Episode #02: Meet Rhonda
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In this episode, Rhonda shares her story about why she became a pre/postnatal fitness coach.
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Pelvic Health and Fitness Podcast Episode #02 - All about Rhonda
We're excited to have you join us for this episode of Pelvic Health and Fitness. I'm Dayna Morellato, Mom, Orthopedic and Pelvic Health Physiotherapist. And I'm Rhonda Chamberlain, Mom, Orthopedic Physiotherapist and Pre Postnatal Fitness Coach. On this show, we have open and honest conversations about all phases of motherhood, including fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, menopause, and everything in between.
We also provide helpful education and information on fitness. The pelvic floor and many aspects of women's health, including physical, mental, and emotional wellness. Please remember as you listen to this podcast that this is not meant to treat or diagnose any medical conditions. Please contact your medical provider if you have specific questions or concerns.
Thanks so much for joining us. Grab a cup of coffee. Or wine. And enjoy! Hello everybody and welcome to episode two of the Pelvic Health and Fitness Podcast, where today we're going to chat with Rhonda Chamberlain, uh, about her kind of journey and path to becoming a physio and now a postpartum and athleticism coach.
Why don't you start off by telling us how you got into physio and kind of your background with, um, athletics? Sure. So I was a gymnast growing up. So I started gymnastics around three years old. Um, I competed pretty high level, um, for quite a number of years. And within that time, so anyone that's done gymnastics will know it comes with its fair share of injuries.
So I had a dislocated elbow. I had a lot of ankle sprains, a bunch of just different things over the years that required physio. So I was exposed to physio probably from like age eight onwards and I just always thought, yeah, I just always thought it would be a cool job. Um, the physios that I came across in Cambridge were always really great and Luckily were physios that encouraged me to get back to sport, which I know some might discourage people from getting back.
So I was always lucky that way. And yeah, pretty much from a young age, I was like, this, this is a cool job. So got to university, took a kin degree at McMaster and loved it and just really loved learning about the body and how it works. So that led me to apply to physio and that's where I went to Western and met Dayna And yeah, I just, just loved it and just luckily it was one of those things that I just continued to really like it.
There were certain aspects in physio school, um, you and I can relate on that, that I was like, yeah, I don't know if I can see myself doing this side of physio. Um, for those of you that don't know, we have to learn about all the different areas of physio, which includes working in a hospital. Working with like acute care patients, like post heart surgery, that kind of thing.
ICU patients, which I didn't love that side of things personally, but anytime I was in a clinic placement, I loved it. Um, and just saw myself working with athletic people, people that, you know, wanted to be there and feel better. And yeah, just the rest is history. Yes, for sure. I think a lot of people assume that physio is only orthopedics, but it's it is a wide Wide array of conditions that we treat you're right.
Okay, and so we graduated in 2009 Yeah, and did you started to work in an orthopedic clinic? I did. Yeah so I got my first job pretty much right out of school and Worked here in Cambridge and it was sort of your your typical ortho clinic. That was very fast paced Very busy, um, nonstop. Dane and I worked for the same company, which we won't name here today.
But, uh, we both got pretty exhausted and run down. Um, at the same time, I will say, looking back, it was a great learning experience because we just saw so many different people. And you're forced to learn how to time manage. Um, you see, again, a bunch of different conditions, so you start to feel more confident with working with a bunch of different, uh, conditions and different people, but the pace of it was too much.
Um, so I worked there for two years, which felt like 10 years, looking back, and yeah, so eventually it came to a point that I knew that was not a sustainable pace for me for my lifetime. Um, I will talk about and have always talked about that. I, you know, manage anxiety and my anxiety just did not deal with that structure very well at all.
So I ended up, you know, uh, nice. Oh, I know. And I, I think looking back at that time, I think I've just obviously learn more about myself and learn more about anxiety because I don't think I necessarily called it anxiety. I just knew it was a stressful job, right? Like you and I've talked, like I would. Be on my way to work and feeling almost panic attack y, right?
Like, just couldn't catch my breath and just nervous for the day, just knowing how fast paced it was gonna be. And I didn't have hardly a breather the whole day, you know? Right. Um, and then get home just, like, exhausted, right? Yeah, I think you had similar experience to mine. Yes, yeah, I can totally relate.
And I, so I have a question on, while you're on this placement, we were there, uh, first two years right out of school, did you treat any pregnant and postpartum women? I did, and I don't think a ton, but it's interesting. So, um, a client just came back to see me at my current job, and she was one of my very first clients at my very first job, and she just happened to find me.
Which was so cool, because I hadn't seen her in like 10 years, or just less than that, but, uh, and she came to see me very early postpartum, and she reminded me of that, because I think, again, I didn't really clue in, but her daughter, I think, was like six months old when she came to see me, came to see me for like a shoulder injury, which probably was postural related, us being a mom, but it's just interesting thinking back to that time, because I was clueless, you know, just treated her shoulder the way I would treat any person's shoulder.
But didn't really pay much attention to the fact that she was postpartum. So, yeah, like, the interest in postpartum was definitely not there for me until I had my own kids. Was that similar for you? That's what's interesting about us, I think, is like, women's health stuff was just part of the orthopedic climate for us.
It was a piece of it. And I didn't foresee it, and I don't think you ever saw me being so passionate about it at some point. No, and I didn't see that for myself either. Yeah. Okay, so currently you are working, um, at CrossFit Rebuild in Cambridge. Um, and what took you in that direction? So, when I left that first job, I ended up just picking up a couple sort of random jobs just to get out of that stressful environment.
So, the two jobs that I picked up were just a slower pace. I could make my own hours, kind of just made the switch for, uh, myself. And then in that time is when I started CrossFit. So, that was in 2012, and I was just sort of bored with, um, the good life gym routine. Uh, just doing the same things over and over, and I just wanted a change, and I had heard a lot about CrossFit.
So, started CrossFit in Cambridge, and then when I was working out there, someone I got to know there, Uh, brought up my current boss Eric's name and said have you heard of his new gym that's also a physiotherapy clinic and I said no and I said that sounds cool so I basically just reached out to Eric I think I just showed up there one day and just said you know what are you up to here this sounds cool and we just got to talking and sure enough he was looking for a physio and yeah I was his first hire so it was just him before I got there and Yeah, basically just showed me the ropes and just, um, explained his vision how he didn't want it to be sort of that normal orthopedic clinic that was modalities and busy and you know Not really focusing on the exercise piece so his focus was really focusing on strength and conditioning and obviously getting people out of pain, but then Teaching them to strengthen and prevent future injuries.
So, yeah, I just gradually built up my caseload there and then ended up quitting at the other two clinics. And I've been there since. So that was 2012 that I started. And yeah, I've been there ever since and it's, it's... An amazing job. I love it. And so it kind of seems like a good hybrid, right? You were, you were an athlete growing up, you get into physio, not really loving the whole, you know, typical stereotypical orthopedic clinic setup.
And so now you're kind of an athlete, training athletes essentially with exercise. Yeah. And that's, that's actually the interesting thing is, is I don't only treat athletes. I feel like that's the, uh, sort of vision that Eric had and him and I both. Just talked about this the other day that The people we love to work with are the ones that didn't necessarily have exercise as a common thing in their life.
Because it's just so fascinating to get someone out of pain and then start to get them moving and strengthening and realize, Oh my goodness, I'm so much stronger than I thought I was and wow, I can do this, this and this without pain. Those are the people that I love helping. So, you know, now that I have my own business, which we'll talk about, I You know, start to work on sort of who my ideal client is.
And yeah, again, I love those people that. Um, maybe have been sort of turned off from exercise or, uh, just don't know what to do in terms of exercise. And I love to help those people get into it. That's, that's my passion for sure. Yeah. Very cool. So was pregnancy, postpartum mom's motherhood on your mind at any point, or did you really start to get into this realm with your first pregnancy?
Yeah. So, I would say, even before I had my first daughter, I did start to work with a few more moms. So, um, I just started, I think, attracting female clients. So, I started working with them and then they, you know, would start to get pregnant. So, I would work with them. Again, I didn't have the background knowledge, but I knew enough to sort of scale them back and, you know, make sure that we were doing things safely.
In the back of my mind though, I was thinking, okay, like I think I need to learn more about this, but then I got pregnant and kind of that was my focus, was just my own pregnancy. Um, I had a pretty sort of easy pregnancy with my first daughter, was able to work out throughout that time. Um, again, I knew enough to scale my workouts back.
Now knowing what I know, I probably could have scaled back even more. And, you know, throughout that time, you and I have talked about this. Everyone was telling me, you're just going to, you know, push that baby out so easily. You're going to have the easiest delivery. You're going to bounce back. Your baby's going to come out with a six pack, all that stuff.
Right. And I did have a pretty easy delivery. So that served to reinforce my bias that I trained for my birth. And because I was fit, I had this easy birth. Right. And then I was able to get back into exercise quite quickly after Sadie too, which again, just continue to reinforce that bias that I did all the right things.
So that's why I'm here, right? Um, yeah. So then after having Sadie, I knew I wanted to do more pre postnatal stuff because I just found that whole experience fascinating and I just, you know, love working with women in general and I wanted to work with them through those phases. I knew, though, we were going to try to have kids close together.
So I think I just still kind of put learning or taking another course on the back burner, just knowing I was only going to be back to work for a short phase of time. So I just sort of buckled down and kept working, basically. And then, um, so, my pregnancy the second time around was still pretty seamless.
I was still able to work out. I did start to have, like, heaviness, so, like, a prolapse sort of feeling. Which I think I knew enough to call it a prolapse, but I don't think I really knew what it was, really. Or, I thought it was just a pregnancy thing, and I thought as soon as the baby came out, it would go away.
So I started to feel like just heaviness when I would go to the bathroom during that pregnancy. So anytime I went pee, I could, you know, nothing's going to be TMI on this podcast. So I could feel like tissue coming out when I would go pee, which just felt weird. And then, yeah. And then I did have some pelvis pain, like symphysis, pubis pain by the end of that pregnancy too.
So yeah, I just started to get more curious just about those things, because again, as a fit, strong woman, I thought I would not have to deal with those things, right? Because that's what society tells you. Um, so then my, yeah, so my delivery with Tegan was also pretty seamless. Um, recovery right after her was pretty good.
Didn't have major, major symptoms. I still continue to have like that prolapse feeling, which I was like, okay, that's just going to go away. And then, so I've shared this story on Instagram pretty openly that I was feeling pretty good and I was itching to get back to the gym for my mental health and just to feel like me again.
So, I got back to CrossFit at I think I was even proud of myself because I think I waited till like 10 weeks postpartum. So I was like, yes, you know, I rested hard. Um, and then I, so I got back to the gym and those of you that know CrossFit, so it was right at the time of the CrossFit Open. And I was like, okay, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do it. And I'm going to scale it because that is. How I'm going to modify and so the first workout, I forget exactly the reps, but it was, um, barbell snatches and burpees over the bar and I did it and it was probably like a 20 minute workout. Again, I don't know the rep scheme, but it was and again, so I'm thinking in my head, a burpee is a body weight movement.
And a thruster, I did a light, or not a thruster, I did a light snatch for me. So it all made sense in my brain, right? But my athlete brain was diehard. And after that workout, I was the most sore, just muscle soreness, that I've probably had in years and years and years. So that should have been my first clue that, hmm, maybe that was a bit much.
Was that your first workout back? Pretty much. Yeah, so I had been doing a little bit at home like just some body weight stuff But that was that was yeah, that was my first official workout back
What do you think about that now? Oh my goodness looking back again i'm like what do you think about that now? Yeah, so it in the moment it I justified it I justified it as that was fine because I was scaling and because a burpee is a body weight movement So I was very sore, but then again, I was dead set that I was, you know, getting back into CrossFit.
So my second workout back was a 5k row, which again, my, you know, my athlete brain justified it by it's just rowing, you know, I'm not going fast. I'm taking my time. But again, now knowing what I know, and if you think of rowing, you know, it is body weight, but it's a huge core workout. Every time you lean back, you're essentially doing a sit up, right?
So, so after that workout, so the the telltale sign after that one is I had a lot of like hip pain and But again, I didn't necessarily listen to it. I just thought it's just part of my healing. I just have to sort of Take it easy with my recovery now But then after that workout probably like a couple days later.
I had a return of my postpartum bleeding So this was like 10 weeks postpartum my bleeding returned the heaviness that I was feeling was tenfold and then I had really terrible abdominal cramping so almost like labor pains. Like it was just really awful cramping a couple days later. So even then I was like, was that from the workout?
But yeah, it was because I just overdid it. So then I panicked. I just panicked and stopped everything because I'm like, what is happening to my body? So stopped everything. And that's when I went on an obsessive journey to learn all things core and pelvic health. Because I was like, if I'm feeling this loss, I'm a physio.
I've been an athlete for my whole life. And I have no clue where to go from here. I need to learn more. So yeah, so that's when I started learning Right. It's I think it's so interesting to to to note at least at the time that we graduated and I think there is a little bit of a change coming in the curriculum, but Women's health is an elective in physio school.
So we Really get all right. We did get the bare minimum um Training in that area. So it's interesting when people say things like oh, well, you're a physio. Didn't you know? No, I didn't right so it's interesting that you ever had that experience um So tegan is how old now? She's your youngest Yeah, so she is, uh, almost 20 months old.
She's 19 months old now. Okay, so tell us a little bit about that stopping all activity to now, like what, what did that look like for you physically and how has it kind of led to your little bit of a career? Change, not change, but change up, we'll call it. Yeah, sure. So, yeah, so when I had that panicked moment, and I stopped all exercise, I think I stopped for two weeks, where I just did nothing, because I had no idea what to do.
I started following accounts on Instagram, um, so like Jesse Mondell, and I started listening to their podcast, so Jesse and Anita. So they have the To Birth and Beyond podcast, which I started learning a lot from them. And started following Brianna Battles. And it's interesting because I followed her.
After Sadie after my first, uh, pregnancy and I loved her approach because I knew she was sort of in the CrossFit world So I liked that she had that mix of CrossFit and pre postnatal and so yeah so I really started diving into her content and Yeah, basically just started learning from different accounts on Instagram And basically started to realize that I needed to treat my postpartum recovery the same way I would treat someone's recovery from an injury.
And for whatever reason, I didn't put two and two together. I don't know if you felt similar with your recovery, but I never, because I think again, like, there's sort of this idea that, oh, a pregnancy, we're not injured, right? There's almost like an ego to it, like, I'm not injured. So I didn't want to treat it as an injury, right?
So, but then, yeah, once I started realizing it was, then, yeah, I, I took it slow. I basically just used, um, progressive overload to ease myself back into exercise. Then I decided, because, again, I was learning so much from Brianna Battles, that I decided to take... Her pregnancy and postpartum athleticism course on my mat leave with Tegan.
So I think I started that Tegan was probably about six months old and I just started taking that course and just it was mind blowing. I just couldn't believe I hadn't learned any of that information before. And the there was one section on it about building a business. And even it's funny because even taking the course I still was like, yeah, I don't know Like maybe it'll be something I do just as a hobby I don't know if I see myself having my own business But then the more and more into it and the more passionate I got about it I was like no this needs to be something I do for myself Yeah, that's great.
That's awesome So you take the pregnancy and postpartum athleticism course and you were still on mat leave and did it kind of help guide? Your postpartum recovery and what did you change? So you said, um Progressive overload. So what did that look like for you? Yeah, so The recovery that I started to do happened before I took her course.
Through her course, I definitely even learned a lot more. But I, again, I had this light bulb moment of the recovery things I would do for, say, a low back pain patient would look very similar to what I would do for myself postpartum. But again, I just, that didn't register for me initially, for some reason.
So all of a sudden again, and I think I said this to Brianna Battles that I started following her YouTube page And she said I have a YouTube page. I'm like, yeah you do. It's probably really old But it had I started looking at just the exercises she had posted on there and they were just very foundational movement So like glute bridges side bridges Um, bird dog, like just all this kind of stuff.
And all of a sudden, again, I was like, Oh, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. So then I just, again, treated myself as I would a low back pain patient or, you know, pelvis pain patient and started just doing sort of that core stabilization, pelvis stabilization exercises. took it very slow. In that time, I told myself I was doing movement therapy versus workouts because my athlete brain would go into one of those sessions thinking this doesn't count as a workout.
Like this is stupid, right? Why am I doing this? But I was like, no, this is movement therapy to get my body, you know, get that core foundation built back again. I started doing like breathing. Which again, I was mind blown. I'm reading all these posts about, you know, inhale, relax, exhale, lift. I'm like, what?
What does that mean? You know, learning to basically connect my breathing to my pelvic floor. Which again, was like brand new information, right? I didn't know that stuff. So I started working on breathing, started just doing like mobility, just, you know, my hips were super tight postpartum. And just slowly built that back up.
So I would start to do just body weight. So, you know, squats, lunges, um, again, just listening to how my body felt. It felt really great with that. I started slowly reintroducing weights, which that's a funny story too, because the only weights I had at home were 25 pound dumbbells. So I tried to like dive right back in with the 25 and.
The heaviness was like, eh, so I, I would just have like that heaviness in my vagina anytime I tried to use the 25s. So I was like, again, light bulb moment, I need to scale back my weights. So I purchased some 10 pound dumbbells, and this was pre COVID, so they were still accessible at the time. And, uh, got some 10 pound dumbbells and just started using those, feeling really good, used a lot of resistance bands, um, that type of thing.
And again, through taking Brianna's course and just talking about getting back, um, slowly and with progressive overload, I just started to eventually work in the 25s here and there. see how that felt, started to work into some higher impact activities. So I think I waited probably a few months until I did another burpee because I think I was terrified to do a burpee because of how I felt that early time.
So slowly started to do burpees. I didn't jump. I would just do like a very slow controlled burpee. Um, and again, just slowly ease back in. I think around like six months postpartum, I tried running and just did like short little spurts. Felt okay, but again, still had some heaviness, learned a lot about pelvic floor relaxation.
So I would really focus on, um, at the end of every workout, I would, you know, lay on my tummy or lay on my back and just really focus on relaxing and down regulating my nervous system. That was a huge light bulb moment for me too. And, uh, yeah, so again, as I kept taking the course, I just was thinking, man, if this is.
If this is something that's brand new to me and I am sort of clueless about myself, then there's, there has to be other women that feel the same way as I do. And I need to pay this forward and I need to help other women navigate this time that we basically are told nothing about, right? Right. And it's something I chat with my clients a lot and I'm sure you do too is they send you home with the baby, there's no manual for the baby and there's certainly no manual on how to recover postpartum.
And so I find it interesting, I know I have this conversation a lot with clients and I know you do too about this idea of the athlete brain and workouts that count versus movement and how do you explain the athlete brain to your clients? Yeah, so this is something I love to talk about and we can probably do a separate episode on this topic.
So athlete brain to me doesn't necessarily mean you have to be an athlete for it to resonate with you. So it's typically your sort of type A, very driven, very motivated, often competitive people that want to just do things the best way that they can, which I think is a lot of us, right? Um, So with athlete brain for me, so that showed up as again, that for me, workouts didn't count unless I was sweating.
I was dripping buckets. Um, I was breathing heavy. Um, so I had to really shift that mindset for myself. And the other thing was, you know, I had to be really regimented with my, my workout schedule. So I had to work out five, six days a week in order for, you know, myself to feel the best that I could. We sort of talked about this in your episode too.
So I basically, a lot of my rehab was yes, rehabbing my body, but rehabbing my mindset, I think too, right? And unlearning. All of the things that I've learned as a competitive athlete. And I think I'm still, I'm, that's going to be a lifelong process because it's still ingrained in me. And there's still times that I have some guilt if I'm not working out as hard as I used to.
But I'm just starting to recognize that I'm in a different phase of life. My priorities have shifted. Before I had kids, I had all the time and energy to do really hard workouts, five, six days a week. I'm just not there anymore. And Again, my priorities are different. I just want to feel good. I want to feel strong I want to have energy to keep up with my kids And I don't want to be in the gym every waking hour of the day anymore.
That's just not That's just not my priority now. I love how you said the athlete brain doesn't necessarily have to only apply to athletes because I think that's absolutely true. Um, but pregnancy and birth is an athletic event. I often will compare it to a marathon with a final sprint, whatever that sprint looks like, you know, whatever your birth ends up looking like.
And we wouldn't think twice about kind of taking the time to rehab from an injury, like you said, with. you know, from a marathon or even just checking in with a massage therapist after a marathon. But for some reason, we don't think about our bodies needing that kind of rehab after pregnancy and birth.
And so I will call all of my mom's athletes. and encourage them to kind of just rethink what their, what, what is exercise to them and then challenge them to notice how much activity they do in a day, just taking care of baby. How many times do you lift and carry and balance? Yeah. Okay. So tell us a little bit about your online business.
Yeah. So I finished Brianna Battles course in March of 2020. So right at the height of the pandemic. And so around that time, again, I was still on mat leave. So I started working with clients for free because I just wanted to get experience. And again, I was just super passionate about what I was learning.
And so I reached out to a few women that I knew in my life that had just had a baby and basically offered to work with them for free to ease them back into exercise. And this was all done online. Which was my vision. It's funny because even pre Covid, I had this vision of realizing that women needed access to, um, workouts that were accessible and easy to do from home on mat leave.
Because we know as moms how hard it is to get ourselves out the door. with one kid, let alone two kids, right? And try to work around nap schedules and feeding times and all that stuff. So I had this idea that, oh my goodness, women need to have home workouts given to them, um, online. Then COVID hit and then all of a sudden everyone was looking for online programs, right?
Because we couldn't go to a gym and everything was closed. So, so a few women that I reached out to were super excited to work with me. And I basically just followed sort of the same path that I did for myself, just again, just easing them back in with those, um, core connection things and, uh, foundational movements.
And they had really great success and they were very happy with how they were feeling and we worked through any symptoms that they were having. And that's the cool thing too, is I started to realize. All my worlds were combining. So, you know, I've been a physio for over 10 years and I've worked in an environment that was exercise based.
And now my passion is pregnant postpartum. So now I am tying everything together. So I'm tying in, again, working with exercise and progressively, um, starting to get people back in. Also working on any injuries they might have. So I think that's... Kind of what sets me apart from some trainers is that I also, you know, if someone comes to me with a knee injury or comes to me with shoulder pain, I have tools that I can give them for those things as well, right?
So it's, I started to just see, oh my goodness, this is all my passions combining in one. And so, so those clients did really, really well. And then I got back to work in August of 2020. Um, so rewind a little bit. So in May of 2020, I decided I was going to make this my, my own business. And so I got a business license and I started the process of all of that and decided it was going to be strictly online.
So I, you know, do that on the side of working at rebuild still. And yeah, so in August I started taking on paying clients and. Yeah, it's just continued to build since then and it's been awesome. It's, uh, just a really fun thing for me and, um, it's a good mix for, you know, I still work with sort of everyday people at Rebuild and then the online stuff is solely pre postnatal women.
Very cool. And then enter this podcast where we're just hoping to give some of the information and things that we've learned along the way out to the listeners. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I think that's the cool thing is, you know, you've been in this world for a little bit longer than I have. So even when you and I first started chatting, I remember thinking, I don't know as much as Dayna, like, I don't know what I can contribute.
But again, we both have our sort of strengths and different backgrounds. Right? So, um, we just figured it's a good mix, um, of information for people and we'll continue to learn from each other in the process. And, yeah. Learn from the guests that we have on too, because like you said in our, I think our intro episode that selfishly, this is also for our continued lifelong learning too, that we're just so passionate about these topics that we're excited to keep learning more.
Absolutely. All right. Well, thanks for sharing everything. Thank you. Yeah, it was fun. It's, it's crazy just looking back and just seeing again how all the pieces sort of came together and yeah, excited to, to continue working with this population for a long time. Hopefully. Absolutely.
