Hope For Your Pelvic Floor - The Whole Body Pelvic Health Conversation

Can you cycle with a prolapse? Claire spent ten years assuming she could not. Nobody had ever told her that. Not a doctor, not a physiotherapist, not a health visitor. The assumption was entirely her own, and she had never once tested it.

Then her youngest son asked her a five word question in the far north of Scotland: do you have a bike? He wanted to show her the tracks and hills he had been exploring on his own all month. And she did not have one.

In this episode Claire tells you honestly what happened when she bought a second hand bike in Thurso and finally tested the thing she had been quietly avoiding. What she felt on the saddle during the first ride. What she was terrified would happen afterwards. And what actually did. This is one woman, one bike, one body, not a verdict on yours, but it is the honest account nobody seems to give.

Underneath it sits the harder realisation. Claire had become the woman she talks to on this podcast every week. She had drifted onto the sidelines without ever deciding to, and it took a month of complete stillness, no work and no diary, before a question that small could land at all.

If one month of stopping showed her something that big, what else is sitting there unseen? That question is why this is the last episode until January.

In this episode:

• What actually happened when Claire cycled again after ten years, including the parts she was afraid of

• The difference between feedback and damage, and why confusing them keeps women on the sidelines

• How a ten year limit builds itself out of an assumption nobody ever gave you

• Why an ordinary question from a child landed like a physical blow

• Why stillness is what made any of it visible

• What is changing about this podcast in January, and what Claire needs from you

Claire is off air for September and October, building something new in November and December, and back in January with a topic led format, deeper episodes, and her first ever guest, starting with habits that actually change things in your body.

Stay with Claire through the break:

• Weekly newsletter, the one place Claire will still be every week and you can access a FREE Class

• Whole Body Pelvic Health Cafe, live on Zoom, 7pm UK: Friday 18 September, Friday 20 November, Friday 11 December. Check your time zone, the UK clocks change in October.

• Send your questions for the new format to [email protected]. The January series has a whole episode built from real listener questions, and Claire wants yours, not her assumptions about yours.

Claire's book, Hope For Your Pelvic Floor:

Claire has just landed back from Tokyo, where she taught pelvic health workshops to some of Japan's most experienced Pilates teachers, and she is closing the season with the thing she cannot stop thinking about: everything was different, except the questions.

The same prolapse fears. The same leaking on the run for a train. The same belief that the answer is to squeeze harder. In this season finale, Claire shares what happened when she started, as she always starts, with breath, and watched a room of teachers with decades of experience have the lightbulb moment that changes everything: the pelvic floor is not a separate sling to be trained in isolation, it is part of a whole-body system that moves with every breath.

If seasoned professionals are still having that penny drop, then hear this: you have not failed at kegels. You were given the wrong starting point.

In this episode:

• What was beautifully different about teaching in Japan, and what was exactly the same

• Why women's pelvic health needs do not change across cultures, and why the silence around them doesn't either

• The whole-body lightbulb moment, and why breath comes before the squeeze

• A look back at what this season was really about

• What to do during the season break

Start where Claire started in Tokyo, with the breath, not the squeeze: Beyond Kegels Course

Free community: The Pelvic Health Cafe

Claire's book: buy it here

You have probably been told what not to do. Don’t lift. Don’t run. Don’t jump. You’ll make it worse. So you stopped, and stopping shrank what your body could do.

This episode hands you the opposite of a warning label. It is a simple checklist of three things to notice when you move, so you can exercise without fear and read what your body is actually telling you.

I walk you through the three, in the order that matters: breathing as the foundation, then pressure management, then the full contractile cycle, the one almost nobody teaches, where your pelvic floor learns to let go as fully as it lifts. Plus the gym moment where going up a single kilo told me everything, and what I did about it.

Some of these you will see. Most of them you will feel.

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@hopeforyourpelvicfloor

If this helped, please follow, leave a review and share it.

You grab a packet of pads with the weekly shop and barely think about it. But that small, automatic decision is quietly telling you a story about whether you believe your body can change.

This episode is the one I’ve been building towards all season. There are four camps women fall into with incontinence pads, and three of them are driven by fear or avoidance, not by choice. I share the client whose question changed how I think about pads completely, the difference between a pad as a bridge and a pad as a trap, and why knowing your type of incontinence, stress, urge or the very common mix of both, changes everything about your plan.

A pad removed a barrier. It did not solve the problem. Knowing the difference is the whole episode.

If you have ever felt that wearing a pad means giving in, this one is for you.

Listen, then come find me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@hopeforyourpelvicfloor

If this helped, please follow, leave a review and share it with a woman who needs it.

It's Prolapse Awareness Month — and this week, Claire is asking a bigger question: what are we actually making women aware of?

In this episode, Claire breaks down the gap between what women are told about prolapse and what's actually supported by the evidence. From the "just do Kegels" advice that can make symptoms worse, to the research bias that has left women waiting decades for information they deserve right now — this is a conversation that will change how you think about your pelvic floor.

Because you don't have to wait 17 years for the research to filter through. You can have the information now.

In this episode:

• What women are commonly told about prolapse — and why it's often incomplete or unhelpful

• Why 60-90% of chronic pelvic floor pain involves hypertonicity (too tight, not too weak)

• The problem with prescribing Kegels as a one-size-fits-all solution

• How fear-based avoidance of exercise can actually worsen prolapse symptoms

• The research gap: 17 years, 14% of findings, and the history of women being excluded from clinical trials

• 26 FDA-approved drugs for male sexual health vs 2 for female sexual dysfunction

• What Whole Body Pelvic Health offers instead — and why it matters right now

• Claire's reminder: you're not broken, you're not behind, and you're not alone

Mentioned in this episode:

Catch up on the prolapse deep-dive episodes from June 2025:

June 2025 — Episode 1

June 2025 — Episode 2

June 2025 — Episode 3

June 2025 — Episode 4

June 2025 — Episode 5

The 7-Day / 7-Minute Challenge: [INSERT LINK]

Join the Pelvic Health Cafe: Register here

Prolapse is one of those words that can stop a woman in her tracks. And yet — when we actually sit with it, slow down, and listen to what it's telling us — it becomes one of the most powerful teachers we'll ever have.

In this episode, Claire shares what prolapse has taught her: about the body, about pressure, about rest, about asking for help, and about what it really means to support your pelvic floor for the long term.

Whether you're newly diagnosed, have been managing prolapse for years, or simply want to understand more about your body — this is a conversation full of honesty, hope, and practical insight.

In this episode:

• Why prolapse is information, not just a problem to fix

• What the pelvic floor is actually doing — and why Kegels aren't always the answer

• The role of breath, posture, and intra-abdominal pressure in prolapse management

• Pessaries as an underused, undertalked-about support tool

• The mindset shift that helps most with long-term recovery

• Why rest is not giving up

Links mentioned:

S4 E40 — The Pessaries Episode: Listen here

June 2025 Episodes:

June 2025 — Episode 1

June 2025 — Episode 2

June 2025 — Episode 3

June 2025 — Episode 4

June 2025 — Episode 5

Join the Pelvic Health Cafe: Register here

What if the research everyone cites about pelvic floor health… isn’t actually helping you?

In this episode, Claire takes an honest, unflinching look at the science behind pelvic floor exercise recommendations — and why the numbers don’t always tell the full story.

Claire breaks down the Poppy trial, explores the difference between statistical significance and clinical significance, and reveals why nearly half of all “positive” clinical trials may not produce a change you’d actually feel in your real life.

This isn’t an anti-research episode. It’s a call to ask better questions.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why the Poppy trial failed to clear its own bar for clinical significance

• The difference between statistical significance and clinical significance — and why it matters for real women

• Why reductionist research models leave YOU out of the equation

• How whole body pelvic health draws on body-wide science — fascia, biotensegrity, breath, and the nervous system

• Why your whole body is a team in support of your pelvic floor (and why that’s actually brilliant news)

Formal research tells you what happened in a controlled group under very narrow conditions. Lived evidence tells you what happens when a whole person moves, breathes, and engages over time. Both matter — but only one has your name on it.

Resources mentioned:

📚 Hope for Your Pelvic Floor (book + Audible): amazon.co.uk

🌐 Whole Body Pelvic Health membership: wholebodypelvichealth.co.uk

👥 Facebook community: Pelvic Floor Exercises Reinvented

☕ Pelvic Health Café: Register here

What if the reason your pelvic floor exercises aren't sticking isn't lack of willpower — it's that you've been given the wrong framework entirely?

In this episode, Claire shares a perspective that surprised even her. Recorded from a clifftop cottage on the northeast coast of Scotland, she opens up about something she's been quietly wrestling with — and how a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin gave her the language to finally make sense of it.

We talk so much about pelvic floor goals. Run a 5k without a pad. Jump on the trampoline. Stop wearing a liner. These are real, valid goals — and Claire still believes in them. But what happens when you reach that goal? And what about the women who feel crushed under the weight of not getting there fast enough?

This episode introduces a different lens: the pelvic floor resolution. Not a destination. Not a pass or fail. A way of being — small, daily, forever. And why that shift might be exactly what you need to stop feeling behind and start feeling in control.

In this episode:

• Why goals can sometimes make pelvic floor recovery feel heavier, not lighter

• The difference between a goal and a resolution — and why it matters for your pelvic health

• How even the smallest daily moment counts (yes, even at your desk or brushing your teeth)

• Why lifelong pelvic floor care is an opportunity, not a burden

• Claire's own pelvic floor resolution — and an invitation to create yours

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin — find it on Amazon

• Hope for Your Pelvic Floor by Claire Sparrow — available on Amazon

• Whole Body Pelvic Health membership

• Follow Claire on Instagram: @hopeforpelvicfloor

• Facebook Group — Pelvic Floor Exercises Reinvented

• Pelvic Health Cafe — register here

If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a woman who needs this reframe. Every share helps more women find the support they deserve.

You know whole body pelvic health makes sense. So why does the Kegel question keep coming back?

In this episode, Claire Sparrow goes into one of the most common and persistent questions she receives from women who are already doing the work. They feel it. They understand it. And they still want to know: do I still need to do my pelvic floor exercises?

Claire talks about why that question is not a failure of understanding but a very understandable response to years of authority, inheritance and dismissal. The professionals who said squeeze. The systems that looked at one part of your body without seeing the whole. The moments when you went looking for help and came away feeling smaller.

This episode is an invitation to come back to yourself. To recognise your own body as a source of information. To sit with the felt sense of what is working and let that be part of how you make decisions, alongside the guidance of others.

In this episode:

Why the Kegel question keeps lingering even when you know better

How inherited stories and authority figures shape our self-trust

What happened to Claire's own body confidence after her prolapse diagnosis

Why the medical model is not designed to look at the full picture

How whole body pelvic health asks you to reclaim your own authority

A simple practice for starting to listen to your body today

Join the free monthly Pelvic Health Cafe

Free intro class: https

Website:

Instagram: @hopeforyourpelvicfloor

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Apple Podcasts

Hope For Your Pelvic Floor is published every week on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

You have been told to squeeze it, lift it, hold it. What if that is the very thing keeping your pelvic floor stuck?

In this episode I am making the case for something that feels completely counter-intuitive: to reconnect your pelvic floor, you have to let it go first. I take you through a simple exercise you can do right now that will show you exactly why lengthening before contracting gives you more power, more range and more strength than holding ever could.

I also introduce the four stages of competence as a way of understanding where your pelvic floor is right now, and what it actually means to reach unconscious competence, where your pelvic floor responds without a single conscious thought. That is the goal. And it is possible.

This one is especially important if you have been told you have a hypertonic pelvic floor, if Kegels have not worked, or if you have spent years pulling everything in and wondering why nothing has changed.

There is also a sneak preview of something new coming very soon for anyone working on incontinence. Be first to hear about it. https://go.clairesparrowpilates.co.uk/free-intro-class

Join the free monthly Pelvic Health Cafe, where no question is off the table: https://go.clairesparrowpilates.co.uk/pelvic-health-cafe-register

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@hopeforyourpelvicfloor Find out more at: https://wholebodypelvichealth.co.uk Follow on Instagram: @hopeforyourpelvicfloor

If this helped you, please subscribe, leave a review and share this episode with someone who needs it.