Best time to walk

I have rectocele and I find that sometimes walking makes me feel good, and other times it seems to aggravate the rectocele no matter how careful I am about my posture and form. If you feel a difference with walking, depending on whether or not you've already been on your feet all day, just go with what feels best (especially if you have the option to do either). Physically and mentally, one or the other might be more beneficial, or maybe mixing it up a little is the best of all!

I have been walking/exercising most of my adult life, and more recently having discovered what seems to be a rectocele prolapse hasn't interferred too much with my routine. However, I do my primary exercising in the morning. I usually run thru the WW DVD exercises or do all I can remember on my own before walking. Since I've been using Colon Helper (google for info) and eating a more healthy and whole food diet with lots of water included, I often have a BM first thing in the morning which helps. I also check after going to the potty whether my prolapse is stable (all tucked in iow). If not, I push things back up and in place before doing my exercise.

Since doing this followed by the WW routine and then my cardio workout, my prolapse seems to remain much more stable thru the day.

I have tho changed how I exercise...I keep my cardio mostly to walking/biking. I'll do a few light jogging intervals during my walk, but very short each time. I don't do floor aerobics with all the bouncing anymore. I do attend a tap dance class, but it's not as high impact as jogging most of the time and I keep any actual bouncing to a minimum.

Hi Shekina,
As far as I understand it's good to do appropriate exercise and explore what works best for you. I haven't heard anyone mention that a particular time is best. In my experience it hasn't made any difference. I read somewhere that Christine found it helped to go for a striding walk when she was aware of her prolapse. I find that helpful too. I find a regular WW yoga session following a WW dvd very helpful and when I can fit it in breast stroke swimming. I guess generally a rest would be more beneficial at times when you felt very tired though.
Good luck!
wholewomanuk

I've been walking in the morning, after I've had just a few bites of breakfast, but not all of it. My symptoms seem better after having been lying down in bed all night, so that's when I go for my brisk walk. I rotate my shoulders while walking fast, so my hips rotate and loosen up. I experiment with relaxing my belly rather than holding it tight to see if that reduces symptoms, which usually start to show up during the walk as downward pressure and an occasional twinge in my urethra. I hope I'm doing the right thing in trying to expand the space in my abdomen for my bladder to push forward. For some reason today the symptoms have been worse and I can't think of what I've done differently. I'm on vacation so stress really shouldn't be a factor!

Hi gfkspicoli - hope you are enjoying your vacation! You should be doing more than just "experimenting" with relaxing the belly. That is an absolute must. It's probably the most important aspect of the posture and you have to stop and correct anytime you find yourself with a tight belly. At the same time, pull up the chest, and your posture will feel very strong - not a floppy feeling at all. Don't speed-walk. Take long strides and keep the back foot on the ground as long as you can. STAY IN POSTURE. - Surviving

Thanks, Surviving,
I think I'm just having trouble with the basic posture. I know how to stand with my feet 6 inches apart with ankles directly above. I'll work on keeping the belly relaxed, and now chest up as well. To retrain myself takes time and concentration! I've got time here to focus on this....husband out on a side trip for a week and I'm in a position to take care of me! When you say, STAY IN POSTURE, you mean the standing posture? Interesting about the long strides, and not speed walking. I'm going to review the second half of the First Aid DVD. Still digesting the first half....
gfkspicoli

Surviving....one other thing....I have two appointments this week, one with a massage therapist whom I have talked to about "pelvic stabilization," and the other with yet another new PT, both close to me in distance. I've met neither one, and will try to be open minded about what they say, but pick and choose what might work for me. I still feel that the WW work prevails, and from what I can find, the WW work is not widely known by those in the health field.

Yes gfkspicoli, "not widely known by those in the health field". Some members on here have had better luck than others in engaging their PT's or gyn's in a discussion of Whole Woman principles. Some polite responses sometimes, but really, no one else is doing this and many will be critical of it.

My urogyn marked the WW website on his computer, or at least on the phone he said he was doing that. The PT of last week marked it on the piece of paper she was writing on, but neither asked any further questions of me about it. I'm sure it was a foreign subject that wasn't in their training, so it probably elicited fear from them. The first PT didn't even acknowledge that I had mentioned it. I'm going to be interested to see what the new PT of this week has to say about it. She's from England, according to her bio, and looks to be a bit more experienced than the first two.

Let us know how your next appointment goes! As to the basic posture, I found the biggest hurdle was getting over the strangeness of keeping the belly relaxed. We've all been taught to hold it in.....but for me, once I understood that, it all fell into place. That relaxed belly makes you breathe the correct way, and every breathe helps your organs move into that space. Keep your chest up, and the lumbar curve will be in place. Walking, standing, sitting, it works in all positions. It takes awhile to make this a habit.

Hi Gfkspicoli

Also be careful not to push your belly out. Pushing your belly out, even if you are in posture, will increase intraabdominal pressure and push your organs onto your pelvic floor.

Don't be hard on yourself. This is body retraining. It can be hard to change old habits. Just keep trying, and it will become easier. Ease yourself towards it. It is as if when you try, something will get tense, or gets pushed in a direction you don't want it to go. Grrr. I understand where you are coming from. This is the start of the rest of your life, not something you do once and never have to do again. Take your time. Be gentle and patient with that body of yours, and you will see slow improvement happening. One day you will be walking along on your walk and realise that you cannot feel your urethra. Then it will happen again, then more often until you realise you haven't felt it for a week. This is how it goes.

Louise, thank you. I know this is a work in progress, a retraining of the way I move and hold my body.

I had an interesting experience yesterday. I went for two half hour walks, staying in posture, taking long strides, and allowing my belly to be relaxed the whole time. My urethra was OK as I recall. When I was getting ready for bed though, and I saw myself in the mirror, my belly looked, LITERALLY, like I was eight months pregnant! I thought, this can't be right. Christine doesn't look this way; her abdominal muscles seem toned. So....today, I was conscious of keeping the lumbar curve, THINKING of the lumbar curve and how the pelvic floor is really not a floor, holding my belly in a bit and even tightening the "Kegel" muscle a bit, but not too hard, just so I knew it was there. I have watched the entire First Aid for Prolapse DVD, and it would be quite a while before I could do all of those exercises! I'm going to incorporate what I can into my routine as I go along.

Also, something that is happening here in Arizona is that the air quality - pollen and dust - have got a lot of people coughing, something I don't need! However, amazingly, even though I've been coughing, and bending over when I can when needing to cough, my urethra is still better than it was, so something must be working!

Hi Gfkspicoli

Goodness me! I don't know what you looked like at eight months pregnant, but mine certainly is quite different from 8monthspregnant. I am now almost three years postmenopause and have medium sized boobs, and I am a little overweight, and my belly is bigger than it used to be, no doubt. If I hung a plumb line off my boobs it would just skim my relaxed belly on the way past.

However, every woman's body is different. I can understand your being mortified. Walking in WW posture will tone your abdominal muscles because with every step you take half of your abdominal muscles contracts to pull your back leg forwards for the next stride. Your whole body rotates around a line connecting the grounded foot and its hip joint, so probably the grounded half is contracting a bit too. You have four sets of abdominal muscles.

These are:-

* Rectus abdominus which runs from the bottom of your breast bone in two bands, one down each side of your midline. They join together at the midline, under your pubic hair at the pubic tubercule at the top of the pubic symphysis.
* Transverse abdominus (TA), which runs around your body, joined to the sides of your spine, and the linea alba which runs down your midline at the front, between your ribs at the top and your pubic tubercle at the bottom, and basically bounded by the underside of the ribcage at the top, and the pelvic crests at the and bottom. This muscle is the springy sling that supports the pregnant belly and just the abdominal contents at other times, and absorbs and reflects intraabdominal pressure back onto the spine and other torso walls. You can feel it when you lie down and tense the lower belly without tensing the rectus muscle. It's contraction is supposed to be automatically triggered during a Kegel.
* External oblique abdominals (EO's) which come off your ribs just before they change to cartilage, down your sides. Your ribs run down diagonally from your spine. Your IO's continue that diagonal line and join the linea alba all the way down to the front of the iliac crests.
* Internal oblique abdominals (IO's) start at the lumbar spine and diagonally to the linea alba, from underside of rib cage to iliac crest. They cross the EO's at right angles. The internal and external obliques can work together or separately.

Your pelvic floor is quite taut, and therefore contracting, in WW posture. Therefore your TA should have some tone when you are in WW posture, and your TA should lose tone when you tuck your butt and tummy, and loosen your pelvic floor, because your abdomen will be vertical or close to it and your abdominal organs are no longer sitting on it. This last sentence is my logic at work. I have never seen this discussed anywhere.

Try a walking experiment. Put the thumb and middle finger of each hand on each side of your navel, in line with your nipples. Now take a few long, slow strides. Press firmly so you can feel your abdominal muscles.When you lift your back foot, you may feel your rectus muscle that goes up the middle but you will mainly feel your transverse (because intraabdominal pressure is generated) , and your oblique abdominal muscles.

You may be able to tell the difference between rectus and obliques by lying down with your middle fingers on each side of your navel and your thumbs resting just below your lowest ribs. Now lift your head straight up to look at your belly. You will feel resistance against your fingers, but hardly any resistance against your thumbs. You are feeling your rectus abdominus muscles.

Now rest your head back and this time lift your head and look around your body at your left buttock, and then the same to look at your right buttock. You will feel more resistance this time under your thumbs. Your thumbs are now feeling your external oblique muscles contracting, but won't feel your rectus as much as previously.

Now stand and put your hands on your waist, thumbs behind, fingers to the front. Flex sideways at the waist. You will feel the internal and external obliques contracting and getting shorter on the side you are bending towards, and the side you are bending away from will also contract, but will get longer. Now do it on the other side and feel the same muscles on the other side.

Still standing, put one foot out the back and lift it off the ground slightly. You will feel some resistance under your thumb on that side, which is the IO's. If you do the same with your thumbs further around the back you will feel all your erecor spinae muscles and quadratus lumborum. don't gothat far. The IO's are the deepest abdominal muscles but they are not thick like the back muscles.

Walking and standing will tone your abdominal muscles because they are slightly stretched, and contracting slightly against this at all times you are in WW posture. Therefore they are working out 'at the gym' all day. And you don't even have to go tothe gym! ;8-D

You will have to be a bit patient to see this improvement, but it will happen.

Hope this is a bit clearer now.

Louise

Louise

Brilliant explanation, Louise! Loved it.

I've been at this about a month now & the posture still confuses me. I think I've got it& then I don't. The hardest thing for me is relaxing the belly. If you say don't push it out, what does it do when it's relaxed. I have trouble knowing when it is relaxed enough. I'm okay with the lifting of rib cage with shoulders down, but the belly still gets me. I see no improvement after a month. At best, my uterine prolapse comes out when I walk but seems to find a comfortable position so it doesn;t really bother me. I get so frustrated at times & at others I'm okay. I guess this is how most feel, but since I don't know anyone else with prolapse, I have no one to talk to about it. I also don't know what is not good to eat. Any suggestions would be appreciate...

Hi allix - Hoping to give you a bit of encouragement here. A month....that is nothing in the grand scheme of things. I had all my best improvement in the second year, because basically that's how long it took me to retrain my body. No one ever said this was a quick process; it is a lifetime process.

With a cervix that comes outside the body, you may need more than posture to see results. You need firebreathing and nauli, powerful moves that help pull things up. And if you are still struggling with basic posture, then you should really endeavor to master that before you try to judge your progress.

The only way I know that my belly is relaxed is just by how relaxed it feels. I've never thought about pushing it out; I just stopped whenever I caught myself with any tightness in my belly, and just let everything go. That's how I learned to keep my chest lifted......I didn't want a beer-belly look, and I knew I had to keep pulled up to get the desired effect.

I'm not a food guru but there are lots of posts on here; do some searches. Keep up the work!!! - S60

PS: I don't "know" anyone with prolapse either....but you can bet that when you look around you, they are EVERYWHERE.

Thanks S60 for your reply. I have been doing firebreathing & nauli's but I have sinus issues at this time of year so even tho I get the movement right, I know the breathing isn't there as my nose stuffs up when my head & body are in a downward position. I know this doesn't help. but there isn't much to do about it now. I'm not giving up on the posture. I just sometimes wonder if I will ever have a day where I don't notice the prolapse; when it actually stays in my body. I am beginning to call these my "out of body" experiences & I have them daily. It is nice to know I am not alone in this... Thanks again...

Hi Allix,
You are not alone, I can relate to what you are saying. I have been working at this for about 8 months now, and it takes time. I have seen fairly good improvement , but am striving for more. The tummy is hard to get, I agree, but just keep at it. Keep checking your posture throughout the day.

It is so frustrating, this whole prolapse thing, but i am guided by the members here who have been here much longer than me....it seems clear this takes a year or two. A month is such a short time. If I compare myself to 3 or 6 months ago, I am much improved, but still 'climbing the mountain'.
I have a little quote on my bench in the kitchen, it says-
"it is possible to move a mountain by carrying away small stones"
Keep the faith Allix, give it time.
Sending you hugs
Lindy

Don't want to do the mesh surgery as there are weight restrictions and I do gardening and have pets and carry a lot of heavy things. The pessery is HORRIBLE. It hurts putting it in and taking it out. Tampons seem the best way to go. They don't hurt and are easy to put in and out. Question: Would a hysterectomy cure the prolapse problem I am 70

Hi Karlyn, I think you posted your question twice. It has been answered here:
http://www.wholewoman.com/forum/node/4585