What Load Actually Reaches Your Pelvis When You Run? The Data & a Guide Built for Postpartum Moms — with DR. MEGAN JAMES

All right, let's, let's dive in big picture.

Um, so 2023, you're kinda halfway through.

We're now kinda sitting with a, with a couple of, uh, papers that just came out this year.

Let's kinda start with the one, um, the nulliparous one, kinda looking at the loading pathway.

Okay.

Tell us a little bit about kinda what you guys were trying to accomplish, um, and why you wanted to start with, with a nulliparous population.

Yeah.

So I think, you know, ba- Going into the PhD and, like, with the literature review and a little bit about what I'll talk about with the other study that we'll talk about in a bit, um, I think one of the things that we as a research team thought really early on was when you look at return to running for postpartum, there aren't any specific, like, reloading pathways.

Um, there's a lot of, like, clinical research and kind of anecdotal experience out there.

Yep.

Um, and obviously, you know, worked closely with Grainne Donnelly, and they released their return to run guidelines, but they said, you know, "This is what we think.

A lot of this isn't evidence-based."

Right.

Um, it's ani- like clinically kind of anecdotal evidence almost-

Yep

... of what's worked for people.

Um, and I think we thought, wouldn't it be great if we could actually try and evidence-base something that you'd have for a return to injury pathway-

Right

... that's the same? So-

Yeah

... and, you know, for return to injury, y- if you, if you're rehabilitating the knee, you're gonna choose activities in the order of them gradually reloading that knee back up to function.

Um, so we said, okay, um, and this comes onto that other study, what are some of the, like, really key things that are coming out? And it's that pelvic floor dysfunction, experience of stress urinary incontinence, and treating that, like, pelvis as your kind of injury site that we wanna lo- locally reload.

So we thought if we can try and develop something that estimates load at the pelvis across a range of activities, and then we try and, and use that to inform what we think could be a graded loading pathway, uh, that's what we kinda wanted to try and do so that we could then maybe suggest that as where somebody could start.

Yeah, I love that.

I mean, if, if I think back to, you know, pre-2019, and I mean, we were just saying to women, "Okay, why don't we just go run and see what happens?" Because we weren't ...

All right, let's, let's dive in big picture.

Um, so 2023, you're kinda halfway through.

We're now kinda sitting with a, with a couple of, uh, papers that just came out this year.

Let's kinda start with the one, um, the nulliparous one, kinda looking at the loading pathway.

Okay.

Tell us a little bit about kinda what you guys were trying to accomplish, um, and why you wanted to start with, with a nulliparous population.

Yeah.

So I think, you know, ba- Going into the PhD and, like, with the literature review and a little bit about what I'll talk about with the other study that we'll talk about in a bit, um, I think one of the things that we as a research team thought really early on was when you look at return to running for postpartum, there aren't any specific, like, reloading pathways.

Um, there's a lot of, like, clinical research and kind of anecdotal experience out there.

Yep.

Um, and obviously, you know, worked closely with Grainne Donnelly, and they released their return to run guidelines, but they said, you know, "This is what we think.

A lot of this isn't evidence-based."

Right.

Um, it's ani- like clinically kind of anecdotal evidence almost-

Yep

... of what's worked for people.

Um, and I think we thought, wouldn't it be great if we could actually try and evidence-base something that you'd have for a return to injury pathway-

Right

... that's the same? So-

Yeah

... and, you know, for return to injury, y- if you, if you're rehabilitating the knee, you're gonna choose activities in the order of them gradually reloading that knee back up to function.

Um, so we said, okay, um, and this comes onto that other study, what are some of the, like, really key things that are coming out? And it's that pelvic floor dysfunction, experience of stress urinary incontinence, and treating that, like, pelvis as your kind of injury site that we wanna lo- locally reload.

So we thought if we can try and develop something that estimates load at the pelvis across a range of activities, and then we try and, and use that to inform what we think could be a graded loading pathway, uh, that's what we kinda wanted to try and do so that we could then maybe suggest that as where somebody could start.

Yeah, I love that.

I mean, if, if I think back to, you know, pre-2019, and I mean, we were just saying to women, "Okay, why don't we just go run and see what happens?" Because we weren't ...