly actually can’t expand. Like, we say expand your belly, but the belly cannot expand. It doesn’t have like, you can expand your uterus with a baby, and you can expand your bladder with water, and you can expand, like, food, like, your stomach with food, but your belly can’t actually expand.

It actually just kind of bulges when you do that. Whereas your rib cage because of its architecture and its its connection to the spine. So all these ribs are wrapped around to the back. You’ve got this incredible architecture that as you inhale, your breath as if pushes against bone, like meets the bone resistance, and the bones then expand as well. 

So rib cage breathing, 3 I call it 3 d rib expansion.Creates expansion in the ribs. You get a bit of spinal movement with that inhalation. Like, your spine will extend a little bit. Your ribs will widen your collar bones. Like you get spreading through the whole bony system of the rib cage, which is phenomenal. And then as a result, you don’t over pressurize the pelvic floor.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. That’s really cool.

Lauren Ohayon: Because you but but when you breathe into your belly, you over pressurize your pelvic floor. Yeah. Because there’s nothing that can really expand down. Like, nothing can really expand here. You don’t have the bony architecture capable of expansion.

The rib cage has this amazing it’s just yeah.

Kate Northrup: Like you said designed for architecture.

Lauren Ohayon: It’s like scaffolding Correct. To protect Yes. Our organs and okay. And to expand. I mean, it’s really I think it’s literally made that ribs, unlike scaffolding, which you don’t want to be that movable No. The ribs are really actually quite they’re like this floating They’re pliable. Yeah. 

We think of our spine as rigid. Our spine is floating in water all the time. Like, our spine and like, our bones, like, are floating. Well, specifically, the spine is, like, floating in liquid all the time, and the ribs are like think about how many joints and how the ribs are made of so much cartilage. Why? Why is it cartilage and not hard yeah. Movement.

So the ribs are designed for all this movement and support. They support our our heart and our lungs, but the ribs are a phenomenal conduit of movement in the body. And they offset load and shock and That’s so cool. Okay. 

Kate Northrup: So we shift how we do what we do when we do it, and we start with the breath. 

Lauren Ohayon: We start with how are we breathing.

Kate Northrup: Blew my mind. Yes. Okay. Great. 

Lauren Ohayon: So we start with how are we breathing. We just learned a really important piece there.

Kate Northrup: Yes. And, obviously, that takes practice. That takes investment, like, all of these great patterning. Yeah. But at the same time, we only have this one body. And the way we feel in our bodies impacts every single moment of every single day. So I can’t think of a better investment. 

Lauren Ohayon: It’s not how we’re wired to think, and you’re completely right. It is an incredible investment for longevity, for now, for everything. It makes you feel better about yourself. It’s like

Yeah. It’s the best medicine. Being in your body is amazing medicine.

Kate Northrup: It is amazing medicine. So we look at the breath first.

How Your Core Impacts Pelvic Floor Health

Kate Northrup: Then where do you go?

Lauren Ohayon: Then we look at how do you do like, how is your core responding? Okay. And so for a lot of people, if you put your hand on your belly and imagine this is a horrible imagery, but imagine somebody’s about to kick you in the belly. Yeah. You’re in a jujitsu class and it’s it’s

Warranted.

Yeah. How would you what would you do in your abdominals to prepare for that? You would most likely actually push them out. Oh. You would harden them and push them out.

Somebody’s about to punch you..

Kate Northrup: I would do this.

Lauren Ohayon: Yeah. Unfortunately, most which is a great like, that’s a great strategy if somebody’s about to kick you. But if you do that a lot and, again, if I had you, like, sit on your perineum, you would also feel that that creates a lot of downward force. For sure. Yeah. So it’s also about, like, when you’re moving around your day and your life, is your core always inadvertently pushing outward? Ultimately, we wanna gate we wanna, like, queue in to, like, are you walking around bracing your core all day long? If you imagine this, Kate, don’t do it, but imagine it. I mean, be my guest. If you were to lie on the floor, your guests can do your listeners can do this. You lie on the floor and you lift both legs up. That’s a pretty popular fitness move.

Right? Both legs come up off the floor. You’re lying flat on your back.

Put your hand on your belly. I have no doubt. Like, it will push outward. That is, like, a reality thatyou can’t avoid. That pushing outward all the time is not advantageous to your core or pelvic Floor.

It’s a weak it’s ultimately not the best pattern to live in. And would that be caused by, like, a nervous system response of threat? Or, like, why would we be walking around pushing out our abdominals all the time? I don’t think we move our bodies the way we’re designed.

Kate Northrup: Okay.

Lauren Ohayon: Like, I think we sit a lot. Yeah. For kids who, like, start sitting when they’re 5.

Kate Northrup: I know.

Lauren Ohayon: And, like, we just lose that deep intrinsic core response.

Kate Northrup: One thing at, my kids’ school, which I think you’ll appreciate, is that in the classrooms, they have these instead of chairs, they have these stools, and the bottom of the stools aren’t flat. And so the kids can just kind of be rotating and moving around at all times. And their hips can move, and they’re never, like, fully still. And I think it’s the best. Yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: Agree. And so, you know, a lot of our, like, intrinsic way of moving is lost by the time we’re 5 or 6. Yeah. Shoes. Think about the shoes we put on kids when they’re born. We basically destroy their foundation from day 1 by putting babies and children and adults into shoes. So shoes are a huge problem also. So, like, why don’t we have deep intrinsic responsive cores? Well, because, like, we put, like, the most important structure of our body in a cast from, like, year 1. Right.

Kate Northrup: And then we sit our passes in a chair. Year 6. And then there it is.

Lauren Ohayon: And there we go.

Kate Northrup: So then so we’re looking at breath, and we’re looking at core. And then what?

Anything else next? I mean, there’s literally, like, a lifetime adjusting breath and core. Yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: And then it’s like, well, does your pelvis move, and do your hips move, and are your hamstrings tight? And, like, what’s your pelvic positioning like? And, like, how’s your stack? Is your pelvis stacked over, like, under your well, hopefully, your pelvis is not over your ribs, but maybe.

Kate Northrup:  Are your ribs stacked over down at all times?

Lauren Ohayon: You know, so we’re looking at a variety of things, but we try to make it we try not to induce overwhelm. My goal is to get people to feel safe in their bodies and not like they’re being nitpicked and under a microscope, and I think a lot of the fitness industry makes people feel broken. So the goal is really not to be like, and you walk around with your pelvis in the run position. No. We don’t do that.

It’s get on the mat. Let’s move through this. Let’s explore. Let’s be curious. And this is why if you are investing in it, you don’t have to solve it today. How about you give yourself some time? 

Kate Northrup: Like, you got time. Because the patterns took time to get there. Totally. Shifting that.

Lauren Ohayon: And what do we know about the body and the brain? It loves a good challenge. Like, nurture your brain and give it the challenge. Like, you don’t need to do this in a day. That’s your ego that wants that.

Kate Northrup: So is all movement good movement?

Lauren Ohayon: Yes. Yeah? I feel that all movement is good movement. It’s about whether you live in that movement all day long. Right?

So, like, the core, somebody wants to do those v ups laying on the ground and their legs going up and their core busting out. Be my guest. Please don’t live in that shape.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. Like more And maybe don’t do those every day.

Lauren Ohayon: Yeah. And yeah. And if you have a core and pelvic floor issue to begin with, how about you not do those right now? Yeah.

Diastasis Recti and Pelvic Floor Dysfunction

Kate Northrup: Okay. Another common problem, diastasis. Yes. Yeah. So where does that come from? What should folks know who have diastasis? And and can you just describe it for those who might not know what it is?

Lauren Ohayon: Separation of this abdominal wall. So, specifically, the superficial wall separates from the midline. A lot of people don’t realize when you look at somebody with a 6 pack, those muscles there are attached in the center to a thick connective tissue. That thick connective tissue can be injured. It can kind of, thin out, be injured. And so then that’s those 6 pack muscles, which were here, get here. If you look at a lot of body builders, you’ll actually start to notice a pretty big gap in between in their abdominal wall. Also CrossFitters. It’s very common in bodybuilders and CrossFitters. I mean, not every body builder. Strength.

Kate Northrup: Yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: It’s yeah. It’s yeah. Pressure. From pressure? Yeah.

Our body’s with that. You’re just pushing out all the time. It’s like a You’re over pressure pressurizing. Yeah. You’re over pressur pressurizing that tissue there, the linea alba tissue.

And so the abdominal wall separates. So it’s a separation.

Kate Northrup: Yes. And what are some of the issues that that can cause? So that’s a really great question. It’s very aesthetic.

Lauren Ohayon: Like, a lot of my work used to be a very diastasis and I still love it and work with it and Sure. All of that. But, you know, it’s it doesn’t cause a lot of pain for most people. Back back back instability is the biggest one. Whereas pelvic floor dysfunction, it causes a lot of things across the board. And the abdominal stuff is very aesthetic for people. Right? Like, they don’t like the way their abdominals stick out, protrude. And and, again, I work with a lot of bodybuilders who have this problem. And they come to me and they’re like, my abdominals protrude, and this is not okay. And I’m like, well, I can’t help you as long as you’re bodybuilding. So that’s fine. Like, don’t stop bodybuilding. Come to me later. Okay.

Right? But, like, people wanna resolve it. Like but and if you start to look at the body of a lot of

CrossFitters, you’ll see that their abdominals are not these flat washboard abdominals. 

Kate Northrup: They actually kind of stick out a little bit. I’ve noticed that. 

Lauren Ohayon: So is that diastasis? Well, it’s either diastasis or what we call, like, this oblique dominance where their oblique muscles are so overpowering that in from the side, they squeeze everything in so everything pushes forward. Because it has to go somewhere. I mean, physics.

Kate Northrup: Would you call that, like, over training, or is it just because it’s like anaggressive use of weights?

Lauren Ohayon: If you look at a baseball player, they’ll end up with shoulder patterning. I mean, there is some collateral offsetting from the sports we choose to do. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So just say it is have adaptation.

Kate Northrup: Oh my gosh.

Lauren Ohayon: Their core feet. Adaptation. Their poor hips.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. Okay. And gymnasts with the neck.

Lauren Ohayon:  I mean, there’s just a lot going on. Yes. Okay.

Kate Northrup: Yeah. It’s just what happens.

Lauren Ohayon: Yeah. Those were the 2 gymnastics and ballet were the 2 things. I don’t tell my kids they can’t do anything, but those were the 2 things that I was like, you will not be doing gymnastics or ballet.

Kate Northrup: I feel similarly. Yeah. Also, football and hockey, which wasn’t really probably likely with my girls. But you never know. If I lived in Maine, hockey may have been a possibility, and I was not really here for the head injuries.

Lauren Ohayon: I support you. Great. Luckily, my girls seem to have taken to theater and pottery. Yeah. 

Kate Northrup: Oh, nice. I feel so available to go to shows Yeah. And not games. I would support them in anything, but I’m thrilled. Yes. So far, we’ll see. For sure. Okay..

Empowering Women Through Pelvic Floor Education

Kate Northrup: So when folks come to you and they come through your program. I know you do a teacher training, but also Restore Your Core® for folks who are just like, I wanna feel better in my body. I wanna heal these patterns, whatever What are some of the most common or exciting things that they experience as they make this investment knowing that it takes time? But, like, what are some of the you know? And I know that you probably don’t love this, but, like, what are some of the results that folks are experiencing? 

Lauren Ohayon: I love results. I love results. I think the biggest result, well, different people would say. Some people get really excited because they can get back to the activities they love.

Great. Right. They can run with their kids. They can Awesome. Get back to doing what they love. CrossFit, marathon running, like, they feel empowered.

I think the other thing that people love is they feel empowered. They finally feel like, it’s not like they went you know, it’s like I took my dog to the vet the other day and she was itching and the doctor gave me a pill for her and I gave my dog the pill and I didn’t ask questions. Right? Like, that is that is how most people are being treated in their bodies, and they’re not dogs. That is a classic You’ve got a pain.

Classic. You go to the doctor or you go to the PT. No offense to PTs. I love them. Yeah.

But they give you some form of prescriptive exercise, and it feels like you’re taking a pill, and nobody’s invested. And they don’t actually take their pills because a pill is easier to take than lying down on the floor and lifting your legs 10 times. It’s goddamn boring. So I try to make it super interesting, super exciting. Like, I make the whole I try to make the whole process, very somatic and embodied Yeah.

You do. So that they feel very dropped into their body and what their body is doing, and it’s easier for them to then have an investment. And so I think that empowerment is the currency of our worth. And if I can give females and anyone coming to me more empowerment, that’s pretty exciting to me because that’s the currency of our worth. And when you feel more whole in your body that’s why do I teach people to wag their clitoris?

Yeah. I think your clitoris is super cool, but it just makes helps you reclaim your body in a completely different way. Yeah. It makes more of you known to you.

Kate Northrup: Yes.

Lauren Ohayon: And I think what people love about me and my system is that I am so positive and I like, I’m not shaming you. Like, I’m never shaming. I’m in wonder. You have bunions. Oh my god. Beautiful. Like, those are just a pattern. Like, it’s all a pattern to me and it’s all wonderful and it’s all tissue and it’s all adaptation and it’s all biology and physiology. And it’s so interesting. It does.

As opposed to like sometimes what the fitness industry does is like, oh, you’re broken. And we use words like disorder and all the disses, we just diss people. We literally just diss people every which way. I’m like empowerment all the way. And I think that’s another reason people like like, it’s smart and I’m smart and it’s educational and I’m edgy you know, they like that.

Yeah. It’s smart. It’s a smart system, but it’s empowering.

Kate Northrup: Yes. And, yeah, so beautiful.

Lauren Ohayon: And I don’t mean to sound cocky, like, I’m smart, but, like You are.

Kate Northrup: I am.

Lauren Ohayon: That’s why I like you. I think that people appreciate intelligence around the body because I’m not again, I’m not trying to sell you get a flatter belly. For the sophisticated consumer, I think that we get better results when we actually do understand the why

Kate Northrup: Of course. Behind it. I know that if somebody can give me all the data, I’m, like, gonna be on board with the practice way more than if they’re just, like, do this exercise.

Lauren Ohayon: You’ll get this result. Right. I wanna know why. Dysfunctional back. Here’s an exercise.

Kate Northrup: I wanna know all the physiology and the mechanism. And I think how how I give them the physiology.

Lauren Ohayon: I bring it alive in layman’s terms. Right. Yeah. You’re not, like, teaching an anatomy class.

Kate Northrup: No. It’s just the amount that you need to know to class. No. It’s just the amount that you need to know to be inspired to make that investment, to get the result. This is I’m making a hard left as we land the plane here. And that is this.

Lauren Ohayon: You have 3 daughters. I do. 

Kate Northrup: They are older than my my kids. You have one going off to college, one who’s 16 Mhmm. And one who’s 14. Okay. Great.

So I look to you as a guide, as, like, a mother who, you know, seems to know what she’s doing.

And one of the things that you are unabashed about, really beautiful about is sensuality, sexuality, our bodies. You know, we’ve been talking about wagging our clitorises. I grew up with a mother like that, quite frankly. Yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: Also So amazing.

Kate Northrup: Yep. So grateful. And I’ve got these girls. Right? And so I wanna know, how are you like, what are some of the key lessons that you would pass along to me and anyone else listening who wants to provide an impow an empowering environment for our children around their bodies.

And I’m going to specifically ask it around sexuality and sensuality as they get older. Like, what have you modeled for your kids? What have you explicitly shared with them that you would just say, like, absolutely, I stand by this. This has been a win. I would recommend doing it this way knowing that every family is different.

Lauren Ohayon: I’ll start with a story. I was in the kitchen the other day with my husband, and my husband was, cooking dinner, and my daughter was getting ready for, like, a pajama party. She’s 17. And all of her friends were over, and one of her best friends walks into the room, and my husband’s right there. And she’s like, Lauren, do you think my nipples now she starts talking in front of my husband. Now I don’t bat an eye. He doesn’t bat an eye. She sees him. She doesn’t bat an eye.

And we have a whole conversation about, like, how should she position the bra if she doesn’t want the nipples, but she wants the sexiness, but she wants to look, like, cute, all of this.

Amazing. And I just thought, holly fucking lujah. Like, I my job here is done. And then the next night, you know, me and a bunch of the girls were talking about prom sex, like

Kate Northrup: Yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: And I was making pancakes for my daughter, my 14 year old who had a sleepover, like a ton of boys slept over and I wasn’t wearing a bra. And I looked at my daughter and I was like, do you mind white t shirt? No bra. She was like, mom, you do you. You know, I think that like, so seeing how my kids embrace me is huge, but I my problem is that I have no Filter. I don’t know how to be proper because I think proper creates disempowered females. And I think proper creates, like, more sex abuse.

Kate Northrup: Yes. It does.

Lauren Ohayon: I am not okay. So I’m not okay with that, but I don’t think I don’t think I’m improper. I’m normalizing. I just normalize the body. To me, you like, so when my kids were little, it was never, like, let’s clean your woo wah. It was a vagina. You have a vulva, and that’s a vagina. And, like, I never substituted names. Right. They came with me every time I went to the bathroom, whether a tampon was going in or coming out.

So they’ve seen me. My daughters talk about their periods in front of males all day long.

Kate Northrup: Well, I’ve never said to them, shh, we don’t talk like that in front of men or or strangers. 

Lauren Ohayon: No. 

Kate Northrup: God forbid, because that’s where men also came from.

Lauren Ohayon: Well, I hi. Yeah. I’m not gonna keep this a secret. And it’s not dirty. Your period’s not gross. You know? It’s actually full of stem cells, which are very healing and regenerative. Listen. People rub it all over their bodies. I know that.

Kate Northrup: We talked about it with Sarah earlier. I’m not there yet,

Lauren Ohayon: but maybe not either. But So someday. Yes. Maybe. Although, I might be losing my period in the next few years too.

See, now’s your time. Yes.

Kate Northrup: Yes. Now’s your time for the menstrual blood facials. Get it while it’s good.

Lauren Ohayon: I might go for the plasma instead, but I’m afraid.

Kate Northrup: I’ve done that. I’ve done the The PRP. Yeah. The vampire facial. Yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: So, you know, I think it’s just about, like, really normalizing the body always.

Always. Always. And not being ashamed. And when my daughters do come to me and they’re

like, mom, I’m worried that they can see my boobs.

I don’t shame them for that being like, show your goddamn boobs. No. I don’t do that either.

Right. You want my kids having a mother like me are naturally a bit more modest.

To be honest, if you don’t want your kids to be sex maniacs, you should be a sex maniac.

Because let me tell you what they’ll become. They will go now against you, and they will close

their legs for life. No. The truth is and so, like, when they come to me and they’re kind of like, no.

I don’t wanna have prom sex mom. Stop like, I’m like, okay. Fine. You know, I’ve always told my daughter if she wants me to buy her a vibrator. I asked her best friend.

I was like, should I buy her a vibrator and leave it on her bed? She was like, no. Don’t do that.

So I was like, okay. I won’t.

My daughter knows. You want a vibrator? I’m here for you. 

Kate Northrup: You you like, I’m here for all of it.

Lauren Ohayon: And so when my kids tell me, like, they are safe with me and their friends are safe with me. And, like, they it’s a very safe home, and the safety extends to them wanting to be how they want to be. You want to be modest, be my guest. You wanna be I don’t, like, slut shame their outfits. 

Kate Northrup: Girls these days, they like to show it all. Yeah.

Lauren Ohayon: Go for us.

Kate Northrup: They in Miami. So it’s, like, culturally, what’s happening? Yeah. I I love that so much. You have a a real, like, tone of neutrality, actually, and you’re not being sensationalist in any way with the way you are. It’s just very, like, it’s it’s kind of neutral.

Lauren Ohayon: I feel very neutral about it.

Kate Northrup: Powerful because you’re not trying to get anybody to be any kind of way. Yeah.

You’re just supportive and celebratory of the way they are as long as they’re feeling safe and empowered. So that’s what I’m taking away.

Lauren Ohayon: Yeah. Love it. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it’s it I think it’s important to raise, like, really empowered girls. Like, we spend so much trying time trying to get them to be modest. Like, that is the worst thing you can do for a female.

And studies are showing that that there is way less, like, teen pregnancy and teen abuse for for teenage females who are receiving really good sex ed. For sure.

In my next life, I wanna be a sex ed teacher for, like, underserved youth. You would be brilliant.

Kate Northrup: We had a neighbor who was a, who was a public health guidance counselor at a school that was like an underserved community in Maine. And, Penelope used to roam around our neighborhood in Maine starting at the age of 3 because it was like a very safe neighborhood. And so my girlfriend texted me and she was like, Penelope’s at my kitchen counter having a snack. And I was like, fantastic. She was my across the street neighbor Yeah.

Neighbor. 

And later, she says, so when Penelope came over for a snack, she was sitting at the kitchen counter, and she all of a sudden says, oh, ouch, my vulva hurts. And and my neighbor was like, I just need to tell you, and I wanna celebrate that as a mother, giving her that kind of information and empowerment to use the correct language about her parts in any scenario is going to dramatically decrease her risk of sex of sexual assault. Because that’s what the data shows, is giving people the right names for their parts. Yes. And I was like, that’s amazing. 

And also it’s just a funny story. It’s incredible. But it is it is incredible. And that is I don’t think, like, the majority of mothers would have a story like that. Because the unfortunately, we try to raise girls to be, like, you know, what we perceive is, like, proper Yeah. And modest.

Kate Northrup: And I’m so glad also that my neighbor was celebratory of that moment because then we send our kids out into the world, and who knows what other people are. But the best we can do is what we can give them. Lauren, thank you so much.

Lauren Ohayon: Thank you so much.

Kate Northrup: Been great. I’m so glad I got to no one else will know what the other conversation was. It was amazing also, but this one was, like, also so delicious. I learned so much. I’m gonna be breathing in my ribs.

That was great. That was, like, a total takeaway. Okay. Where should people go to find you and your amazing work?

Lauren Ohayon: Well, Restore Your Core® is my brand, but my Instagram is the Lauren Ohayon. 

Kate Northrup: And it’s great. Like, watch the Instagram. It’s very valuable information. Thank you.

Lauren Ohayon: Thank you. Okay. And restoreyourcore.com.

Kate Northrup: Okay. Those will all be linked in the show show notes. Thank you so much for being here. 

Lauren Ohayon: So much. Appreciate you.