Mid-Back and Neck Pain While Breastfeeding: What Helps

You're listening to the Restoring Human Movement podcast, where movement experts discuss the latest evidence-based practices to help you and your clients move with mastery. And now, your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Hey everyone, it's your guest host, Dawne Costantino, with the Restoring Human Movement podcast. Thank you for joining the Movement Movement. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. I want you to know that we have tons of episodes that you can go back and search through. We cover many, many different areas of the body and common injuries that occur in those areas. And so we dive deeper into educating you and answering common questions about those things.

So if you are interested, please go and check that out. Today, we'll be talking about postpartum moms and their mid-back pain, neck pain, while breastfeeding specifically. This is part two of a, I don't know how many part series, honestly, but where this is coming from is actually, this is a new avenue I'm diving down, I guess you could say. I realized friends and family that I have around me who are postpartum moms, it seems as though they have a lot of questions around this time about their bodies, about pains and aches that they deal with. And it seems like they just need some more resources to reach out to.

As things are healing after you have had your baby and you are cleared by your OBGYN at six weeks, there's this gray area. If I still don't feel like I'm normal again, I still have a lot of questions. Who can I reach out to to answer these questions? So that's kind of what this podcast is about. One of my very, very dear friends had created like a list of questions for me about things that she's been dealing with. She's about four months postpartum as of today, I believe. And so that's kind of what this podcast is about. Diving into answering those questions for her because I know other moms probably have these questions as well.

So we're going to keep it really simple, pretty understandable, things that you can incorporate at home if possible, and just not forgetting that it's always, you know, the best to reach out to somebody, to go see someone, to have something tailored and individualized for you when it comes to your body and pains that you might be dealing with. But again, so we're going to dive into talking pretty quickly, just a few questions that I'm going to answer about the mid-back and the neck. I did a different one on the low back. If you guys are interested in listening to that, please go back. And let's dive into it.

So the first question is, I feel like my mid-back pain started when my baby got heavier and I was trying to breastfeed on command and cook or take care of my other toddler. What are some ways to minimize the pain? So I've made a couple of bullet points here of things that I'll hit. And the first one I put down is minimize pain by doing what you need when not performing this activity. So I realized that as a busy mom, maybe a new mom, maybe a mom of two, three, four, I can tell you how to change, you know, or modify the activity. You know, try tuning into your core. Try standing up. Try this. Try that.

And it may not work for you. So what I really want to dive into is prioritizing, prioritizing doing things for your body to help minimize pain and to help strengthen the areas that need it so that you can better tolerate the task. So, again, if breastfeeding is causing mid-back discomfort, say you're sitting on the couch and breastfeeding and you're noticing the pain is coming on. Is there something you can do in that moment to help decrease the discomfort? Sure. And we're going to dive into that. But again, the answer I'm giving right now is more when baby has fallen asleep, for example, what can I do right now to one decrease the discomfort that has presented itself and or strengthen my body?

So, again, I can better tolerate breastfeeding moving forward. So, I say, honestly, you can take two minutes. I don't expect this to take very long. My mid-back is aching right now. What can I do? All right. So, there are some specific stretches that you can do to help decrease that discomfort and then get back to whatever it is that you need. It seems like a really easy answer, but I think that we get so busy and so wrapped up in being mom, we forget to take time for ourselves. So, again, prioritize doing something while baby is asleep or baby is distracted or baby is happy and doesn't really need me in this very moment to help decrease, minimize that discomfort.

Find the stretches that work for you. And again, later on in the podcast, we're going to talk about like kind of what those stretches are or pick up a weight, do some body weight exercises that'll help strengthen the mid-back, the muscles around the mid-back so that you can be stronger as that baby gets heavier. You know, you can hold on to baby a little bit better without pain arising or you have a longer period of time before pain arises. So, this is just your reminder to take time for yourself, to do what you need in between performing these tasks to better prepare your body for, you know, what you're demanding of it.

The next thing is, while you're breastfeeding, don't forget to change positions often. I actually think that whether we're talking about, you know, moms, postpartum moms, during pregnancy, you know, dads, children, like the thing I really want to highlight here is what usually occurs is a repetitive thing that doesn't get rest is when injury or pain starts to set in. Pain is really just most of the time a warning signal like, hey, something needs to change. If you don't change it, this is going to, let's just say, turn into an injury eventually. So, I'm reminding you here that I want you to change positions often.

If you are constantly sitting in the same spot on the couch, leaning backwards onto the couch and holding onto baby that way, and you're in this kind of slouchy position, looking down at baby or looking up at the television, and you're always there when breastfeeding, it's time to find different ways to perform this task. So, maybe we need to sit at the edge of the couch and let your core support you when you're performing it next time. Maybe we need to stand up and walk around and challenge ourselves to find movement while breastfeeding. Maybe we use some supports like those straps that you can wrap around you so that baby is held close to you during a time of breastfeeding.

You know, making sure that we're changing sides while breastfeeding. There's many, many things that we can do. And if you continue to do the same thing over and over, certain parts of your body are going to start to feel it. So, again, another reminder is change positions often. Challenge yourself to do it in different ways that maybe you haven't done it before. Check in. How did I do it last time? Okay, I'll try something a little bit different this time. Didn't work for me. I'll remember it didn't work for me. And I'm going to try something else. So, again, I think you just have to expose your body to different positions more often.

Don't get too comfortable in one position because eventually it's not going to be comfortable anymore. You've probably already noticed this if you're listening to this podcast. So, again, reminder to minimize the pain. Find during your downtime ways to take care of yourself and to change positions often when you are performing the activity of breastfeeding. The next answer here is actually tuning into your course. So, something a little bit more specific that you can think about is, I don't know if you guys have ever noticed this, but a lot of people get really, let's say, for lack of a better word, neurotic about perfect posture.

Everybody wants to know in what ways that they can make it easier to sit in a perfect posture for longer periods of time without their bodies falling back into laziness or feeling fatigued when you're forcing it too much. And I, myself, have actually been playing with this often, especially when driving. I have a little longer commute these days. And so, when I'm sitting in my car and I notice my mid-back starts to hurt, I play with different ways to find different positions, different postures that can help relieve some of that discomfort. And, you know, you can really force, like, your chest forward and squeezing between your shoulder blades.

And I think fairly quickly you're going to fatigue. That's what I noticed with myself. But the one thing I noticed actually helps keep me in a better position for longer periods of time is tuning into my core. So, what does that mean? One thing I would say, because it's kind of hard to explain over a podcast, but one thing I would say is do some research on what pelvic tilting is, if you don't already know, and how to find different pelvic positions, pelvic tilts while seated. And so, I'll kind of explain to you ways that I show people in the office how to tune into the core a little bit better while seated.

Is you scooch forward towards the edge of the chair, edge of the couch until your butt bones can kind of hook on to the edge of the couch. And then you're going to play with tilting the belly button, let's just say, forward and backward. Forward and backward. And you're just going to really tune into, like, how does that feel? In which direction, which area does my body like more? And maybe which area does my body not like so much? And then you're going to kind of tune into where's the sweet spot? Where's the spot that my body likes to be? And you're probably going to notice it's somewhere in the middle.

It's not extremely tilted forward or extremely tilted backwards. It's somewhere in the middle. And then once you find that spot, find a way to breathe deep into the belly. So, notice that the chest doesn't move excessively. We're going to start to see that as we breathe, our belly button can start to push forward a little bit. And then when you get better at that, you start to notice, let's say we're wearing leggings today and the leggings are up high on our waist. Start to notice that you can start to push the waistband of your leggings and stretch them out sideways. So, not just forward breathing, but sideways breathing when we're in this kind of neutral pelvis position.

And after a while, when you find that sweet spot, and maybe you've taken about 10, 15 breaths, you're going to see that you're in this posture that doesn't take much effort to be in. You don't have to think about how to force the chest forward, how to squeeze the shoulder blades, how to keep yourself in a proper chin tuck and then breastfeed in that position. The core is your base. And it doesn't have to be super strong, like go and do crazy amount of sit-ups so that you can do this more often. It's really just rewiring the system to find this area a little bit better, a little bit easier. And so, I'm sharing this because I know it works really well for me.

And I've taught it to a lot of different people and they seem to be really, really grateful to have this simple little tool when they're sitting along periods of time at work. Again, for our postpartum moms who are breastfeeding, I think this probably is going to be the most helpful for you. So, again, scooching forward on the couch a little bit to let your core help you do some work. You'll notice that everything else above in the torso kind of just sits into its normal natural position and probably a better posture than you've found yourself in so far while breastfeeding. And then seeing if that's a different way that you can explore breastfeeding over time.

If you guys are having a hard time visualizing this, by the way, go ahead and check out our YouTube channel. We're going to have some videos about this. You know, we can go in and talk about or type in mid-back pain, neck pain, low-back pain. There's going to be a lot of videos on there that teach you about pelvic tilting, teach you about breathing and bracing the core, even show you other exercises as well. So, please check out our YouTube channel if you want to know a little bit more about how this looks. Maybe some people are better visual learners. Okay, I have a couple more things I want to say here about breastfeeding and mid-back pain.

So, we talked about, you know, in the time of taking some downtime for yourself, that there, you can kind of teach yourself that little core exercise in your downtime so you can practice it while breastfeeding. But what can you do in the moment? Let's say baby's feeding. You don't want to disturb baby. Sometimes you probably find yourself like sacrificing your own body for your child. I'm in so much pain right now, but I don't want to move because they're finally eating. They seem to be calm and I don't want to disturb them. So, I'll give you like a little tool that you can try. So, it kind of depends on where you're sitting and what kind of, let's say, couch or chair you're sitting in.

I typically prefer something that's got like a lower back on it. So, for example, my couch at home, it's not one of those really tall ones that'll like support all the way up to the back of your head. If you scooch your butt all the way back to the edge of the couch where the backrest is at and you sit up tall, the top of the couch is probably going to reach my shoulder blades. And so, if you have a couch like this, one thing that you can do is exactly what I just described. Scooch, scooch, scooch your butt cheeks all the way back until you're kind of in the crease of the couch where the backrest and the seated part meet.

And let your butt get kind of, let's say, squished or eaten by the couch a bit there. And then you're going to let your torso be supported by the backrest. While breastfeeding, what you can do, what you may notice is you're looking down at baby for a long period of time so your neck starts to hurt, starts to get kind of fatigued. Naturally, you're going to notice you're going to look upwards to kind of counteract all the neck flexion you've been in over time. So, that's one thing is actually you can just be mindful of how much time you are spending looking down and being in neck flexion. Look up more.

Take some time to slowly just rise the nose up to the ceiling. Don't push yourself past any discomfort. Just work the range that feels good. I tell people at the top there when you're looking at the sky, kind of shake your head no really easily and gently and then come on back. And you could try reps of that while baby's feeding, looking up and looking down. And each time you may notice it gets a little bit further and a little bit further and it helps ease some discomfort. That was a little side tangent. Going back to like the supported low couch position, you can also, if you have something that's right at your shoulder blades there, go proud chest position.

So, yes, look up with your neck, but also let your mid-back kind of melt over the back of the couch a little bit. You're going to see that the couch can create a little bit of a fulcrum for your spine and you're going to put your spine into some extension. And so these easy little stretches while breastfeeding can help, again, counteract the amount of flexion that you are put in when you are performing breastfeeding. So that's something that you can do while you are, again, helping baby and feeding baby. Again, a reminder, I think I've said this a lot, but it's my last bullet point, so I'm going to say it one more time.

More often than not, it's what you do when you're not doing the activity that can be the most helpful. So let's move on to the next question. Hey, everyone. It's Sebastian. I'm going to hijack the show just for a second here to tell you about an opportunity that we have called the Discovery Session. A lot of people over the years have reached out to us from our YouTube channel because we have 150,000 YouTube subscribers at this point in time, probably more by the time you're listening to this. And we have a lot of people listen to this show and read our articles online. They're frustrated. People are frustrated about not being able to get back to full activity.

They're frustrated they can't really trust their body. They're frustrated that they have not found any long-term answers or things to make them happy. And so we're here to help. We may not be the ones to actually help you, and we're okay with that, but we're hoping that if you are able to speak with us, that we can maybe give you some insight of things that you potentially haven't tried yet. And if we know people, we'll suggest those people too. So if you want to take advantage of the Discovery Session, all you need to do is go to p2sportscare.com and find the Book Now button. It's all in there.

We have virtual or in-person options. You can go to the show notes for this show and find a link that'll directly connect you to us, or you can call us, 714-502-4243. We'd love to help you the best that we can, and we're always here to serve. Now back to the show. All right. Next question is, what are ways to strengthen for this mid-back and neck pain while breastfeeding? So strength exercises. You know, I'm going to have a couple categories here. One of them is pulling exercises. One of them is core exercises. And one of them is neck strength. And so I'll talk about a few different exercises you can think about.

You may know them just by me explaining it. I'll try my best to help you visualize while you're listening. You can write these things down and Google search them later on. Find these exact exercises on the internet and see if they work for you. But before trying any of these things, I'm always going to remind people that it's just best to go ask somebody for help. Go find a movement specialist near you, your chiropractor, your physical therapist, your pelvic floor therapist, and ask them what's right for your body. What are some really good ways to strengthen so they can watch you, so they can make sure you're performing it right?

Even if it looks like you're performing it right, maybe it hurts still. And so they can modify it specific for your body. So that's the beauty of asking a professional for some help. So that's your reminder on that. But let's dive into the exercises here. So strengthening for being able to tolerate the breastfeeding task over time. Pulling exercises. Ones that I like to teach people is horizontal rows, bent over rows, lat pulls, and bat wings. Those are the four I'm going to mention today. So these are all ones that really strengthen the shoulder blades on the backside. The area in between the shoulder blades, the muscles that attach from the shoulder blades to the spine.

Why are these important? These are the ones that are helpful for a stronger posture. They're the ones that help prevent sometimes this like forward shoulder position, this like rounded hunchback position when you're breastfeeding. So if those muscles back there are awake, they're strong, they have some high endurance, you're going to be able to tolerate holding heavy a baby for a long period of time. So what do horizontal rows look like? I think probably most of us can understand like going into the gym and seeing those cable, those cable machines, those like big rigs where you can pull on cables and attach different attachments to it.

And then you have the weight stacks and you can stick the little pin in it on whatever weight you want. You don't have to have one of these machines to do horizontal pulls, but this is probably the most familiar that people can identify in their head. So picture yourself seated, picture something directly in front of you, probably at chest level or a little bit lower, some weight attached to it. And then you can grip onto something and pull your hands below the ribs or pull your hands into your front pockets or pull the elbows behind you to squeeze the shoulder blades and then slowly return. These are what we call horizontal pulls.

This can be done at home if you have some resistance bands. I teach this all the time virtually. So what you would do is take a chair, put it in front of a door, put your resistance band in the door and close it, or you can even tie it around the door knob. And then make sure, again, it's at chest level or a little bit lower. This doesn't have to be seated. It can be done standing too, but I like to teach it seated. And again, pull the resistance band towards your chest, bend the elbows, squeeze between the shoulder blades and allow yourself to slowly return. So probably even when you're in pain, just after performing or I keep saying performing breastfeeding, it's just after breastfeeding.

If there's some discomfort and you go and do some of this with a light band, I don't know, maybe 10, 12, 15 reps is probably going to decrease some of that discomfort. So Google this one or reach out to me and help. I'm happy to help teach you this exercise. I think it's one that everybody needs in their toolbox. Bent over rows, bent over rows is pretty similar. Picture yourself in a standing position, leaning forward with your hand on a bench or a chair in front of you, and you're going to have a weight in your hand or also a resistance band. And again, you're going to pull. We can do this with two hands or with one.

I like to teach it with one. And you're going to pull the weight into your front pocket, squeeze the shoulder blade on that side and slowly return back to the floor. And you can do this over and over and over again. Just a different way to challenge a similar pulling exercise. Lap pulls are a little bit different. They're going to be at a different angle. So at home with the resistance band, put the resistance band maybe higher on the door, the top of the door. And then you can be on the floor on your knees or in a chair. And you're going to pull the resistance bands from above down below. They're going to hit just different fibers in the mid back and shoulder blades.

You're going to hit more of the lats. There's a lot of different muscles of the shoulder blade that run in different directions. So we do want to challenge all of these. That's why there's horizontal pulls, there's bent over rows, there's lat pulls, all different directions and angles. So we can challenge all these muscles and make sure that they are strong for you. And the last one, this one is if you don't have any equipment. That's what I like to teach. This is called bat wings. Let me try my best to describe it. So imagine yourself with your back to a wall and let's say your head, your mid back and your butt are touching the wall and you're going to bend your elbows at your side.

And all you're going to do is shove your elbows into the wall behind you to push your body off the wall. It's the exact same movement as a rowing exercise, but instead we're using body weight to get the resistance that we need. This can be done on the floor as well, which would be a progression of the exercise and be much harder. It's even hard for me to perform on the floor, but that can be done at home really easy without any equipment needed. Can be done super easy while you're cooking really quick and something is just, you know, waiting for the water to boil. I'm going to hit the wall behind me, the cabinet behind me really quick and do five to ten of these.

I like teaching this one. It's one that can truly be done anywhere. So those are some pulling exercises for you guys to think about. Core exercises. I described one in the last question. It's called pelvic breathing. We get the diaphragm and the pelvic floor to start strengthening and working together again in our belly breathing exercises. So if you haven't built this back in since pregnancy, please do. It's probably the number one thing that we need to start to rewire again after giving birth. So pelvic breathing, look it up, type in belly breathing. Again, ask a professional, your pelvic floor therapist, if you need to.

But pelvic breathing is super, super helpful. I teach it to almost every single person that I see and especially my mom's. Pelvic tilts. Again, I think more and more people are becoming familiar with what pelvic tilts are. It's this forward and backward motion of the pelvis, kind of tucking your butt under you, letting it stick out behind you like an Instagram model. These can be practiced in a lot of different ways. Easiest way to learn it is on the floor, on your back. Push your, or kind of peel the tailbone up off the floor and then push it into the floor. And we can kind of just rewire the brain to find these pelvic positions a little bit better.

And you can tune into which one your body likes the most and you can do it more. Next progression to that would be flip over onto the belly. Can you do it on your belly? Next one would be, can you do it in a seated position? Next one is, can you do it while standing? So there's different ways to practice this pelvic tilting. But these are some ways to really make sure that we're doing our core exercises properly and different ways for you to tune into pelvic position so that you can better take care of everything that's stacked above the pelvis. Your mid-back and your neck are going to love you if you know how to find your core a little bit better.

Core exercises, side planks, side bridges are a regression from the knees. I think most people know what this is and you can just Google it as well. There is a limiting factor sometimes of like your shoulder fatiguing in this, which is totally okay. It happens to a lot of people. And probably if that's what's, you know, fatiguing the most, that's probably what you need to strengthen. So please explore some side planks, side bridges, whatever version feels best for you. Ask somebody to watch you. Go ask your health professional to teach this properly to you. And progression of side planks would be something like farmer carries and suitcase carries.

So if you're back into the strength training world again, build those exercises in. Go for walks with a little bit of weight in your hands. These exercises are basically like carrying groceries back into the house. It's a functional exercise that most people should be challenging. Slowly introduce yourself to these. And again, ask somebody if it's okay and safe for you first. Last category of strengthening exercises is neck strength. I myself have actually been playing with like how to properly strengthen the neck without like machines to do it. And it has been a little bit tricky, but here's some that I'll share with you.

Planks. Most people know what planks are. They can be done from the hands. They can be done from the elbows. But what you do with your head in that position can actually be really, really helpful. So don't let it sink. Don't look down at the toes. Don't look up at something in front of you while you're in a plank position. What you want to do is find a chin tuck. Chin tuck is not touching your chin to your chest. It's actually when you're in a plank position, get your face away from the floor like something on the floor is stinky. Okay. So just rising the back of the head to the ceiling, letting the deep neck flexors do some some work here to strengthen.

I love teaching this one just to get some better strength for the neck itself. And again, I'm going back to side planks because it's just holding your head against gravity in that sideways position can help strengthen different areas of the neck as well. Those are some two that I like to slowly start to teach people as ways to build some strength around the neck as well. Okay. There's many, many others that I didn't mention. And if you want to know some others or if you want to know like, hey, these ones that you mentioned or they don't feel so good for me. What are some others that we can do?

Again, go to my YouTube channel or please reach out. We can do virtual stuff. We can do in-person stuff. We can figure out what's right for you. Okay. Next question is, I noticed myself slouch more while breastfeeding. What are some simple exercises to help with that? So I do think that this is going to be maybe some similar answers, but let's see what I have written down here. Number one is mindfulness. I think, honestly, just having this mindset of, I want to pay attention more to what position I'm in. We could get, again, really, really lost in being mom, the busyness of life, the busyness of having a new baby who needs you, who needs your body.

You just forget about these things sometimes. So mindfulness of how you are sitting down to breastfeed, what position you're in when you are standing and breastfeeding. Setting yourself up for success before we get into it is going to be the most helpful. So I tell people all the time, put a little reminder on your phone, like, sit up tall. How long have you been in this slouch position for and you didn't even realize it? Little reminders like that can be helpful. So just mindfulness. Just think of some taller postures every once in a while. You don't need to be perfect. If you sit in a tall posture or a perfect posture for a long period of time, it's eventually going to hurt as well.

So it's all about changing positions and finding more movement. But just being mindful of the position that you are setting yourself up for, being mindful of, I've been slouching probably for about 30 minutes. It's time for me to sit up tall and find a little stretch. Just, again, mindfulness. Going back to something I mentioned before, bring yourself back to the base again, the base of the core. Base being the core and the pelvis. What position are you in? Where is that at? Have we even thought about our belly? Have we thought about our pelvic position while sitting this whole time? Again, pelvic tilts.

Scoot yourself to the edge of the couch. Pelvic tilt. Find the nice, happy neutral. And then see how everything else above that can sit into a better, more comfortable position when we find our core. So tune into the base. Let's see here. Sorry, just looking at my notes. When breastfeeding and sitting, try thoracic extension. I think I tried to describe this in one of the other video or the other questions, but it was kind of this like leaning backwards over the couch position. Let's say you don't have a couch or a chair that's got a low back on it. What you can do is use a pillow. So a couple pillows behind your shoulder blades so that you have that more like chest forward position and it gives you some room to move.

So while breastfeeding with some pillows behind your mid-back there and then looking up with your neck, I'm sorry, with your head, allowing your neck to extend and allowing the chest to come forward just a little bit while baby's feeding. This is what we call thoracic extension. Getting your mid-back to go into this backwards position that it hasn't been in in quite some time probably. So trying some thoracic extension, some mid-back extension while breastfeeding can be helpful to offset the position that you are chronically finding yourself in over time. You just got to counteract that a little bit.

I did also too just kind of look up like, what are people saying on the internet? And I love this one. A semi-reclined couch seems like a duh. And most of you are probably finding this already, but if you haven't tried it, this can be another just position that you explore when breastfeeding. Allow yourself to lay backwards. That way you don't have to worry about anything. Where are my pillows? Where's my thoracic extension? Am I looking up properly? Am I finding my core in my pelvis? I don't want to do any of this stuff. I'm tired. I've been a mom all day. Well, sit in a reclined couch. Kind of going back to me finding a comfortable position in the car.

If it's been a long day and I've seen a lot of patients and I really just don't want to tune into the core or like think about how to find strength in a perfect posture, just recline back a little bit. Allow the chair to help support you. There's nothing wrong with that. Again, it's if you rely on that over and over and over and over again, you're perpetuating an issue. Just explore more things more often. So recline couch. And again, using some pillows for support. So I talked about that pelvic position to help support you from the base. Again, if we're in this like mindset of I don't know how to tune into this or I don't want to.

I don't have the energy. Scoot your butt back. Put a pillow underneath your low back so that it tilts that pelvis forward a little bit. You'll notice that you're going to mid back is probably going to sit into a better posture and your neck is going to love you for that as well. So those are some ways that you guys can think about what to do while breastfeeding. Okay. And then there is one more question written down here. And I'm realizing as I'm answering all these questions that they all have very similar answers. And typically it's because while feeding, while breastfeeding, we find ourselves in the same position over and over again in this slouchy forward head forward shoulder position and things start to hurt.

And we are in a position of I don't know what else to do because I have to feed my baby. So the one thing I want to really, well, here, here's the question. The question is what is the best position to breastfeed in to avoid mid back pain? Again, I really think that there is no perfect position. I think it's all about exposing yourself to new things each time, tuning into your body and what it likes. When pain sets in, change your position. Don't, you know, sit in pain and push yourself through it at all. Listen to your body. And if you're running out of things, if you're trying different stuff and you're not figuring out what's best for you, again, go ask somebody for help.

Truly. I know it's really, really hard for, you know, I don't want to put anybody into a category, but women, I think women have a hard time asking for help. I think moms have a hard time asking for help. So this is your reminder to definitely set aside some time to go talk to somebody, to go ask a movement professional, to get assessed, to see if there's truly any injuries that need to be healed. And if not, then it's about educating you. It's about exposing you to some stretches you can take home. That's the beauty of virtual as well, is you can have that person in your home with you and show them what you have.

And they can take you through a setup that'll work better for you. I can have them watch you do an exercise, check form, coach you in a way that your brain and your body understands. You may be doing the perfect form and it might still hurt. So it's truly about getting an individualized exercise shown to you, taught to you, that feels right for you, that gives you the relief you're looking for, that gives you the strength that you're looking for. So again, you can listen to all the podcasts, educate yourself, go on YouTube, you know, try to duplicate what you see on YouTube. There's nothing wrong with that.

But again, if you're not finding the answers you need, none of this stuff is helping. Please go talk to somebody. I'll be honest with you. I, when I deal with aches, pains, injuries, I don't treat myself. I really don't. I think it's hard to hold yourself accountable. I think it's hard to push yourself in ways that you really need to be pushed. And it's hard to take yourself outside of your own body. You need somebody else's perspective to be seen differently for them to teach you what's right for you. So I go ask for help all the time. I ask Dr. Sebastian to help me. I have a very dear friend of mine who works down the street from my house.

I go ask her for help and for treatment. So, you know, there's nothing wrong with asking for help is ultimately what I'm saying. And again, if you want some visuals to some of these things that I have talked about to answer these questions, go on the YouTube channel, Performance Play Sports Care. I'm working on creating one specific for postpartum moms, but we have a tremendous amount of videos on our YouTube channel for low back pain, for neck pain, for mid back and shoulder blade discomfort. And again, this is just the second part of a series of podcasts I'm going to be creating. Next, I'll be talking about pelvic floor.

I've already recorded one for the low back. I'll also be talking about how to introduce yourself back into working out postpartum. So if you're interested, please tune back in, listen to more, reach out to our office. We do virtual stuff. We do in-person stuff. And also we know people in a lot of different states. So depending on where you are, I can always send you to a person near you if I know somebody. So don't be afraid to reach out. And again, thanks for joining the Movement Movement. And we'll talk to you guys soon.