Karlie Causey – How to Get Started with Exercise After Pregnancy

Content by: Karlie Causey

Watch the full interview below or listen to the full episode on your iPhone HERE.

Stu: This week, I’m excited to welcome Karlie Causey to the podcast. Karlie is a sports chiropractor, a certified strength and conditioning specialist, pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach, who is passionate about helping mums and mums-to-be restore their bodies and continue exercising after their babies are born. In this episode, we explore the types of exercise you can safely perform during pregnancy, discuss strategies for pelvic floor dysfunction, and dig into her postpartum restoration plan. Over to Karlie.

Audio Version

Some questions asked during this episode:

  • In terms of exercise, what can you do during pregnancy?
  • Can new mums jump straight back into their pre-pregnancy exercise routine?
  • What strategies do you recommend for pelvic floor dysfunction?

Get more of Karlie Causey:

If you enjoyed this, then we think you’ll enjoy this interview:


The views expressed on this podcast are the personal views of the host and guest speakers and not the views of Bega Cheese Limited or 180 Nutrition Pty Ltd. In addition, the views expressed should not be taken or relied upon as medical advice. Listeners should speak to their doctor to obtain medical advice.

Disclaimer: The transcript below has not been proofread and some words may be mis-transcribed.

Full Transcript

Stu

(00:03)

Hey, this is Stu from 180 Nutrition, and welcome to another episode of The Health Sessions. It’s here that we connect with the world’s best experts in health, wellness, and human performance in an attempt to cut through the confusion around what it actually takes to achieve a long lasting health. Now I’m sure that’s something that we all strive to have. I certainly do. Before we get into the show today, you might not know that we make products too. That’s right. We’re into whole food nutrition and have a range of super foods and natural supplements to help support your day. If you are curious, want to find out more, just jump over to our website. That is 180nutrition.com.au and take a look. Okay, back to the show.

(00:44)

This week, I’m excited to welcome Karlie Causey to the podcast. Karlie is a sports chiropractor, a certified strength and conditioning specialist, pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach, who is passionate about helping mums and mums-to-be restore their bodies and continue exercising after their babies are born. In this episode, we explore the types of exercise you can safely perform during pregnancy, discuss strategies for pelvic floor dysfunction, and dig into her postpartum restoration plan. Over to Karlie.

Hey guys, this is Stu from 180 Nutrition, and I am delighted to welcome Karlie Causey to the podcast. Karlie, how are you?

Karlie

(01:27)

I’m great. Thank you so much for having me.

Stu

(01:29)

Look, thanks for your time. I know that we’re on different sides of the planet, so I have no idea what time it is over there for you, but it’s early morning for me. Apologies, if I’m a bit dusty.

Karlie

(01:38)

Sounds great.

Stu

(01:40)

First up, for all of our listeners that may not be familiar with you or your work, I’d love it if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself, please.

Karlie

(01:48)

Sure. I am a sports chiropractor, a certified strength and conditioning coach, a postpartum athleticism coach. I speak on a lot of postpartum and pregnancy fitness-related topics. And I have a chiropractic clinic, a sports chiropractic clinic, here in Seattle called Seattle Sports Chiropractic. And I also am the co-owner of a company called Jen and Keri, which is an athletic wear company, a postpartum athletic wear company for new moms. And I guess it’s probably my most important job is I have two boys, also a mother of two boys, almost three and 14 weeks.

Stu

(02:30)

Oh, wow. That’s good going. Well, you’re looking spritely in that case. I’ve got three girls, two of those are twins, and I know when they were that age, I was… Yeah, you wouldn’t have found me on Skype. That’s for sure.

Karlie

(02:43)

No, it’s nice to use my brain a little bit.

Stu

(02:48)

Yeah, totally. Well, what we’ll do is, I think, we’ll split this up then into a couple of different timelines. And first up, I think I’d love for you just to jump in and tell us a little bit about pregnancy. We’re pregnant now. We, I’m not, but perspective pregnant moms who were perhaps really, really into their exercise and movement and healthy living before, but a little bit concerned about, I don’t really know what to do now. Is it’s safe for me to push my body? In terms of exercise, what can you do during pregnancy?

Karlie

(03:26)

Yeah. This is a great question. And I think it’s getting more common that people are talking about it and women have resources, but within the last 10 years that it’s just it’s shot up. I would say within even the last five years, there’s so much more info. But 10 years ago there wasn’t much info. And so people were just trying to figure out what they can do, what they can’t do. And so there’s still a lot of confusion around that. Because I guess the point I’m trying to make. And so what I usually tell women, and it starts with patients I work with in my office. I see a lot, I would say maybe 70, 75% of the patients I see are either pregnant or postpartum women who are fairly active, fairly athletic, really want to stay moving. And so it’s just what I’m really passionate about doing.

Karlie

(04:13)

And so I usually recommend to them, that first trimester really not too much has to change. And that being said, you have to also consider how you feel, how sick you are, how tired you are. And so as far as movements, most women can continue with the movements they were doing prior to becoming pregnant, without having to modify too much. They just have to consider those other factors. After the first trimester, which is about a 12, 13 week mark, that’s when I start to make some changes to certain movements and that can be different for every person. From then on, I sort of tell women to start gauging what they’re feeling with certain movements. Some of those things could be running. How does the pelvic floor feel? How do your feet feel? Because now you have this additional weight on you, your ligaments are getting more lax.

(05:07)

And that happens to all the ligaments in the body, not just the pelvis from the hormone relaxing. And so the feet can all, they kind of spread out a little bit. You might have heard of women saying their feet grow. Just that they spread during pregnancy. Sometimes that is what stops women from running and feeling uncomfortable. And then there’s certain things that we want to limit. Some of the basic, most common things are sit ups. At some point we want to probably cut those out. If they’re doing CrossFit or high intensity activities that have a tipping movement. At some point we cut that out. We can substitute with strict movements at first, maybe strict pullups maybe eventually we’re going to go to like a banded or we’re going to start just doing a ring row or some totally other modification.

(05:57)

And the reason is twofold there also one’s for the joints. Again, you have to remember the joints are getting a little bit looser, but also we really want to be careful of what’s happening at the abdominal wall as it’s stretching and not put too much strain through that line elbow, which is right down the center. And just start to stretch the abs apart. Lots of women have heard of diastasis recti or diastasis depending on where you live, I guess. And that is just the separation of the abs. We’re trying to limit that too. And basically what I tell people is it’s, that’s a really common thing that happens. It’s normal, it’s natural. It has to happen. We just want to limit how much work we’re going to make on the other end of recovering. It’s not going to hurt you. It’s not going to hurt the baby to do those movements, but it just make it potentially harder to recover after the baby comes out.

Stu

(06:56)

Okay. And in terms of supporting whatever you might be doing in the gym with maybe some other practices that are focused on recovery, flexibility, mobility, things like yoga, potentially palates, just stretching, rolling out that kind of stuff. Is that something that you’d feel happy and would recommend that mothers keep working on?

Karlie

(07:24)

Yeah. I mean, there are certain things that feel tighter and certain things… Like I said, ligaments are loosening. Sometimes muscles do start to feel tighter. The body’s changing. Sometimes the low back starts to really feel tight because of that pulling forward of the belly. I often recommend that women find like a prenatal yoga class and then it also warn them that especially if they’re yogis, that is not like not real yoga, it’s not like really a workout in fact. But what I see straight for is it does do a little bit of stretching. It does some breath work, which is super, super important in pregnancy and postpartum.

(08:04)

And it puts you around some more people in your kind of stage of life. And so that can be really nice too during pregnancy, that mindset piece. But I do warn people like don’t go in. I learned this firsthand. I went when I was pregnant the first time. And I was like, “Yeah, I’m doing some yoga. I’m ready. I got my water bottle. I got my mat and I…” And it was like, I mean, I didn’t even sweat, it’s not like an intense thing. I do think that kind of mobility, gentle work is really important. And core work is really important. It just has to be the right kind of core work.

Stu

(08:40)

What’s the right kind of core work then because to the person on the street, so to the layman and I’ll put myself in that category, you think, “Well, I’m just going to do sit ups. I want a strong core. I’m just going to do sit ups.” Would that be wrong?

Karlie

(08:55)

That’s what we don’t want to do. Anything besides that basically.

Stu

(09:00)

Right.

Karlie

(09:02)

Yeah. There’s lots of things pregnant women can do for the core. Early on planks are great. And then we can start to modify those maybe up to a bench, so that we’re not putting so much strain down through the center of the abdomen. I have a lot of people do a palloff press. You’re familiar with that I’m sure. But for people saying, with the band and you’re kind of pressing it straight out from the center of your sternum basically. And so there, you’re working some resistance of rotation and also just kind of stabilizing that anti rotational movement. Those are some of my favorite ones. And then lots of other things that we don’t think about as “Four”, but working the low back muscles is really important during pregnancy. If you think about it, once the ligaments are starting to stretch, all we really have to stabilize is the muscles.

Karlie

(09:54)

And so we want those muscles firing. We want them active. We want to be using them. One thing I love for pregnant women to do, I have them, I would say 90% of the pregnant women in my office do this is get onto like a GHD, or what do they call it? A back extension bench basically. And do just back extension holds maybe not so hyperextended as they might normally and not necessarily doing reps. But just holding and doing that isometric hold. And so often I have women whose low backs are bothering them. And just that exercise alone takes away a lot of that back pain because it’s stabilizing the muscles and it getting those muscles to fire. Lots of times the back work and they can’t be laying on the ground doing supermans or something like that. They can’t be on their stomach and finding those things to do.

Stu

(10:48)

Yeah. Okay. No, that makes perfect sense. And you touched on breathwork and you said it was really important as well. Could you just unpack that a little bit and just talk to us about perhaps the types, the timing and the benefits that you’d see from that?

Karlie

(11:06)

Yeah. Before I had kids, I was not a breath work, a fishanado junkie proponent. However you want to call it. I really like to work out hard and fast and I don’t have time for that silliness, but once I had my son and I had learned so much about this, I really felt the ramifications and the implications of it. What happens really is that if you think about the diaphragm as the top of your core, which it is. In simple terms, we kind of have our pelvic floor at the bottom, the diaphragm at the top, and then all the muscles surrounding, right. The abdominals and low back muscles. Well, when you’re pregnant, that diaphragm is getting just shoved up more and more and more and more crammed. And so we lose a lot of muscular endurance of it. Its a muscle.

(11:54)

And so what I find is then once that baby comes out, now, women have a hard time getting that big, deep breath into the belly. And what happens is they end up using their accessory muscles, which are in the neck. And so it kind of perpetuates the problem. They start having neck pain, they’re already crunched forward because they’re nursing. And then that kind of poor posture a lot. And then the diaphragm just doesn’t… Isn’t allowed to expand. So really early on, I have people start doing belly breathing, just really trying to expand the belly. I mean, as early, as like the day the baby comes, the next day, that work doesn’t need to wait for six weeks, that work can start right away. And I really see now in myself and in my patients and I’ve created a whole online plan and for postpartum women and that’s actually where that starts too is just with the breath work and it starts really early on. And so now I’m a believer.

Stu

(12:59)

Yeah.

Karlie

(13:00)

I’ve seen the changes. When you start to think about it that way, it’s not quite… I used to think it was like breath work was sort of woo woo. And so I definitely see now the anatomical effects of it and the physiological effects.

Stu

(13:13)

Yeah. It’s interesting. It’s like… I mean, we’ve been podcasting for a long time. Back in the day when gut health was just woo woo and laughed at. And now of course, gut health is at the epicenter of our own health. And I think that’s kind of similar for breathing as well. People kind of saw it as a little bit of a hippie pastime, but now we are seeing the likes of Wim Hoff and a whole heap of other different strategies out there as being very, very scientifically grounded and supremely useful. No, that’s interesting stuff. Postpartum period. And again, I touched on this just before we start recording, it’s a word that many of us as guys that are listening to this, perhaps don’t know what it means, but have partners, wives that are hoping to become pregnant or becoming pregnant. What is the postpartum period? What does it mean and why does it matter?

Karlie

(14:16)

Yeah. Okay. Good question. We like to say postpartum is forever. Basically postpartum is once you have a baby. It’s after you have a baby, postpartum. And so some studies show up to 85% of women in their lifetime will have a baby. That means that 85% of women are in the postpartum phase at some point in their life. And the important piece of it is that, I mean, there’s multi… It’s multi-faceted and we could talk forever about the mindset and the shift in attitude and all that kind of stuff. But physically you have a whole new body, you’ve gone through this process, you’ve created a human, that human came out and now the body you have now is not the body that you had before.

(15:06)

My whole passion really is about creating tools for women in the postpartum period. I’ve done that a lot of ways. I do in my office as a chiropractor, I do it with my postpartum fan. My fourth broad company is designed to help women get back into fitness and feel confident in their bodies. And so really like when we look at that phase of life, it sort of means a lot… All women, a lot of women, not all women, but many women. And it’s just about how can we empower them to do what they want to do in that postpartum period. And maybe it’s what they did before. And maybe it’s like something totally new, but yeah, that’s what it means for me, I guess.

Stu

(15:51)

Okay. How quickly then, can they jump straight back into a lot of the stuff that they used to do from an exercise perspective? Because I know that obviously you’re going to be laid up for a while and feeling delicate, but really, really want to jump back into your old self and get fit and feel good about yourself as well. Is that immediate or is there a set time that you’d need to wait before you start crushing it?

Karlie

(16:14)

Yeah. Traditionally there’s the six week appointment checkup after women have a baby that they kind of get cleared from their OB guy or their midwife or whoever they’ve seen. I actually like women to start doing things before that. Much before that, as soon as they feel able and they just have to listen to what that means for them. It also really depends on how the birth went. Having a section versus a very untraumatic vaginal birth is a very different story.

Stu

(16:46)

Mm.

Karlie

(16:47)

Or even a very traumatic with lots of interventions, vaginal birth. Those are all factors. But what I like women to do is start, like I said, with the breathing and then some simple but effective rehab type of thing. Some glute bridges, some light stretching, the breathing work and start to move their body and basically become reintegrated with their body because that’s the other thing that you’re not prepared for. A lot of people are prepared for is how foreign your body feels to you. And so all of a sudden you had this big, strong body, it was awesome or maybe it was not as strong as you wanted, but whatever it was great.

(17:33)

And then you got pregnant, you embraced that time, whatever that looks like. And then now here you are with this new body. That’s not as strong as it was before. It doesn’t have a baby in it anymore. It really is kind of reintegrating with how does this body work? How do things feel? Maybe stuff that felt good before doesn’t necessarily feel good now. And so yeah, starting early with some basic stuff, and then I tell people that it took you nine months to build a baby. It’s going to take approximately nine months to get back to sort of where you want to be.

Stu

(18:07)

Got it.

Karlie

(18:09)

And honestly starting slow and steady gets you a lot farther, a lot quicker than jumping back into something too quickly.

Stu

(18:18)

Yeah, no, absolutely. Which is kind of, in some sense, could be a little different than the media would lead us to believe because we see lots of celebrities and they jump straight back into it. They get skinny, like clearly I guess from your perspective, it’s not realistic. It’s not healthy.

Karlie

(18:42)

Right. Yeah. And you have to consider the breastfeeding too. Many women want to breastfeed and in order to breastfeed, you need to be super hydrated, super nourished. And so those are pieces that your body holds onto fat when you’re breastfeeding also. Because you’re creating milk for the baby. And so to think that you can jump back in. This bounce back idea, I just, I think it’s silly and it sets up women with expectations that aren’t realistic.

Stu

(19:13)

Yeah, no, absolutely. I had a conversation with a few friends previously just over the weekend actually. And I mentioned that I was going to be talking to you and your line of work and the topic of pelvic floor dysfunction came up. And I’ve heard this a lot as well in our circle of friends that have had babies. If you could you just walk us through what pelvic floor dysfunction is and then some strategies to address or support that please.

Karlie

(19:47)

Yeah. Well, how long do you have?

Stu

(19:48)

Yeah, I got all morning.

Karlie

(19:48)

Multiple podcasts.

Stu

(19:55)

Yeah.

Karlie

(19:55)

I guess pelvic floor dysfunction is definitely getting more… Is becoming more… People are becoming more aware of it. Pelvic floor physical therapist, which I think are a very integral part of kind of this postpartum recovery period are becoming more sought after and well known, which I think is also really fantastic. One of the recommendations I make to women, who are working with me as a chiropractor, I also recommend they seek out a pelvic floor, physical therapist to just at least check things out. But floor dysfunction can appear many ways. It can appear as leaking of urine. It can appear as prolapsed of different organs. Where women will feel like heaviness basically in their vagina. And remember all of these things can also happen not being in the postpartum phase. It can happen without having had a baby, it can present as pain with sexual intercourse. These are just some of the more common areas or reasons that people would seek out a pelvic floor physical therapist.

(21:06)

And I think the important thing to realize and know is that we recommend you seek someone for these issues and don’t just do kegel. That used to be the go to recommendation. Oh, well, I have these issues. I have some leaking of urine when I jump, I’ll just do kegel. Well, what we’ve come to find out is that sometimes the pelvic floor is too tight… Too loose basically. And it needs strengthening, but sometimes it is too tight and it can give you the same symptoms. And so you can imagine if a muscle is too tight and then you’re trying to strengthen it’s only going to make the problem worse. That’s why it’s super important to just have it evaluated. And if you have any of those signs and symptoms, even in the weightlifting world. Women are sometimes pee when they lift, that’s a form of pelvic floor dysfunction. And so we see that and we think that it’s maybe a normal thing, but it’s really not normal. I tell women that it’s very common, but it’s not normal. It’s something that should be dealt with and should be looked into by a professional.

Stu

(22:15)

Okay. We’ve touched on… I think we’ve touched on a lot of those people that like to keep fit, like to keep healthy, previously went to the gym. I’m intrigued to hear then about those females that were more competitive in terms of, in the athletic space, but are now super busy moms. They’ve got all of the things that they would love to do and all of the things that they have to do, just in terms of this new load, I’m intrigued then to try and get some tips from you, tips, tricks, and strategies that will just allow them to try and marry those two worlds while enjoying their baby, but still trying to progress in that competitive space.

Karlie

(23:03)

Yeah. Great question. It’s interesting. Our logo for my company, Jen and Keri is every mom is an athlete. And it means a couple things to us. It means A that, being a mom takes athleticism. You think of like the mom, that’s carrying the car seat with the stroller, with the coffee, with the backpack, with the… And that’s an athletic seat. And then you also think of like, bending over, putting the baby in the crib. Okay. That’s a hip hinge. That’s important to understand how to do that and know how to do that. Putting the baby up in the car seat up into like a SUV. Okay. Well now you’re pressing, it’s important to know how to do that. That’s one piece of what we think every mom as an athlete is, but the other piece is that we believe that you can do all the athletic things that you want to do in the postpartum phase.

(23:57)

It just might look differently. I think it’s so encouraging. In the past two years, we’ve seen so many professional athlete moms go back to their sport, tennis players and soccer players and basketball players and volleyball players. And it’s so inspiring to see them being a mom and still pursuing, of course its their career. It’s a little bit different, but pursuing these athletes, things that they love. I worked with some professional athlete moms, which is really great. And I work with moms who just like, want to go for a jog eventually. Occasionally. Yeah. And I always tell them the same things. The starting tip is the same thing is start slower than you want to. And the reason is like I’ve said, rushing back in, can create long term problems.

(24:46)

It can leave you with pelvic floor dysfunction that you might not have had otherwise. Can leave you with low back issues and you might not have had otherwise. And so it’s taking the time and giving, the body that grace, that it deserves after such an athletic event as birth. The most athletic event I would wager in the whole world. And so it’s giving your body that grace and that time, and that being said, the second piece of that is not waiting until the six weeks to start doing something. As I pin to that, the starting with the breathing, starting with simple rehab exercises and not jumping straight back in, you’re not dead-lifting, day three, but you’re also not waiting all the way till six weeks to start doing something. You’re getting used to your body again in that first six weeks.

Karlie

(25:35)

Well, those are a few and the other ones would be two things. One would be to work with someone. Whether that’s, like I said, public floor physical therapist, sports chiropractor who specializes in this. Strength and conditioning coach, I always encourage people to, or even just buying a plan online, something that gives you a framework because especially when you’re talking about women that want to get back to the high level of athleticism, they’re probably used to having programming or they’re following something, they’re going to a class, they’re doing… They have a coach, they’re doing something. And so it’s twofold. One, we want to have that framework to see where we’re at, see where it’s going. But two, if that’s the way that your brain works, then you need that plan. And if you don’t have it, then it feels for some people like you’re floating in space and then you do nothing.

Stu

(26:31)

Yeah. Totally.

Karlie

(26:33)

Sorry, go ahead.

Stu

(26:34)

No, I was go… Well, I was going to say like, it’s almost perfect segue, because I really want to ask you about your postpartum restoration plan. And because like many of us, we can go to a breath work class. We can go to, Olympic lifting, whatever it may be. But unless you got something to watch. A cheat sheet to guide us through, keep us accountable and keep referencing is kind of just goes in one ear, comes out the other. Tell us about your restoration plan and what we could expect if we signed up for it?

Karlie

(27:06)

Yeah. I built my restoration plan basically while I was recovering with my second son, I had bought a plan online. There’s multiple plans online and it was okay. But what I found was that I was substituting in stuff that I give people, as patients in my office. And pretty soon the plan that I was doing was like unrecognizable, like, I just built my own plan. I started using that with patients in my office and having good success with it. And then when COVID hit was when a friend of mine encouraged me to put it online and make it accessible to people because women just weren’t coming into the office, especially during such a kind of vulnerable time. Yeah. The thing that makes it a little bit different is there’s 53 videos. All of which I recorded, I do not know how I did that, but so every exercise is in there, and then it’s an eight week plan.

(28:05)

And I also designed it to be done in about 20 minutes a day and just three to four exercises or three to five, I guess. And they all can be broken up. That was another piece that when I was kind of recovering, I realized for me, I like to have a time set apart. Like I need… I’m used to having a workout an hour, an hour and a half, whatever it is a day. Now I can’t really do that and I have this baby, but I can do 20 minutes. Yeah. For me, that’s how I wanted. For some of my patients actually. And the reason I built it this way is because they want it. I don’t have 20 minutes. I have five minutes here, five minutes here, five minutes here. And so I wanted it to be able to be done either way.

Karlie

(28:45)

And so you can split it up throughout the day, whether that’s like, “Okay, every time the baby naps, I’m going to like do five minutes of this. Every time I set the baby down or give them to my partner, I’m going to do this.” It just depends on how people feel successful. And I wanted to kind of encourage that. Yeah, it’s an eight week plan and it’s meant to just sort of get you back to that point where, okay, now I can start actually working out and doing whatever that means, for each individual person.

Stu

(29:16)

Yeah. Excellent. Well, it sounds, yeah, it sounds like it’ll be massively helpful in that space. And would that be appropriate for every mom, from the exercise enthusiast to the competitive athlete?

Karlie

(29:30)

It is, yeah. Yeah. I’ve done it with some very competitive athletes and they start adding in other stuff really early on. Yeah. I also have women that started on day three and then I have women that started at six weeks postpartum. There’s like… Oh, or even months actually I’ve had people start it many months later too. Once they’ve realized that like, oh gosh, I didn’t do any core public floor work. And now I want to get back into my hit class or whatever it is. But yes, the big time athletes they started, they continue it, they’ve all done, the whole plan, but they start adding in their own, they’re like, “Oh, I’m going to do this. And then this and this and this and this today.” I’m like, “Okay, well, as long as you do what we say you need to do then. Okay.”

Stu

(30:16)

That’s it. Get the foundation. And you mentioned that you have another brand as well. Jen and Keri and I was intrigued to hear a little bit about that and perhaps why that brand exists as well.

Karlie

(30:27)

Yeah. I know. I just can’t help talking about it. I just love it so much. Jen and Keri is actually owned by myself and my friend, Jess, and the reason it’s called Jen and Keri is that everyone gets our names wrong and they call her always Jen and everyone calls me Carrie. We were joking around about like, “Oh Jen and Keri, they’re like your cool mom friends.” But now we’ve just perfect we have the problem. Because people will email us and they’re like, “Hey Jen.” And I know it kind of dumb.

Stu

(30:59)

Yeah.

Karlie

(31:00)

Yeah. We started this company. It was after my son was born and I was really wanting to get back into the gym and I was complaining to her about the nursing bras. For those who don’t know, nursing bras have generally these big ugly clips on them. They’re annoying. They’re cumbersome. You can imagine they get in the way, if they like pop open, once the barbell hits them, then you’re, kind of sol. I was complaining about how ugly they were and we started looking, she was like, “Let’s see, we can find one I’m sure.” And we couldn’t find one. We developed one and it doesn’t have any clips, zippers, buttons, any of that kind of stuff. It looks like a regular sports bra. And that’s what we wanted. We wanted… Our goal was that no one would even know it’s a nursing bra and you could go back to the gym and have… For me, I really wanted to go back to my CrossFit gym.

(31:52)

I wanted that hour of time to feel like an athlete with the rest of the athletes in the class. And I love being a nursing mom and a new mom, but I just like, didn’t want these big clips kind of declaring that to the world. We find that… What we’re trying to do is if we can give you something that makes you feel a little more confident in the gym and a little bit more like yourself, then maybe you’ll be able to get back to those activities that you want to do. And so that’s kind of the goal of the company.

(32:22)

Right now we have one sports bra in a couple colors and we’re working on a couple other, it’s a high impact bra. It’s made for running and jumping and we’ve had some really cool feedback about that. And women loving it for that, but we’re also working on sort of a more medium impact bra and then sort of a sleeping bra that are hopefully going to come out sometime soon. But yeah, it’s just really about kind of empowering women in that period and helping them feel like, “Okay, I’ve got this bra. I feel like I looked good.”

Stu

(32:57)

Yeah.

Karlie

(32:58)

Maybe sounds silly, but it’s like a big deal in that phase of life. And now maybe I can like, get back and do the things I want to do.

Stu

(33:07)

And where… If people wanted to find out more about the Jen and Keri, where would you send them?

Karlie

(33:13)

Yeah, we’re online. Just Jen, J-E-N and K-E-R-I, keri.com. We have Instagram too. And I try to post a lot of videos on working out tips during the postpartum time and different stuff like that. Yeah, either one of those.

Stu

(33:29)

Fantastic. We’ll put that in the show notes as well. We’re kind of coming up on time, but I’m keen to understand a little bit more about you personally in terms of what you do now. Because you mentioned that you’ve got two children and they’re still young, so you are very much in the throes of all of this stuff that you have to do. And, but I can hear from you that you’re very keen into your exercise. Sounds like CrossFit. And so there’s a lot of time that needs to be spent enjoying that as well and getting it right. What I’m just keen, if you could just run us through your day in just in terms of how you structure things and maybe any non-negotiables that you have to do every single day, just to make your… Just to make everything fire on time and help you crush the day.

Karlie

(34:21)

Yeah. Well, I’m sort of just learning this new phase. With two kids, because I’ve just gone back to work this past week. I’m back in my office seeing patients and I’m very fortunate that I have a partner in that practice too. He was holding down the fort while I was out with my son and I’m fortunate to be able to kind of ease back into that too. I’m just like, being a couple half days and kind of getting slowly going back to work, just like I will always have done with exercises.

(34:55)

I don’t know before I had my second son, my non-negotiable was to get up super early. I’m kind of a go to bed early, get up early kind of person and be able to work out before the day gets going, get my son to school. We call it school. Daycare. Go to my office, see my patients. I try to often build in, we have a full gym in my office. I try to build in some workout pieces there, a little bit of lifting or a little bit of rehab just to kind of break up my day and also practice what I preach a little bit.

(35:31)

And then yeah, picking up my son, come home, play, make dinner. Now yeah, who knows with two kids, I think maybe that early morning workout, that’s going to be a struggle, I think for a little while. But yeah, non-negotiables I have a couple, I have listened to some of your shows. I know that you like to ask this, I have a couple like weird or just weird things I do. I’m a lemon water drinker-

Stu

(36:01)

Okay.

Karlie

(36:01)

In the morning.

Stu

(36:02)

Yeah.

Karlie

(36:03)

I drink my hot lemon water always first and then I crush my coffee always. I cannot stop drinking coffee. I don’t even want to try. Yeah. Lemon water and coffee. Those are big ones for me, time and prayer is important for me. It’s just a few minutes here and there, before having kids, I was a big journaler and a lot of time sitting in the quiet and thinking, and I don’t have… I have not made time for that. I fit in prayer here and there. And then just movement, some kind of movement being outside and yeah, I think those are the most.

Stu

(36:47)

Yeah. Well it’s crushing the day and it’s surviving at the same time. Boy oh boy. That was yeah. Busy times indeed. What’s next. What have you got in the radar? You said that you’ve just gone back to work and obviously you’ve got restoration plan. You’ve got all that side of things going. You’ve got Jen and Keri, two kids busy, busy. What’s on the write off for the rest of the year?

Karlie

(37:16)

Yeah. I mean, I think my focus is going to be obviously, on my boys there, anyone that with young kids knows, it’s just like, they change so much every day. I just want to really like embrace each day and my youngest son just started giggling. It’s like, these new little phases, just so beautiful. And then other than that, the time is split between my office and really making sure that I’m present there and for my patients and with my partner and then with Jen and Keri, we have, like I mentioned some kind of cool opportunities maybe coming up and some things we’re working on some different products. Yeah, I think it sort of is to be seen exactly where things go, but that’s kind of a pretty good split right there. I guess I’ll spend a little time with my husband too, I suppose.

Stu

(38:06)

Exactly.

Karlie

(38:06)

Nice. Get a little time too.

Stu

(38:06)

Yeah, no doubt I’ve been there. For all of our listeners, then that want to find out more about you, follow your movements and progress, maybe on social media, dig into the restoration plan, where could we send them?

Karlie

(38:27)

Yeah. Jen and Keri, like I said, is on Instagram thing. And then my Instagram is Dr. Karlie, K-A-R-L-I-E.

Stu

(38:36)

Yeah.

Karlie

(38:37)

And yeah, those are the easiest places to find me and everything is linked from there these days.

Stu

(38:44)

Fantastic. Now. Well, that’s great. Well, we’ll put everything that we’ve spoken about in terms of links and access to programs, et cetera, in the show notes, but Karlie really, really appreciate the time and your wisdom this morning. Look forward to passing it over to our listeners.

Karlie

(39:00)

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It’s really nice to talk you.

Stu

(39:02)

Thank you. We’ll speak soon.

Karlie

(39:03)

All right.

 

Karlie Causey

This podcast features Karlie Causey.  She is a sports chiropractor, a certified strength and conditioning specialist, pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach, and a level 2 Crossfit coach. More importantly, I am a new mom who is ridiculously passionate about helping moms and moms-to-be restore their bodies and continue exercising after... Read More
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