About Us

Yes absolutely, I'm right there with you!  Our bodies fall into patterns of managing, working around niggles and problems and gradually the dominoes fall until we develop a significant pain or problem with wear and tear.  This course is designed to go right into the most common areas that we avoid, the most common problem areas that don't heal after having a baby unless given direct attention and we explore!  There is plenty of info and practice for you to workout your own problem areas and find some lasting healing. I have you in mind when preparing for this course!

This is not a Bootcamp, but it will absolutely get you ready to do one!  I'd encourage it as a great next step to get your happy exercise hormones going and complete your strengthening process.  HIIT workouts are great for building lean muscle mass which helps with overall weight loss and recovery.  However!  I did a Bootcamp for two years and found my bladder symptoms and prolapse problems getting worse and worse even though my body was getting stronger.  I realized that I was not activating my core properly, and could not be managing the pressure/breathing in my body well.  I have figured out how to do this properly even with high-intensity exercise.  I will show you how to integrate this into any Bootcamp/HIIT workouts safely.  You will know through checkpoints when an exercise is suiting you or not, sometimes pride has to take a backseat and go back to doing basics well, then build up again, I'll guide you through.

Following C Section, getting back to exercise can take a little bit longer. If an athlete had a significant abdominal incision /groin surgery, they certainly wouldn't be run back out on the pitch and told to play and just get on with it! But somehow Mums are expected to do this while sleep-deprived, on a massively steep learning curve and very little to no rehab programme to help. So give yourself a break, all the finding comfort exercises will give you some ease, finding good alignment in all your motherhood tasks helps to lessen the strain and pain. Reconnecting with your body through your breath and simple movements will get you on course. You do need to have clearance from your medical practitioner before starting a more intense exercise.

Well, we're all after a flat tummy, but it is hard to achieve! The first thing to shoot for is a tummy that's working well, that's strong and helps support your back, and transmits the force from above and below, side to side. Once good patterns of movement are there when you can control your breathing and pressure in your middle section a flat tummy is becoming possible. This program aims to improve the muscle tone in your tummy and get rid of the lower belly 'pooch' by engaging those lower core muscles. However, we all carry a covering of fat over our muscles in the tummy, hiding our six-pack which is there if your tummy works well. Its diet and exercise that can change your fat coverage, that bit will be up to you! But, you'll feel better about exercising, feel able to get sweaty, and stimulate your metabolic rate to start burning more! What you put in your mouth as fuel needs to meet your goals.

This course will set you off on the right path. We take a whole-body approach to recovery and repair after having a baby. Even your feet change during pregnancy with the extra weight that moved in and then moved out! We cover all the major areas that need attention and give you specific tools to help you explore and heal these areas. We also provide short 20mins exercise videos to put it all together and start working out comfortably at home. I aim to equip you with a good working knowledge of how to get your core working reflexively, using your breath to keep your body and pelvic floor safe, how to align well-doing common bodyweight exercises so that you're ready to jump into whatever your local area offers. Getting out meeting other men and women, exercising, and having the crack safely is the goal.

Any of the packages of care offered by Bear & Repair are exploratory of your body. It’s you sensing how things are in your own body, where your limits and comforts are, where there is discomfort or things that are very different from one side to the other. The tools that I selected to guide the repairing are also self paced, easing into movements and you very much work with your own body wherever its at. You stay within your comfort zone. If you feel there is a specific area that you are struggling with, I would certainly seek out some 1:1 sessions with a chartered physiotherapist or licensed soft tissue specialist to work through specific problems that would be outside the scope of this general course.

Hopefully, you will have worked with a Women's Health/ Pelvic Health physiotherapist at your maternity hospital following your birth.  The treatment is very focussed on the pelvic floor itself, how it’s contracting, relaxing, tight areas, loose areas.  This specialised palpation and internal work are very important, but only part of the story.  The pelvic floor sits horizontally in the middle of your body, it pulled on by the large muscles in your bum, it shares attachments with tummy muscles, strong hip muscles, hamstrings, ligaments, tailbone...its not a one-trick pony of contract and relaxation.  My approach looks at the whole body and its pelvic floor function by looking at all the pelvic floor jobs, using its fascial and hardwired connections to other muscles and bones to optimize pelvic floor function.

If you feel your tear wasn't fully assessed by a pelvic health physiotherapist, I would certainly recommend scheduling a session.  It will give you great personal information in terms of whether you have a tight pelvic floor (hypertonic and surprisingly common) or muscle tears or can also give you help and cues to contract well.  The role of my course is to integrate this function into all your movements you do every day and get things back working reflexively, or automatically again.

Research shows that the majority of women perform Kegel Exercises incorrectly, and without actually checking inside while doing your exercises the best fitness instructor in the world can't tell how it’s going either!  However, you can increase your awareness of your pelvic floor, you can coordinate its action with your breathing, (they are intimately related through Intraabdominal pressure), and you can strengthen and lengthen muscles that pull or support the pelvic floor to have it work more optimally.  The flexibility and strength of your feet can influence strength and flexibility.