What if the missing piece in your core rehab isn’t another exercise—but learning how to use your core during the other 23 hours of your day?

In this From the Archives episode of The Tummy Team Journey Podcast, Kelly sits down with longtime client and family medicine physician Dr. Hilary Frescoln to talk about her journey from collegiate athlete and chronic back pain to motherhood, diastasis recti, and ultimately discovering what functional core strength really means.

Hilary had always been active. She played collegiate volleyball, lifted weights, ran, and did plenty of traditional ab exercises. But despite being in great physical shape, she struggled with recurring back pain and SI joint instability. Looking back, she realized she had become very good at using her strongest muscles to compensate—without ever really learning how to connect to and use her core for stability.

After having children and developing diastasis recti, Hilary tried multiple core programs before finding The Tummy Team. What made the difference wasn’t simply a new collection of exercises. It was learning how to connect to the right muscles and then integrate that connection into everyday life—while cooking, unloading the dishwasher, caring for children, working, lifting, sitting, and moving.

Years later, that approach has become part of how Hilary lives, parents, exercises, and even cares for her own patients.

Kelly and Hilary also talk about why sustainable change often starts much smaller than we think. A one-minute “fitness minute,” stretching while brushing your teeth, doing squats while helping a child practice piano, or taking a few moments to reset between patients may not look like a traditional workout—but those small choices can build consistency.

As Hilary puts it, consistency wins.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why being physically fit doesn’t always mean you have a functional core
• How compensation can contribute to recurring pain even when you’re doing “core exercises”
• The two pieces Kelly calls the “secret sauce”: connection + integration
• Why one workout can’t compensate for the way you use your body throughout the rest of your day
• How Hilary incorporated The Tummy Team through seven children, including a twin pregnancy
• Why tiny habits can be more sustainable than committing to another big workout
• How to “habit stack” movement onto things you already do every day
• Why awareness of posture, alignment, breathing, and everyday movement can be so valuable
• How Hilary uses what she has learned through The Tummy Team with her own patients
• Why the best exercise may simply be the exercise you’ll actually do

This conversation is a great reminder that building a stronger body doesn’t have to mean adding another overwhelming task to your schedule.

Sometimes the most powerful changes happen when you learn to use the body you already have, in the life you’re already living—one small, consistent choice at a time.

If you've ever been a competitive athlete, there's a good chance you learned how to push through discomfort, work harder when things got difficult, and keep going when your body wanted to stop.

Those qualities can become incredible superpowers—but what happens when the same mindset that made you successful in your sport starts working against your recovery?

In this episode of The Tummy Team Journey Podcast, Kelly sits down with fellow physical therapist Dr. Christina Trautman, owner of The Pelvic Floor Place, for a conversation about athletes, core and pelvic floor rehabilitation, pregnancy and postpartum recovery, and the complicated relationship athletes often have with pain, rest, and slowing down.

As two physical therapists who are also athletes and coaches, Kelly and Christina understand how difficult it can be to hear “you need to back off” when movement is part of your identity. Their goal isn't to take away the activities you love. Instead, they discuss how learning to recognize symptoms, modify intensity, build a stronger foundation, and prioritize recovery can actually help you keep doing those activities longer.

They also take a deeper look at the unique challenges female athletes may encounter during pregnancy and postpartum. Building a baby, giving birth, producing milk, changing hormones, disrupted sleep, and the physical demands of caring for a newborn are all significant demands on the body—even when they don't look like a workout. Returning to sport isn't simply about trying harder. It's about understanding what your body is doing now and giving it the tools it needs for this season.

And this conversation isn't just for women. Kelly and Christina discuss how both male and female athletes can get stuck doing the exercises they've always done without asking an important question: Is this actually helping me do what I want my body to do?

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the ability to push through pain can be both an athlete's superpower and their “kryptonite”
• How to distinguish between productive effort and symptoms that deserve attention
• Why rest and recovery are part of training—not a failure to train
• How pregnancy, postpartum, hormones, and parenting postures change the demands on an athlete's body
• Why prenatal core and pelvic floor preparation can support postpartum recovery
• What “cleared at six weeks” does—and doesn't—tell you about returning to exercise
• Why a tight pelvic floor isn't necessarily a functional pelvic floor
• How functional core training differs from simply adding “core exercises” to the end of a workout
• Why your old workouts may not be what your body needs in its current season
• How to shift from an all-or-nothing mindset toward training for strength, performance, and longevity

Your perseverance, discipline, work ethic, and ability to do hard things don't need to disappear during rehabilitation. The goal is to pair those strengths with something athletes aren't always taught: how to recognize what your body is communicating and respond before a symptom becomes an injury.

Because the goal isn't to settle for less—and it isn't to power through everything.

It's to build a body that can keep doing what you love for as long as possible.

What if building a strong core in childhood isn't about exercises at all—but about helping kids move, play, breathe, and trust their bodies?
In this episode of The Tummy Team Journey Podcast, Kelly sits down with pediatric physical therapist Dr. Lizzie Conrath, owner of Little Light Pediatric Therapies, to talk about what functional core rehabilitation looks like for children—and why so many of these principles matter at every age.

Lizzie discovered The Tummy Team after a mother of two young patients with diastasis recti encouraged her to explore Kelly's professional training. What began as an opportunity to learn more about treating diastasis quickly became a much broader understanding of how breathing, alignment, muscle balance, constipation, trauma, and everyday movement can influence the developing body.

Kelly and Lizzie also tackle an important question for parents: How do we support a child's body without making them afraid to move?

Kids climb monkey bars, wrestle, tumble, run, jump, and sometimes do movements adults with diastasis are told to avoid. Rather than creating a long list of "don'ts," Kelly and Lizzie discuss how dynamic childhood movement can actually help develop a strong, coordinated body—and how therapists and parents can identify the patterns that may need additional support.

The conversation goes far beyond pediatrics, exploring the connection between breathing and strength, how emotional and physical experiences can show up in the body, body confidence, and why learning to view your body as a capable tool can change your relationship with movement for life.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why core and pelvic floor health matters even in childhood
• How to support kids with diastasis without making them afraid to move
• Why breathing is foundational to strength and coordinated movement
• How constipation and respiratory patterns can affect core function
• Why dynamic movement is different from repetitive, isolated exercise
• How trauma, pain, and medical experiences can influence the way we connect with our bodies
• Why body confidence should focus on what our bodies can do, not simply how they look
• How The Tummy Team's professional training is helping therapists incorporate functional core principles into their own specialties

Whether you're a parent, therapist, healthcare professional, or simply someone who wants to better understand how the body was designed to move, this conversation offers a refreshing perspective: strength isn't about perfect movement or avoiding everything that could go wrong. It's about understanding your body, building confidence, and giving yourself—and your kids—the freedom to move.

Todd was no stranger to pushing his body. A longtime runner, ultra-marathoner, volunteer firefighter, farmer, and former soldier, he was used to approaching fitness with an all-in mentality. But after a season of reduced activity followed by an aggressive return to exercise, a weighted abdominal exercise left him with a painful diastasis recti—and suddenly, pushing harder wasn’t working anymore.

In this From the Archives episode, Kelly sits down with Todd to talk about his journey from injury and frustration to a completely different understanding of strength. After trying to push through the pain and later committing to an intensive rehab approach, Todd discovered that doing more exercises wasn’t necessarily the answer. What finally changed things was learning to look beyond the diastasis itself and understand how posture, alignment, daily movement, and functional core strength work together.

Todd and Kelly also dig into something that applies far beyond diastasis recti: the temptation to believe that more is always better. For driven, active people, slowing down can sometimes require more discipline than pushing through. Todd shares how shifting his focus from performance and isolated exercises to long-term function allowed him to return to the demanding activities of his real life—from farm work and splitting wood to firefighting—with greater awareness and confidence.

This conversation is especially valuable for anyone who tends toward an all-or-nothing approach to fitness or rehab. Healing doesn’t have to mean doing nothing, and strength doesn’t have to mean doing more. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is build a better foundation, listen to your body, and focus on being strong for the life you want to live—not just the next workout, race, or goal.

More isn’t always better. Better is better.

Amanda remembers what it felt like to be strong.

She grew up as an athlete, ran cross country and track, and was always ready to be active. But after two pregnancies, abdominal separation, disconnected core muscles, and years of unpredictable aches and pains, that confidence slowly disappeared.

Eventually, Amanda realized she had spent nearly a decade being afraid to run and protecting her body from activities that might leave her hurting the next day.

Now, with two active boys entering the same stage of life when Amanda used to run with her own dad, she's ready for something different.

In this Real Life Rehab episode, Kelly invites us into the beginning of Amanda's rehab journey. After their first eSession together, they talk honestly about what's working, what's getting in the way, and what it really looks like to rebuild functional core strength in the middle of a busy life.

Amanda shares her struggles with perfectionism and the temptation to push through workouts, while Kelly explains why slowing down now can ultimately help her do more later. They work through practical strategies for reconnecting with the transverse abdominis, using breath during strength training, improving sitting posture, releasing tension around the pelvis, and learning to recognize the difference between healthy core engagement and bracing.

Most importantly, they're working toward something Amanda deeply misses: trusting her body enough to say yes again.

In this episode:

• How pregnancy and diastasis can affect your sense of connection to your body

• Why fear of pain can slowly make your world smaller

• The emotional side of missing the strong body you remember

• How perfectionism and an "all or nothing" mindset can interfere with rehab

• Why your core needs to keep pace as the rest of your body gets stronger

• How to use breathing and transverse activation during strength training

• The difference between functional core engagement and bracing

• Simple ways to reconnect with abdominal muscles throughout the day

• Why neutral pelvis stretches can help release accumulated tension

• How "pit stops" can help you stay active without continually pushing past your body's limits

• Practical ways to make rehab habits fit into real life

Amanda isn't at the end of her story yet—and that's exactly why we're sharing it.

This is Real Life Rehab: not a dramatic before-and-after, but an honest look at what happens in the middle. We'll follow Amanda as she learns to listen to her body, rebuild her foundation, and work toward the strength and confidence to say, "Yes, let's do it."

For 12 years, Summer lived with chronic back pain and sciatica. She tried physical therapy, chiropractic care, massage therapy, steroid injections, and countless other treatments, but nothing provided lasting relief.

Then she discovered something unexpected.

Instead of another exercise program, she learned how her body was designed to function.

In this episode, Kelly sits down with Tummy Team client Summer to talk about how understanding functional core anatomy transformed not only her chronic pain but also her confidence entering pregnancy, birth, and motherhood.

Together they discuss:

• Why chronic pain often has a missing piece
• The power of understanding the "why" behind rehab
• How breathing and alignment changed everything
• Preparing for pregnancy with a functional core
• Practical ways to build healing into everyday life
• Why listening to your body is one of the most important skills you can learn

Summer's story is an encouraging reminder that healing isn't about pushing through pain—it's about understanding what your body has been asking for all along. 

From the Archives: We're revisiting one of Kelly's all-time favorite episodes from Season 1.

Jim is a Marine Corps veteran, lifelong athlete, former personal trainer, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner who thought he knew everything about fitness—until he discovered an "alien-like" bulge during a workout that led him to a diagnosis of diastasis recti.

After years of pushing harder in the gym, battling recurring injuries, and trying to get rid of what he thought was a stubborn "beer belly," Jim found a completely different approach through The Tummy Team's Core Foundations for Men program.

In this conversation, Kelly and Jim discuss:

• Why more exercise wasn't solving the problem
• The missing piece in traditional fitness training
• Learning to trust the rehab process
• How breathing and posture transformed his strength
• Returning to workouts with better performance and less pain
• Why men shouldn't ignore the signs of functional core weakness

Although this conversation was originally recorded during Season 1, the principles Jim shares are just as relevant today. Whether you're a man dealing with abdominal bulging, back pain, or simply wondering why your core doesn't feel as strong as it should, this episode offers hope and practical insight for your healing journey.

What happens when an occupational therapist realizes there's a missing piece in both her own healing journey and the care she provides her patients?

In this episode of The Tummy Team Journey Podcast, Kelly sits down with occupational therapist Julia to discuss how discovering Functional Core Rehabilitation transformed the way she thinks about posture, breathing, movement, and everyday function.

Originally searching for answers about her own core weakness, Julia found much more than symptom relief. She gained a new understanding of how the transverse abdominis, pelvic floor, breathing, and alignment work together—and how these principles naturally complement occupational therapy.

Julia also shares her experience following an adult tongue-tie release and the surprising ways retraining her breathing, posture, and body awareness helped support her recovery.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why functional core rehabilitation goes beyond traditional core exercises
• How breathing and posture influence movement and everyday function
• The connection between the jaw, tongue, fascia, core, and pelvic floor
• Why occupational therapists are uniquely positioned to teach functional movement
• How small daily habits create lasting improvements

Whether you're an OT, another healthcare professional, or someone on your own healing journey, this episode offers practical insights into helping the body function the way it was designed.

What happens when your body has endured decades of chronic pain, endometriosis, pregnancy loss, difficult births, surgeries, and medical trauma? 

In this powerful Real-Life Rehab episode, Kelly sits down with Leigh, a wife, mother of three, and healthcare professional who has spent much of her life navigating chronic pain, endometriosis, miscarriages, traumatic births, pelvic floor dysfunction, and the emotional toll of feeling dismissed by the medical system.

After years of searching for answers, Leigh found herself facing a rectocele diagnosis and a recommendation for surgery. But before moving forward, she decided to revisit principles she had learned years earlier through The Tummy Team—principles that had already helped her heal a significant diastasis recti.

In this honest and vulnerable conversation, Kelly and Leigh discuss how trauma, fear, grief, perfectionism, and chronic stress can impact the nervous system, core function, pelvic floor health, and the body's ability to heal. You'll also hear Kelly walk Leigh through the first steps of her personalized rehab plan and explain why healing often starts with nervous system regulation, self-compassion, and reconnecting with your body.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How trauma and chronic stress affect the core and pelvic floor
• Why healing isn't always about doing more exercises
• The connection between grief, fear, and physical symptoms
• How perfectionism can become a barrier to recovery
• Why nervous system regulation is a critical part of healing
• The role of posture, breathing, and mobility in pelvic floor function
• Why prolapse symptoms often involve more than the pelvic floor alone
• How small daily practices can create meaningful change

Leigh's story is a powerful reminder that healing isn't about fixing a broken body. It's about reconnecting with a body that has been carrying more than anyone realized. 

When Kathleen first experienced pelvic organ prolapse at 64, she felt scared, confused, and unsure of what life would look like moving forward. After eight pregnancies, nine children, and decades without pelvic floor symptoms, the sudden feeling of heaviness and bulging was alarming.

In this encouraging episode, Kelly sits down with Kathleen to talk about how she moved from fear and frustration to hope, confidence, and practical healing. After being offered only a pessary or surgery, Kathleen began working with The Tummy Team and discovered that her symptoms were connected to posture, core weakness, pelvic alignment, and everyday movement patterns.

Through e-sessions, Core Foundations, Functional Core, and simple daily strategies, Kathleen learned how to respond to her body's symptoms, reconnect to her core, reduce prolapse discomfort, and return to the life she loves—including camping, lifting her grandkids, going back to the gym, and moving with confidence.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why prolapse can feel like an emergency
• How core strength and pelvic floor support work together
• Why Kegels are not always the answer
• How posture and alignment affect pelvic organ support
• What to do when symptoms flare up
• Why simple, consistent tools can create powerful change
• How to move from fear to confidence in your body

Kathleen's story is a beautiful reminder that pelvic floor symptoms are personal, common, and often very treatable—and that there is hope beyond fear, surgery, or simply learning to live with it.