You're Fit. You're Strong. So Why Isn't Your Body Working? | Jana Danielson
YOU'RE FIT. YOU'RE STRONG. SO WHY ISN'T YOUR BODY WORKING?
You work out. You eat well. You look healthy. But something isn't right.
Your hips are constantly tight. Your lower back aches. Your sex life isn't what it used to be. Maybe you're leaking urine, struggling with erections, or experiencing discomfort during intimacy.
What if these seemingly unrelated problems have something in common—and nobody has told you where to look?
On this episode of the Crackin' Backs Podcast, pelvic floor educator, Pilates expert, and entrepreneur Jana Danielson reveals an often-overlooked connection between pelvic floor dysfunction, sexual health, chronic pain, breathing, core strength, and athletic performance.
And this isn't just a women's health issue—or something that happens after 50.
Jana shares the story of a 24-year-old Division I football player whose tight hips, back pain, and sexual difficulties were affecting his confidence, relationships, and quality of life.
He was young. He was athletic. So why was his body struggling?
WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER:
Pelvic floor dysfunction in men and women: The warning signs you might be overlooking.
Sexual health and performance: How pelvic floor muscles may influence erections, orgasm, intimacy, and sexual function.
Kegels vs. pelvic floor relaxation: Why strengthening isn't always the answer—and when too much tension may be part of the problem.
Tight hips and lower back pain: The potential relationship between breathing, posture, core stability, and pelvic floor function.
Athletic performance: Why even strong, highly trained athletes can experience pelvic floor problems.
Breathing and nervous system regulation: How diaphragmatic breathing works with your pelvic floor.
The surprising foot connection: Why Jana believes your toes, walking mechanics, and posture deserve more attention.
But Jana's story goes much deeper than anatomy.
At just 21, she was taking 11 medications and experiencing daily urinary incontinence. She feared what her future might look like.
That experience eventually changed the direction of her life.
Now she's challenging the silence, embarrassment, and assumptions surrounding pelvic health.
Here's the question:
If you're training your abs, glutes, legs, and back—but ignoring your pelvic floor—what might you be missing?
And could the solution sometimes involve learning to relax a muscle rather than strengthen it?
▶️ WATCH THE FULL CONVERSATION with Jana Danielson to explore the overlooked connections between pelvic floor health, sexual wellness, injury recovery, movement, and human performance.
🔔 SUBSCRIBE to the Crackin' Backs Podcast for weekly conversations with leading voices in sports medicine, neuroscience, functional health, longevity, rehabilitation, and human performance.
💬 LET'S TALK: Were you ever taught how your pelvic floor affects your health, or did you think it was only something women needed to worry about?
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We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.
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Dr. Spencer Baron (00:01)
What if the problem with your erection, your leaking, your tight hips, or even the way you breathe isn't where you think it is? And what if the muscle group you've probably never trained is quietly affecting how you move or how you even perform or how you go to the bathroom, or even how you have sex? Jana, what are our bodies trying to tell us though through the pelvic floor that most of us are completely missing?
Jana Danielson (00:31)
So here's here's my here's my elevator pitch. These 14 muscles in three layers are responsible for peeing well, pooping well, having great sex, and just having an over like playing pickleball well, getting 20 extra yards off the tee, getting a deeper squat at the gym. These are the muscles that I promise no one has ever woken up and said.
It's pelvic floor day. It's you know, we it's back and chest day, it's leg day. No one's ever said, dang it, it's pelvic f I can't miss pelvic floor day today at the gym. No one has ever s uttered those words. And we are gonna talk about that and why that is today and why it's so important.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:10)
How many muscles did you say make up the pelvic floor?
Jana Danielson (01:13)
Four there's 14 muscles in three layers, slow twitch, fast twitch, right? So those those slow twitch muscles are like the marathoners. Just I'm standing here during this conversation. So my slow twitch pelvic floor muscles are working to support me. But if I were to laugh or cause or sneeze or sing as I like to do when I'm driving by myself or in the shower, those are the fast twitch muscles, the sprinters. So we have these marathoners and sprinters, and together we want them to work like a beautiful symphony orchestra. Except in most bodies,
They act like they are a grade five band at the Christmas concert, that the percussion isn't in line with the flutes and the clarinets are out of tune, and we just think it's aging, so we do nothing about it but start getting constipated, getting erectile dysfunction, getting up at you know in the middle of the night to pee incessantly.
Women wear pads and think that's a solution. Men take or erectile dysfunction drugs and think that's a solution. And we'll get into that. Those are strategies, a hundred percent. But if your roof was leaking, you would not lay towels down on the floor and be like, I fixed my roof and walk away.
Dr. Spencer Baron (02:22)
Gosh, can you imagine t me saying to my my weight training partner, Hey bro, we're working pelvic floor today. I mean it's just unheard of. The tan
Jana Danielson (02:28)
Yeah, yeah. We're working the taint today, guys.
Dr. Spencer Baron (02:34)
That's awesome. You know, Jenna, you've said that roughly ninety percent of pelvic floor dysfunction is a fitness issue rather than a medical issue. So that's a huge claim. What does that actually mean and w and and where does that number come from?
Jana Danielson (02:48)
Yeah. You know, so I was
My
background is in Pilates. I mean I was I was a corporate track girl. That's what I was gonna do, getting my MBA, gonna bust through some glass ceiling in said corporation. And then I had my own pain journey, eleven medications over four years, told by my doc that the pain was in my head, I was seeking attention, and and that's when I actually turned to Pilates and four months after my first Pilates class, I was off all my meds, no headaches, no joint pain, gut pain gone. And at twenty-one years old on those eleven medications, I was fully incontinent. So I peed
My pants every single day, going to business school. And so Pilates was my vehicle for healing. I was actually at a Pilates conference and I heard a Eurogynec, an American Eurogynecist, was presenting, Dr. Bruce Crawford. He was presenting his latest research in the mid-2000, like 2014-2015, and his latest research showed.
That 90% of pelvic floor dysfunction was a fitness issue, not a medical issue. And it was tied to this trifecta, these this this threesome essentially of poor breathing mechanics, poor posture.
And a lack of blood flow to these 14 muscles. So in that moment, I was like, wait, because I had my Pilates studio, I at that point I had my integrated health therapies clinic, and I had, you know, I had a team of Kairos, I had a team of osteopaths, naturopathic medicine docs, I had Reiki reflexology, I had pelvic floor PT, I had re you know, I'm gonna say regular PT, I had a team of 16 massage therapists, and I was like, wait, do you
You mean that yes I can send clients to my patients, but can do you mean that ninety percent of people
I and my Pilates staff could be helping in the studio. And then when they went to the clinic, those clinicians could actually have a different body every time on their treatment table to be able to go deeper into their healing. Like it was it was almost like heaven opened up. And so I started working with Dr. Crawford. I actually brought him up to my studio and clinic. He did some training with my staff. And
The pelvic floor became a very integral conversation to what we were teaching to those beating hearts that were walking through our studio and and clinic doors. And it was almost like I was paying homage to like now at almost 53, like that was 32 years ago that I was peeing my pants every day. I'm definitely not peeing my pants now. So th you know, it just the more work I did with it and worked with clients, it got weird. Like my clients would like not make eye contact.
With me, you could you could tell the energy shifted when we started talking about the pelvic floor in a class, and I was like, what is going on here? Like, no one does that when I talk about you know the shoulder complex or the glutes or the psoas, but I I mentioned pelvic floor, and all of a sudden there's this weird energy, and I wanted to find out why that was, and that's why I ended up creating the product and naming it what I did because I was like, I gotta, I'm gonna.
unmute
these men and women and we gotta unsubscribe from this belief system that we need to be silent about this or this is just about aging 'cause it's so much more than that.
Dr. Spencer Baron (06:10)
Well, I am definitely gonna bring up the fact that, you know, this is not just a woman's issue like it's always been thought of. So, you know, you talk about a guy with tight hips or low back pain or urinary dribbling, or his erections aren't what they used
Jana Danielson (06:21)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (06:23)
to be, he probably never thinks pelvic floor. So what is happening underneath the hood? And when should a man start paying attention?
Jana Danielson (06:32)
Well, I mean I think so th think about the I mean, men, women, like ch children have pelvic flora. So I mean, as a mom of three boys, one of my one of my boys as as toddlers, those boys, especially this one, was he was always too busy to poop. Always too busy to poop until he would come running to me crying and he would say that he had swords in his bum because he was so constipated. So those those constipated toddlers become the eight, nine, ten year old boys that are wetting the bed, become
the young adults that are in the gym not being able to get a full squat, not being able to
Get or sustain an erection. So what people don't realize is yes, there's 14 muscles, but there's 36 other muscles that connect into the pelvic floor, and the pelvic floor has teammates. So these muscles don't act on their own. The adductors are the inner thighs, the glutamids, and the deepest abdominal muscles, the transverse abs are all part of this complex. Then you have the fact that the pelvic floor is the core or the floor of our core. You know, we think about I gotta go, I gotta strengthen my core. So what do we do? We think of doing sit-ups and plants.
And things like that, but we have this canister. The pelvic floor is the bottom, the diaphragm is the roof, the the muscles of the abdominals are the cylinder that are the walls, and then the multifidae, like the little zippers, run up the back of the spine. So you have this beautiful canister. And
Like you mentioned, Dr. Spencer, it's not just, you know, erections and incontinence, it's chronically tight hips, it's low-grade back pain, it's cold tingly feet, it's sometimes it's even things like plantar fascitis and hammer toes, because once we get locked in our pelvic floor, our gait starts to change. There was a study out of Japan that looked at men men's gait, and they correlated shorter stride.
to hypertone in the pelvic floor to
Erectile dysfunction. So there is so many, there are so many connection points here that really, if you get, you know, as as men, if you get to the toilet, you're standing at a urinal and you get like the dribble, dribble, dribble, and then the long, strong flow of urine, and then more dribbles. That is an example of a classic hypertone or too much tension in the pelvic floor. You should be able to get in position.
Do
your little exhale, your pelv you know, your pelvic floor relaxes, you're you know, you're just breathing basically, and you should have a strong flow of urine right to the end. There shouldn't be those little post-urine dribbles.
And you shouldn't have to go pee again for two or three more hours versus 15 minutes, which happens to a lot of guys as they age because they're not fully emptying their bladder. There is, you know, the deep front line of fascia that starts at the big toe and goes up in through the inner thighs, the pelvis, the diaphragm, the tongue. I'm doing a lot of work now on my social media doing these tongue release exercises, and I'm getting, I was just answering DMs before I came on to this conversation, and I'm getting a lot.
of
like how is I can actually feel I can feel like
you know, my rectum relaxing or I can feel less tension holding, guarding. So once we start to help people connect all of these pieces of the body, it just gives them like it it kind of empowers them versus what we've been led to believe that, you know, as we age, okay, you might get erectile dysfunction. Your prostate might get enlarged. You, you know, you might you might have little drips on your underwear. Like that's just all normal, right? Because we just had another birthday candle on our birthday cake, but it's it's not normal. It's common.
And those are two different things, normal and common.
Dr. Spencer Baron (10:15)
Glad you mentioned that. So, you know, people are most familiar with the, you know, like you had mentioned, you know, core strength. Build your core strength.
Jana Danielson (10:22)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Spencer Baron (10:22)
You didn't mention Kegels, which is like the age-old conversation that people often comment on, you need to strengthen Kegels, you know, do Kegels exercise. But but you argue that sometimes the pelvic floor, what as you had mentioned, isn't weak. It can't let go. How does someone know whether they need more strength or less tension?
Jana Danielson (10:38)
Yeah.
So the latest research I saw was 70 to 90% of humans are hypertonic, which means tense. And tense does not mean strong. I want to I want to really delineate that. If you have a muscle that is too tight, like if the muscles of my hands, the fascia, the nerves in my hand were too tight, and I couldn't open my hand, and it was my friend's birthday, and I needed to sign her birthday card, how do I even hold on to the pen? I've got too much tension, hypertone. So that's what's actually happening in the
pelvic floor for most of us. Why is that happening?
Because we live in this world where our sympathetic nervous system, that fight-flight-freeze, tends to get jacked up really easily, and we don't even realize it, right? We can tell when we have tension in our neck, right? If our shoulders are jacked up, you've been driving on an icy road or you're, you know, working on a big project and you you you come away from your computer and you're like, my gosh, I got I need a massage, I need my acupunctures, I need to go for Cairo. I just feel like I need a little bit of a, you know, a a a realignment. But that same
Understanding or acknowledgement or awareness does not translate below the belly button to the pelvic floor. So we don't even realize that we're creating this perfect storm of more and more tension. And so here's what happens we cough, sneeze, laugh, pee a little bit. So our logical mind says, My pelvic floor is weak. Dang.
I
I gotta get back to doing my Kegels. But in over half of the population, you are adding more tension. You're not building strength. Because normally we're taught when you're doing a kegel, you want to hold and squeeze and think like you're stopping the flow of urine and starting the flow of urine. Well, that's just adding tension on top of an already tense group of muscles. And so if we use like an elevator in a hotel as a metaphor.
When the pelvic floor is at rest, that elevator is at the lobby. But for most people, their elevator stops at the first floor, maybe the second floor, but they don't realize that. Their brain thinks it's the lobby. So there's this big miscommunication, and we just keep getting more and more tense. So that's what Kegels do. They actually, in most cases, exacerbate.
That issue. So, what I believe we need more of is the release work, which you get through pelvic floor physical therapy. Of course, for a woman, that's either vaginally or rectally. For a man, that's rectally. And that's precisely why I saw a huge opportunity going back to Dr. Crawford's research. If 90% of this is a fitness issue.
God's green earth would we not create a fitness solution for that? And that's what I believe I did with the cooch ball to help people at home sit on the ball for three minutes a day, doing their diaphragmatic breathing, to start to melt through those fascial restrictions and get the blood flow, which is the muscles nutrition, to essentially
Wake the muscle back up. It's like CPR for your pelvic floor. So that's that's kind of how that snowball starts rolling downhill. And then I know we're gonna talk more about pleasure and intimacy, but did you know, and this is according to Dr. Sarah Reardon, so she's a pelvic floor physical therapist in her latest book called Floored, she shares in her book that in order to achieve an orgasm, the physicality of the pelvic floor needs to be.
Functioning so that it can work and relax. So contract and relax between two and thirty-two times in the duration of that orgasm. So imagine that. If we know physiologically, those muscles have to contract, relax, contract, relax, contract, relax for that sensation to occur, and we have hypertones, so we're holding on for dear life, the relax part of the orgasm is you're not going to experience that. So that's where people get very frustrated and they think, well,
Well, okay, I'm almost 53. Maybe I shouldn't orgasm like I did when I was 33. On the other hand, if they're lacking tone, truly hypotonic, getting up orgasm mountain is a challenge for those people. So, you know, when I talk about this in in general, it's in order to pee well, poop well, have sex well, and live well, you need to focus on your pelvic floor.
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:07)
questions have come out now. Let me ask you. I know Dr. Terry wanted to say something, but but you know, the especially, you know, I'm sixty-five and so several of my friends all talk about, you know, prostatitis or you know you know hyper herp pro benign prostatic hypertrophy, things like that and their you know the inability to pee so easily and all that. And they're often given the prescription flow max. So is that
meant to relax, is does FlowMax actually relax the muscles or to in order for them to be able to pee better?
Jana Danielson (15:46)
I don't know Flow tell what what is the active ingredient in FlowMax?
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:50)
I don't know, but it's very similar to Cialis. That's why they tell you not to take them t at the
same time.
Jana Danielson (15:55)
okay. Well, I mean, if it's regular testialis, then it it must be some sort of a vasodilator, right? That improves the the blood flow to you know to that area if it if it if it has a similar mechanism. So
Dr. Spencer Baron (16:09)
Yes, yes.
Jana Danielson (16:10)
again, I'm not familiar with that drug, but you know, from from a general erectile dysfunction
perspective is, you know, that's what those drugs are doing. They are, in most cases, have lab-made nitric oxide, which we know already is a molecule that our body produces on its own, right? So when we breathe diaformatically
In through our nose like we're smelling a fresh baked apple pie, and then out of our mouth like we're fogging up a mirror. The little cilia, the little hairs in our nose when we breathe that way, that triggers the production of the molecule of nitric oxide in our body, which is our body's own vasodilator. So we have the ability to create those, you know, the that.
Well, that that molecule in our body. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. We are very, we don't breathe like newborn babies do, where their bellies rise and fall. I mean, that's the purest form of breathing. And here's the thing: the pelvic floor is so influenced by the diaphragm that it literally takes cues on function from the diaphragm. So the pelvic floor is like the downstairs neighbor, looks up at the diaphragm, doesn't see the diaphragm moving. Because we're so brilliantly designed, we can transfer our breath from the diaphragm.
Is the main muscle of respiration up into the SCMs and the scalenes. Well, we know these little beef jerky muscles already have a job. They're holding our bowling ball on top of our spine. And if we're gonna be breathing 20 to 22,000 times a day, that's a lot of extra work for these little muscles. And I'm sure you guys see it in your practice, right? Like the chronic TMJ and headaches and the tech neck, all of that. So that plays into the diaphragm almost be given, it's almost like it's given a hall pass.
You
don't you don't we don't need you right now because we've got these backup generators doing the breathing. And then the pelvic floor gets the message like,
Diaphragms on a vacation, maybe I should also go on a vacation. So when the breath function switches from diaphragm as main muscle of respiration to the backup muscles in the neck, it's not if there will be some sort of pelvic floor dysfunction, it's a matter of when will the body start to experience some type of pelvic floor dysfunction. Like, isn't that wild to think that?
Dr. Spencer Baron (18:32)
Yeah, yeah. Very nice nice way you
Dr. Terry (18:34)
Incredible.
Dr. Spencer Baron (18:34)
put it all together and everything's dependent
Jana Danielson (18:36)
Thank you.
Dr. Spencer Baron (18:37)
on each. Go ahead, Dr. Terry, you were gonna ask.
Dr. Terry (18:39)
She she's never sh yeah, she well,
she's never said this stuff before, has she? Hey, all right, we talk we we did talk about you you started talking about blood flow and yeah, when people have painful sex and lack of libido
That all that's all blood flow. But I want you to add a twist to it 'cause a lot of people think about this is as we age. What happens t when it's i people in their twenties? You know, 'cause I don't want somebody to listen to this and they're twenty five, they're thirty and they're like, this conversation isn't for me. This is you know, when this is for my parents, my grandparents. 'Cause I'm sure 'cause it is for younger people, especially nowadays with kids sitting so much on computers so much and and not moving as much. So this all involved
blood flow, nerves, and muscle or function, how much is that contribute to the pelvic floor performance? And can you talk about that this isn't a older person disease?
Jana Danielson (19:35)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is so let me just use a little case study for you. I am working right now with a twenty-four year old D one college football player. And he reached out to me, he saw a video on my Instagram, DM'd me and just said
Explained, you know, and I I mean I've got boys that are 21, 23, and 25. So as soon as he like was like I'm a twenty you twenty-four-year-old D1 football player, my boys played college golf. I was so I I reached out to him and I'm like, let's get on a call. So this 24-year-old young man ham the
His athletic trainers and the docs that were working with his football team had suggested that he go on some sort of an antidepressant medication because they started to notice his mannerisms and just his zest for life really becoming impacted. But they didn't dig down as to the why. This wasn't simply a young man.
who was asking for help from a mental health perspective, his body wasn't wasn't working. And so what he shared with me
was
he has a lot of low back pain, a lot of tight, you know, tightness, chronic tightness in his hips, is getting to the point where he was having trouble putting on a pair of jeans because the pain through the scrotum, even just with the seam of his jeans against his scrotum, he was unable to just really manage wearing a pair of jeans. He was embarrassed because getting an erection and having intercourse with his girlfriend was becoming less or more and more of a challenge.
For him. he worked part-time as a bartender, so his feet became so achy, it was impacting his sleep. He wasn't eating like he should. Like this is a 24-year-old athlete, all right? And he said, I saw your video and I wonder, it was one of my videos on around men and pelvic floor, and he said, I just there was something about your video that made me wonder if that really is the root cause of what's going on in my body. Like, such, like so.
So intuitive for this young man who you might think, you know, maybe his ego would stop him from reaching out to me. And I said, I don't know. I have no idea, but I know
Working with me, it's not gonna hurt you. Let's see what adding in the cooch ball, adding in some of the the cooch ball has a little sister called the scooch ball. So I sent him the cooch ball, I sent him the schcooch ball. he had like a a wooden pencil, so immediately we started working on his feet, getting the pencil in between the toes to get that fascia released. He was working through the planter fascia with his with the schoch ball, sitting on the cooch ball for him. We work up to about three minutes. He started at about 15 seconds.
because the the the we call it the ouch factor was just through the roof and he couldn't even breathe diaphragmatically. So he started very slow. Like in the tortoise and the hair Aesops fable, he was absolutely the tortoise. And you know, so we hit we had a check-in after week one and he's like, okay, so I'm feeling a little bit of warmth in my feet that I haven't in a long time.
You know, I was able I when I got home from my shift from work, I didn't have the same ache in my feet, so I'll keep going. So he was very, very consistent with kind of with the with the movement protocol that I gave him. And
Gosh, that was about seven months ago, and I am like happy to report that he is like what he calls it back in the saddle. He is he's got really zero pain. when he does, he does his coochie ball work every day, and he can tell he's a little bit more.
Of an individual that's kind of tighter, he's wound a little tighter, right? Like he's just that kind of person. So he's now learned that his pelvic floor is almost like his litmus test or his barometer when he's getting, you know, if there's more stress on the field or more stress at school, he'll he'll notice the ouch factor elevate a bit. He's got a whole new meditation, you know, kind of strategy and habit that he does when he starts feeling a little bit more of the ouch factor because it's telling him that he is holding on. And, you know, his relationship, he's like
It hasn't been better. I can re really just on demand. And that was one of the things I said. I'm like,
Dr. Spencer Baron (24:05)
Ha ha
Jana Danielson (24:05)
you're gonna know this is starting to work when when you wake up with an erection. And it did take a while, but and it's funny, right? I get a text one morning, I woke up with an erection, he goes, right? So so you're right, Dr. Terry. I mean, this can very easily get positioned as
Older, you know, women in perimenopause and menopause, men that are in their fifties and sixties, seventies, eighties, but really it the pelvic floor does not discriminate between age, gender, nothing like that.
Dr. Terry (24:37)
Well I wanna add on to that because Spencer and I both work with a lot of athletes and we see these guys are strong glutes and and you know, six pack abs, you know. I'm still working on getting more than one ab. I have ab, you know, I'm trying to get my abs. I I
Jana Danielson (24:52)
You have a one pack?
Dr. Terry (24:54)
well thank for this I just have ab, you know, so
Jana Danielson (24:57)
Yeah.
Dr. Terry (24:58)
but you know, we're so you see these guys with the with the rip glutes and the and the strong back and abs.
What do you look for in how they move that will tell you, okay, they may be strong around the edges, but inside they're weak or too tight?
Jana Danielson (25:14)
Yeah.
So I mean the first thing I do, and like I said, two of my sons were college golfers, and so with with the athletes, what I look at first is I I just look at, you know, distract them a little bit, I'll look at their posture because most of them are loading their feet forward. So they're not in that what I call the 60-40, right? 60% of the weight on the calcaneus, that heel bone, 40% across the widest part of the foot, the metatarsals to create that tripod. The tripod is critical for the support above it of the pelvic floor, is that whole chain. So I'll look at how they're standing.
I'll actually look, I'll get them to walk around a little bit. I'll look at their stride. Because again, like I mentioned, as soon as I see a shorter stride, I'll
I'll that that'll give me some information. And then I pay attention to like joint range of motion. So, you know, as a Pilates person, I've got all these little tools, I've got, you know, little discs that I can put people on. And I look specifically internal rotation of the femur. When, you know, when that is when there's a ton of external rotation, and obviously they're not supposed to be equal, but when there is like when I can't even see if if we're looking at the face of a clock and they're not even getting to like 11 o'clock on an internal rotation.
That gives me another hint. I'll look at how their upper, like their upper head, like their upper body, their their neck, their head. I'll look and see what's happening through there. I watch how they breathe initially. So when I call I call them my goldfish, so when I see people bypassing the diaphragm and going into their neck, they're I imagine them like little goldfish using their gills to breathe. So again, because I'm not like I'm not a Cairo like the two.
Of you. I'm not a physical therapist. I don't diagnose. I don't prescribe. I just watch through movement and range of motion what I'm seeing. And I mean, gosh, you guys, for 12 years, I got to be the quarterback of a clinic and a studio with 60 clinicians. So I got to be in conversations and rooms that most Pilates instructors don't get to be in. And I was like a sponge learning from all of these amazing people. So that's what I do, you know. And then of course I would I would take them through like the basic five Pilates, you routine.
Rotation, lateral flexion, and then flexion extension, and put them into a bridge. Put a football player into a bridge and get them to execute a bridge in I'm gonna call what I'm gonna call a Pilates way where their toes aren't gripping, where their arms aren't pushing into the ground, truly accessing hamstring, calf, you know, back line, hamstring, calf, glute.
Like and as soon I just I just pray, I'm like, please let this be a cramper. I call them my crampers. And like within two or three reps, they're either grabbing their butt, their hamstring, their calf, or under their foot. And I know if something if a basic bridge has caused some sort of back line cramping, then I'm pretty and I would, right? I'd still, you know, I'd want to send to some sort of diagnostics.
With a pelvic floor physical therapist, if they're open to it. But if not, or it's not available in their area, or it's not financially accessible, I feel like, again, without prescribing or diagnosing, I can I have a pretty good sense of what's going on. And then I just start, you know, doing my thing with them. And they start, those things that I watched initially start improving.
Dr. Terry (28:32)
You know, you touched on it a little bit. I wanna go back, the foot. The foot is so important and most people don't think
Jana Danielson (28:39)
Hmm.
Dr. Terry (28:39)
below the knee for everything above the knee to work better. Can you connect the dots between the big toe and the pelvic floor?
Jana Danielson (28:47)
Yeah, yeah. So the deep front line of fascia starts at the big toe, right? It goes up through the arch, up through the inside of the shins, up through the inner thighs, in through the pelvic floor, up the diaphragm, like through the respiratory cavity, up through the throat and into the jaw and the tongue.
But then there's also its partner, the deep superficial back line, right? That's going to come from the toe diagonally across the foot to the outside, to the lateral malleolus, that ankle bone on the outside of the leg, up the outside of the shin, back across the back of the knee, up the up the hamstring, up the glute, and then up on either side of the spine, up the skull, and then it wraps, untucks underneath the sockets of the eyes. So now, so the imagine, like those are like the two pieces of bread in a sandwich.
And imagine if you know you you put the bread in the toaster and one one gets one side gets crinkled. Well, it's gonna impact what the other one does. And so
Setting the stage for that fascial system, fascia's not like muscle. I mean, most muscle, some muscles cross multiple joints, but most muscles start and end at a joint structure, right? So because fascia responds differently, and again, there's different layers, and of course, you know, in a map, it's even different between men and
that's why women, well that's why we as a gender tend to have more cellulite show up because of how our fascia is I guess designed compared to a man's fascia. So we have these fascia lines and they they aren't
They aren't exclusive. So if my fascia is tight near my glutes, it doesn't mean that I'm just going to feel it in my glutes. I can feel it anywhere along that chain and the back of the body or the front of the body. And that's what is that's what really is fascinating. Now, why the big toe is so critical is because in our gait, when we step forward, imagine stepping forward with your left foot, the big toe on the right side is responsible for about 40% of that force transference as we as we walk.
When the big toe stops functioning, it doesn't mean that we stop walking. It just means that the body starts, you know, you're borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. There's different parts of the body that start to really compensate for that. So that's that's the first piece with the big toe. The other piece is
And gosh, I learned this so long ago. I did some work with an osteopath from New Zealand. His name was Dr. Philip Beach, and I learned this from him. He would call shoes, he didn't call shoes shoes. He called them sensory deprivation chambers. That's how he referred to shoes. Right? So
Dr. Spencer Baron (31:39)
True story.
Dr. Terry (31:39)
I love that. Yeah.
Jana Danielson (31:43)
So this is what I learned from Dr. Beach: that our our foot has a bone rhythm, right? 26 bones, 33 joints, and the bone rhythm essentially, if you slowed gait down, would be heel, baby toe, big toe, heel, baby toe, big toe, right? I mean, that's that's how the foot is meant to function. And why the big toe is the last kind of in the bone rhythm is because that's the you know, the big toe is meant to propel you forward. So
When we come out of that 60-40, which I've talked about before, that, you know, that the gate or the not the gate, but the weight distribution through the feet, we become like these Olympic ski jumpers and we bring our weight forward into our toes. And remember, small bones are built for mobility. Big long bones, big solid bones are meant for stability. So now we're taking what that calcaneus, that big heel bone is meant to hold.
We're shifting our weight forward. And now all the little moving bones are getting a text message like, hey guys, we're gonna change your job. You're not gonna be movers anymore, you're actually gonna be holders, and they're like, Well, okay, but I don't know if I've got the right characteristics for this. No, trust us, you're good. So then we now have this weight distribution that's forward. If you look at us from the side, we no longer are in that beautiful plum line and the pelvic floor is like, it's like hung out to dry. It doesn't have the support.
Of the skeletal system around it to hold it where it should be. So it's kind of hanging on for dear life. What happens at that point is our calves turn on, and that's what again, we know that a lot of plantar fasciitis is the gastroc and the soleus of the calf, the imbalance, the gastroc is way too strong, too tight, not strong, too tight, and the soleus is weak, which then pulls on the Achilles tendon, which pulls on the plantar fascia. And now you have, there you go.
and then you think, well, my mom had plantar fasciitis. Of course I'm gonna get it. It's genetic, right? I go back and forth with people all the time about plantar fascia and bunions, right? And I'm like, this is a hill to die on for me people, because I follow my mom's patterns and habits, but there's not a gene in my body. Yeah, there might be some genetics around, you know, elasticity of our tendons and ligaments for sure.
I'll buy that. But just because you know Auntie Sue and Grandpa John had plantar fascitis or bunions doesn't mean that it is co encoded in your DNA that you're also going to have bunions. And so that's how the big toe plays such an integral amongst all these other systems and functions with the pelvic floor. The pelvic floor follows the health of our big toe. It really does.
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:37)
Wow. That was a brilliant explanation. D th d did you there several years ago there was a book that came out, Fascial Planes or Fascial Lines. You seem to almost describe how the fascia, you know, crosses and all the way up from the bottom to the top.
Jana Danielson (34:55)
I love the work of Thomas Myers and his
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:58)
That's him, yeah.
Jana Danielson (34:59)
yeah, yep. So I did a lot of and again remember you guys like I am not I didn't come through like you know kinesiology and physical therapy and so when my body was so broken and all of a sudden I realized movement was healing me, my curiosity just sparked. And so I learned all these things, first of all, for me, and then I mean I love my mom dearly, but my mom is like my barometer. Like if I can explain something to my
mom and she's like, that's interesting. Then I'm like, okay, I got it. I now understand it and now I feel like I can share it. So it's it's it's fabulous to be
A you know, a clinician of biomechanics and movement, but unless you make the information accessible to people, like this is an example. So when I still own my clinic in studio, people would come in for an a you know, like an initial kind of meet and greet with me. You know what? Here's what was so sad. Most of them would come in and they wouldn't, before they told me their names, they would be like, Hi, I have a bulge at L4, L5, and I'm like, my god, you don't probably even know what that is, and you've become
That bulge, like they're just using the words that someone told them. And I'm like, hi, and I'm Jana. And what's your name? And let's figure this out, right? We want to stop people from believing that they become their diagnosis. And
That there usually is a way out. We were we weren't born with replacement parts, right? We were th the th this was meant to last us till our last breath. So let's let's figure this out, right?
Dr. Spencer Baron (36:39)
I think it's absolutely criminal and I I want to make this really you know public. How patients come into us and probably go to you and say, no, I was told I have arthritis. What it like as if it's a death sentence or they have it for the rest of their life. Meanwhile they don't realize that there's only two arthritis that are, you know, for the most part irreversible, you know, rheumatoid and psoriatic, but you know, just change your diet, change your movement patterns, things like that. It's crazy.
Jana Danielson (37:07)
Yes.
Dr. Spencer Baron (37:08)
Did they tell they come to you
Jana Danielson (37:09)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (37:09)
with that? I I have arthritis. Right?
Jana Danielson (37:12)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Terry (37:13)
yeah.
Jana Danielson (37:14)
Yeah, and then then and then they would go on and tell me about their family tree and and why this was their destiny, right?
Dr. Spencer Baron (37:22)
Go ahead, Terry, sorry.
Dr. Terry (37:24)
No. I I mean people tend we were we just talked this with our other guests. People tend to love diagnoses and they put themselves in a box and then they just live in that box forever 'cause they that's just it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (37:35)
Yeah.
Were you gonna ask something else?
Dr. Terry (37:40)
So
no so when we talk about gait patterns, what are some until they can you know, what are some people that they're listening to this right now can start to do to kind of if they're like, that's me, that's me, that's me, what's some things that people can start to do to get their pelvic floor working a little bit better?
Jana Danielson (38:03)
grab a wooden pencil or a chopstick or a knitting needle needle needle, a little tiny, like I you you can get these at little little craft stores or even maybe at like a department store. It's just a little wooden dowel. Start working the fascia between your toes. That is a game changer for so many people. We hold so much tension there. My mom, I'll use my mom as an example. She had a hammer, like two hammer toes, and she
She's my mom's 74. And she's like, I just am so self-conscious. Like, you know, in the summertime, I don't want to wear my nice sandals because I look like I'm an eagle with like eagle, you know. And so over five months, my mom worked every day. And I know sometimes accessibility to toes is an issue for some people. so at that point, I would get them, like, you know, to use something on the bottom of their feet. But so she did this religiously. Have you guys ever done this between the toes? Okay.
Dr. Terry (39:00)
I I wear toy spreaders which
do a lot of stuff.
Jana Danielson (39:04)
Yeah, toast spreaders are great and I love toast spreaders and they're part of a strategy. Like they're great, they're more of a passive strategy, but when you get in here, I promise you, you will start sweating. You will i y it it usually is like a religious experience because
You will be shocked at how much tension there is, even getting your fingers between your toes. I do a lot of content on that. That is probably the biggest impact people can make on their gait is actually starting to work from the foundation, from the feet up. So my mom did this every day. About five months later, her hammer toes, she's like, My hammer toes are fixed. And she had a baker's sist behind her knee, and she's like, I don't know if this is related.
But I just realized my baker assist is gone. And I'm like, I don't know either, but the body is brilliant. So let's just be, you know, be grateful that that happened.
Dr. Terry (39:57)
All all by just t
taking this all by taking the stick and rubbing it between your toes.
Jana Danielson (40:05)
Yeah, like I mean, do you want me to change the angle of this so I can do a little demo? Or is that too much? Okay. Okay.
Dr. Terry (40:09)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (40:10)
Sure.
Jana Danielson (40:13)
Let me I'm at my kitchen table, so I don't want to really put my feet where I'm gonna be
Dr. Terry (40:14)
Let's see how flexible you are.
Jana Danielson (40:19)
eating in little bit. Okay, let me let me f okay, let me just get into this position. Okay, I wasn't planning on doing this, but
Okay.
I just want, I don't want okay, there. You guys can see my foot, okay? Okay,
Dr. Terry (40:35)
Yep, yep. Yep, yep.
Jana Danielson (40:38)
so here's the dowel. So I'm now on the inside of the big foot and I'm pressing against the dowel.
Actually, let me do this side so it's closer to the. So I'm on the inside of my second toe and I'm pushing the dowel against my toe. And I'm gonna start rolling down like see, sweet Jesus, like this is what I mean. It becomes a religious experience. So you start to roll. I'm just rolling literally in between my toe and then back up, down and up. I'll at the at the bottom of the toes, I'll do a little bit of a like a little seesaw, teeter-totter thing, and then I'll come up the inside of the big toe.
I'll do that like five or six times, and then I'll go and work between the second toe and the third toe. Down, down, down, in the middle, down, down. And you can go down and up. So I'll go through literally every single toe on both feet. And so you can spend a whole Netflix episode doing one foot if you wanted to. And like I okay, I hardly did that, you guys, and I am breaking a bead.
I feel
Dr. Terry (41:46)
Huh.
Jana Danielson (41:46)
I don't know what it's like what it's actually, maybe there's a technical term for it, but I feel like it is the holy grail. And I there's no scientific, trust, I there's I maybe we should do some sort of a a research study to see if someone, you know, the impact of rolling fascia between your toes and pelvic floor health and gait repatterning. but that's as simple as it is.
It's best if you can use something that's natural like woods. That's why a wooden pencil is better than like a jiffy marker. And then even getting your fingers in between your toes and like working those toes. There's like a snap crackle pop. Some people it'll take a while for them to be able to get their fingers all the way down. But that that opens up space. And as soon as there is space, there is healing, right? When space is taken away, that's when
Inflammation can happen. We know that inflammation is the precursor to disease. And I actually I'm gonna share this because I thought it was so profound. Doc I heard Dr. Zach Bush on a on a podcast, and he was right, yeah. And
Dr. Spencer Baron (42:55)
Brilliant. Brilliant guy. Jeez.
Jana Danielson (42:57)
so he was talking about this kind of like this linear number line that you know.
We don't just end up with dis disease or disease. Lots has gone on before said disease is diagnosed. So the precursor to disease is inflammation.
And
he said, but have you ever thought about what the precursor to inflammation is? Like what happens prior to inflammation? And in his brilliant words, he said, he believes that it's an absence of light. And we have like literally physical light, right? We have light inside our cellular structures. And when that light is dim and or lacking,
That's the recipe for inflammation. So in this podcast, he was talking about the basic things we know, right? Like morning sunlight within 20 to 30 minutes of waking, you know, that four o'clock afternoon sunlight, getting our feet on the grass, you know, not having our feet in those sensory deprivation chambers all day long, exposing ourselves to the light, really, and and people's good energy, right? You know, there's people that walk through a door and you're like,
Swipe and by because that is some nasty energy, right? We we need to protect ourselves because of that. So I would say that the feet really are the key to unlocking a lot of the pelvic floor dysfunction. And then if we were to look at the opposite end, it is what's going on here. with you know peep grinding our teeth, a lot of tension, like the TMJ, you know, the masseter, those gum-chewing muscles totally jacked up. And so the
The protocol that I have there is, and I just had my hands on my feet, so I'm not gonna grab my tongue. But it's simple, like I mean, grabbing a face cloth or grabbing a, you know, a paper towel and just gently holding your tongue, keeping your head centered, and then just gently drawing your tongue away from your body, and then doing small.
And you can stay three or four or five breaths. Your body is intuitive. It will know what it, you know, if you want to move like the face of a clock. But that's how I actually
Encourage people to think about or feel into improving their pelvic floor health. Start with your feet, focus on your tongue, and by virtue of that, those fascial lines will start to improve and your pelvic floor is gonna benefit simply from proper breathing, proper posture, and starting to remove some of the tension through the jaw.
Dr. Terry (45:45)
Basically you're just flossing
Dr. Spencer Baron (45:45)
I love it. I think that
Dr. Terry (45:46)
your feet. Right? Like flossing your teeth, you're flossing your feet.
Jana Danielson (45:48)
Yes, yes, that's exactly
what you're doing. That's a perfect way to ex yes, flossing your feet. Yeah.
Dr. Terry (45:55)
Sorry, Summens.
Dr. Spencer Baron (45:55)
Yeah, it was only
just over the last several years that
I realized that there your feet are have such a rich supply of nerves and proprioceptive fibers that, you know, allow you to know exactly what the ground feels like and different patterns and things that you don't have to look down and watch with every step you
Jana Danielson (46:15)
No.
Dr. Spencer Baron (46:15)
take. So feet are much more important and I even mentioned to a lot of chiropractors what would be the the most important area of the body if you had one adjustment to make
And they're just sitting there, well the neck, you know, the low back. You know, I go, No, the toe, the big toe. Your big toe is so important. And if you
Jana Danielson (46:33)
Mm, mm. I love that. Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (46:37)
think about, even at a the pro athlete level, you got, you know, your quarterbacks, they push off with their big toe. The pitchers, the major league baseball pit, they push off with their big toe, you know, and on and on and on.
So I think you know, I'd be rip remiss in in asking you, you know, with clarity, because you've gone over some really really cool and informative things, but someone listening right now has that has no diagnosis and doesn't even know whether their pelvic flora is working correctly or not. Give us just isolate three signs that their body may already be giving them a warning sign to.
And one thing that they can do tomorrow morning to test or improve it.
Jana Danielson (47:20)
So
the first thing is when you go to pee, how long is it taking you for the strong flow of urine to start? Because that should be fairly immediate. You know, you should sit down or be standing at a urinal, get in position, and a strong flow of urine should start. So if there's dribbles or if there is like
You know, the Jeopardy music playing and you're like waiting and waiting, that is a classic sign. Okay, constipation. We truly should be pooping after each of our big meals, not immediately after, but within two to three hours by the time our body digests, uses what it wants to, and then eliminates. So how many times a day are you pooping? Do you have to strain to poop? that is another classic sign that there is restr or constriction in the pelvic floor because it's holding on and
Pooping is an issue. And then I would say the next piece would be if somebody has, yeah, like cr chronic I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna say two things, but I'm gonna make it with like a comma and put them into the third one would be if you have any of those plantar fasciitis, bunions, hammer toes, anything going on with your feet or the tension in through the jaw, like my god, I you know.
I have headaches five out of seven days. Well, there's a good chance that there's a bunch of tension sitting here, which then will play through those fascial lines that we described earlier. So peeing, pooping, tension in the feet and jaw.
And what could they do? Breathe. That's the first thing.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:56)
Beautiful.
Jana Danielson (48:57)
That is the absolute first thing is learn how to breathe properly. When you're breathing diaphragmatically, so really quick instructions: you place one hand on the sternum, this flat bone here at the end of one hand on your belly button, you inhale through your nose like you're smelling a fresh baked apple pie. Your body fills the waistband of your pants on 360 degrees.
Then you exhale like your trunk is a soft bark tree. The belly button melts away from the hand and the waistband narrows on 360. So the inhale expands the waistband and the exhale melts the waistband. That is now in these moments, you guys, you're taking in 600% more oxygen. You are giving a hug to your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest. So I like to do my diaphragmatic breathing just before my before.
I eat. You know, I have a little moment, thank thankful for the food, breathe eight to ten times. Now I eat slower, I digest better.
A lot of times physiologically when we are yawning, that is our body saying, We are oxygen deprived, you are not breathing for us, I'm gonna make you open your mouth and take in big volumes of oxygen. And you're you know, it's like our in a in a vehicle when your low gas light comes on, low fuel. That's what's happening when we're yawning. So that is the number one thing you can do. And then it starts to wake up the pelvic floor.
Dr. Terry (50:29)
Brilliant. You know, you've mentioned your cooch ball. Let's talk about that for a second before we go on to our rapid fire.
Jana Danielson (50:34)
Mm. Yeah.
Dr. Terry (50:36)
You know, I've had you were graciously to send me one and when i and when I put myself and then and one of my patients on it
the the female patient immediately goes, I can't send this. It's too painful. So talk to talk to us, you
know,
Jana Danielson (50:53)
Yeah.
Dr. Terry (50:53)
all it is is like this little ball. What are we doing with it? What's the purpose on it? Yep. Go ahead.
Jana Danielson (50:58)
Yeah.
Dr. Terry (50:59)
And and and tell us how to how to use it and and why it was painful.
Jana Danielson (51:05)
Okay, so what I did with this actually, it was when I created it, it was it was like the three bears in the porridge. I tested all the sports balls out there. They were, most of them were too hot. They were too hard. The sympathetic nervous system was guarding, holding, protecting. Then I tried Pilates balls and yoga balls, which were too like meh and really didn't interact with the fascia, creating that release so the blood flow could come in. So what you don't see in the cooch ball is the third layer that goes underneath the blue outer coating and above the bladder of the ball.
We found some really cool nylon thread. When we wrap the bladder of the ball and put the outer coating on it, it creates a different experience for the body. Optimally, you want to have a little bit of squish. Do you guys see that? A little bit of squish to the ball. So it's not, it's not unsafe if you completely fill it, but if you completely fill it, I know that you haven't watched the instruction videos because I say that in the instructions. But here's what gives you, here's what is the this is the invitation to your nervous system. So a little bit of squish.
Basically, you're sitting on a chair on the floor. For many clients, they'll start on their couch or on their bed because of the ouch factor, Dr. Terry, that your clients are experiencing, your patients. Sometimes I'll get women and men to put a folded hand towel on top. Your breath is your guide. That's the only rule with this. I'll have men and women get on it, and I'll see them like kind of shimmying around, and I'm like.
Guys, this is not a lazy boy recliner. We're not looking for comfort here, okay? And that's what they're looking for. Their b their brain is searching for comfort. I don't think I'm using it right, Jana, because I it it it's it's uncomfortable. Yeah, yes. The more your pelvic floor is like a desert,
We want it to be a rainforest. The more desert it is, the higher the ouch factor is gonna be. So guess what that means? You've got a bigger opportunity for healing, a bigger opportunity for change and improvement. So they stay as long as their breath in their nose and out their mouth is calm.
As soon as the breath is erratic, or they're holding their breath or clenching their butt or their fists, they come off. So for some men and women, they're good for three minutes. That's that's what it is, three three minute practice every day. And you're basically sitting on it, so the pubic bones in front, the anus is behind, and the ischial tuberosities or the sit bones are like bookends on either side of the ball. So you're right on that perennial body. For men, they may have to lift the scrotum out of the way a little bit, but that's basically where you are. You almost can't get this wrong because of how.
The pelvic floor is situated. You can't be too far back because there still are muscles back there in and around the rectum. So you know you can be in slightly different positions and you're still going to be getting the benefit. So the weight of the body on the ball interacts with the nervous system through the breathing to create a situation where, if you're hypertonic, too tight, it's almost like a massage, it's melting through those fascial restrictions. But if you're truly hypotonic or lacking tone, the ball becomes bio.
Feedback and the brain now has something to really feel beneath it. So when you're exhaling, because the breath is important, right? Remember, I said the diaphragm and the pelvic floor are best friends. So they're doing they're moving in the same direction, but doing two different things. So when we're inhaling.
Right, the lungs are filling with air, the diaphragm has to duck and get out of the way, it contracts, it descends. Well, the pelvic floor sees that, and the pelvic floor is also descending, but it's expanding. So they're both lowering. The diaphragm is contracting and descending, the pelvic floor is expanding and descending, and that's where we are peeing and pooping when our pelvic floor is at rest. When we exhale,
The lungs empty, the diaphragm ascends and expands, like that mushroom cap or open umbrella. The pelvic floor ascends, but it's in its contracted state. So that's where moms are picking up their baby in the bucket seat. That's where we're grabbing the rubber made with Christmas decorations. That's when we're doing our deadlift at the gym on the exhale because the pelvic floor is lifting and working. We want to create that.
that that system, we want to create a new neurological pattern in the brain to understand what the pelvic floor is doing at the different phases of breath. And that's what we start to train. So the protocol is the first thirty days, three minutes a day, we call it the release phase. Then once we get into month two
In the guided videos, there's the cooch ball method exercises. There's 13 exercises. There's like a modified lunge, a modified squat, butterfly, bridge, that have been shown to be like, did you guys know? And this is from Dr. Crawford's research, a bridge executed properly is 56% more impactful than a Kegel is in working the pelvic floor and the co-recruiters. So in month two, we start adding three times a week. Three of those 13 exercises that take about seven minutes.
Minutes to execute because we're now in the rebuild phase. And this is like a lifestyle tool. I'll have men and women say, How for how long do have to do this? And I'm like, Ever. Like, do you brush your teeth once a week and think you have good oral hygiene? No. And and don't even get me started. We have 1440 minutes of day, three minutes, you deserve three minutes for these muscles that impact so much above and so much below. And
So that that's the basic protocol and how it works.
Dr. Spencer Baron (56:42)
I am so impressed. That was absolut i it was brilliant. The idea is brilliant, it's a great tool. And I really I'm
Jana Danielson (56:48)
Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. Spencer Baron (56:50)
I'm very impressed with how you came up with that. We are going to our rapid fire questions right now with the limited time we have. I know y I
Jana Danielson (56:56)
I'm ready. I'm kinda nervous.
Dr. Spencer Baron (56:59)
I well you should be, because it's all about you. No, no.
Jana Danielson (57:01)
Ha ha
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:05)
And the and the the most brief answer you could provide would be best.
Jana Danielson (57:09)
Got it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:10)
All right, Jenna, if you're ready for question number one out of five, here we go.
Jana Danielson (57:12)
I'm ready. Yep.
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:15)
Jenna, you grew up a farm girl in Saskatchewan. What's one farm girl habit you still have that would surprise us?
Jana Danielson (57:26)
I love weather, so as soon as I know if there's gonna be a storm coming, I am out there on the steps waiting to experience Mother Nature.
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:35)
Very nice. Well, we got a hurricane coming, so very nice. Okay. Question number two. Yeah. All right.
Dr. Terry (57:39)
Hey, we got hey, we got one coming here. Cal California yeah, we're
yeah, California's got one coming.
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:47)
Question number two, your mom, wife, entrepreneur, and perpetual teacher, which version of Janna would your family say is the most difficult to live with?
Jana Danielson (57:58)
I'm also a Capricorn, which means I am very much like a goat in set in my ways. So I would say of those.
I would like to say that my kids would say the mom, but then I would also they would also follow up by saying they hit the jackpot and they're so grateful for that.
Dr. Spencer Baron (58:20)
That's nice. that was good. Good. Question number three, Jen. When you are alone and nobody is around, what is one song you like to rock out to at full volume?
Jana Danielson (58:36)
Pour some sugar on me by Def Leppard.
Dr. Spencer Baron (58:42)
Yes, that's a stripper song. Very nice. Okay.
Jana Danielson (58:43)
Which I thought was actually and I thought was sugar
Dr. Terry (58:44)
Ha ha ha.
Jana Danielson (58:46)
until I learned it was cocaine. I'm like, my God, it's not real sugar, like it's not icing sugar. It's about cocaine.
Dr. Terry (58:52)
Uhhuh.
Dr. Spencer Baron (58:53)
Wait, I didn't know that.
Dr. Terry (58:54)
Yeah. You
you didn't know that?
Jana Danielson (58:55)
Yes. Well there.
Dr. Spencer Baron (58:57)
No idea.
And I'm in South Florida. You know, the 80s were like the cocaine
Dr. Terry (59:00)
Ha ha ha.
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:01)
capital of the world. Okay. Well, I'm I my god, that's hilarious. I didn't know. All
Dr. Terry (59:05)
Ha ha ha.
Jana Danielson (59:05)
Ha ha ha
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:08)
right. Question I don't even want to go to the next question. All right. Question number four.
Dr. Terry (59:11)
Ha ha ha.
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:13)
What are you ridiculously competitive about that you probably shouldn't be? R what? Your teeth?
Jana Danielson (59:19)
My teeth. My teeth.
So when our family goes to the dentist, I am like,
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:24)
Yeah.
Jana Danielson (59:25)
How many cavities do you guys have? What do you need to like what what was your so I v I very much value my teeth and I love being like my husband and I are very competitive around our teeth. To the point where I'll say to I'll say to the dentist,
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:37)
Really?
Dr. Terry (59:37)
I've never heard that.
Jana Danielson (59:39)
like, I'll say like if there's even
Like a cavity needs to be like a big frickin' whole cavity. If it's not like that, it does not count. And do not tell Jason about it.
Dr. Terry (59:50)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:54)
my gosh. All right. So we went from big toe to teeth. Very good. All right.
Dr. Terry (59:57)
The things we learn.
Jana Danielson (59:58)
Yeah. And
the l and we s we we made a we made a we made a little pit stop on cocaine too, don't forget that.
Dr. Spencer Baron (1:00:04)
Yeah, and cocaine too.
Dr. Terry (1:00:04)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (1:00:07)
Two completely different ends of the body. All right. Last question, Jana. Question number five. You went from a 21-year-old who was hurting, scared, and taking 11 medications to build a career around helping p other people understand their bodies. If that 21-year-old Janna were still sitting across from you right now, what would you tell her that you wish somebody had told you back then?
Jana Danielson (1:00:35)
That, my gosh, and this I don't want to cry during this one. that there is a bigger plan for us. And in the middle of what was what felt to me like the darkest time of my life, I was newly engaged. I didn't know if I should marry.
my then high school sweetheart, who is now my husband of 30 years. I didn't know if I'd ever be a mom. I came from an entrepreneurial family. I didn't know if I'd ever own my own business. And so I just want to tell her that it is because of her of who I it's because of her that I am who I am today. And thank you for taking that backpack of pain for four years and carrying it valiantly because it was all worth it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (1:01:26)
Wow, that is cool. Jenna, thank you so much for being on the show today. That was really enlightening.
Jana Danielson (1:01:33)
You're welcome. This
was so fun. This was so fun.
Dr. Spencer Baron (1:01:36)
It was, really.
What if the problem with your erection, your leaking, your tight hips, or even the way you breathe isn't where you think it is? And what if the muscle group you've probably never trained is quietly affecting how you move or how you even perform or how you go to the bathroom, or even how you have sex? Jana, what are our bodies trying to tell us though through the pelvic floor that most of us are completely missing?
Jana Danielson (00:31)
So here's here's my here's my elevator pitch. These 14 muscles in three layers are responsible for peeing well, pooping well, having great sex, and just having an over like playing pickleball well, getting 20 extra yards off the tee, getting a deeper squat at the gym. These are the muscles that I promise no one has ever woken up and said.
It's pelvic floor day. It's you know, we it's back and chest day, it's leg day. No one's ever said, dang it, it's pelvic f I can't miss pelvic floor day today at the gym. No one has ever s uttered those words. And we are gonna talk about that and why that is today and why it's so important.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:10)
How many muscles did you say make up the pelvic floor?
Jana Danielson (01:13)
Four there's 14 muscles in three layers, slow twitch, fast twitch, right? So those those slow twitch muscles are like the marathoners. Just I'm standing here during this conversation. So my slow twitch pelvic floor muscles are working to support me. But if I were to laugh or cause or sneeze or sing as I like to do when I'm driving by myself or in the shower, those are the fast twitch muscles, the sprinters. So we have these marathoners and sprinters, and together we want them to work like a beautiful symphony orchestra. Except in most bodies,
They act like they are a grade five band at the Christmas concert, that the percussion isn't in line with the flutes and the clarinets are out of tune, and we just think it's aging, so we do nothing about it but start getting constipated, getting erectile dysfunction, getting up at you know in the middle of the night to pee incessantly.
Women wear pads and think that's a solution. Men take or erectile dysfunction drugs and think that's a solution. And we'll get into that. Those are strategies, a hundred percent. But if your roof was leaking, you would not lay towels down on the floor and be like, I fixed my roof and walk away.
Dr. Spencer Baron (02:22)
Gosh, can you imagine t me saying to my my weight training partner, Hey bro, we're working pelvic floor today. I mean it's just unheard of. The tan
Jana Danielson (02:28)
Yeah, yeah. We're working the taint today, guys.
Dr. Spencer Baron (02:34)
That's awesome. You know, Jenna, you've said that roughly ninety percent of pelvic floor dysfunction is a fitness issue rather than a medical issue. So that's a huge claim. What does that actually mean and w and and where does that number come from?
Jana Danielson (02:48)
Yeah. You know, so I was
My
background is in Pilates. I mean I was I was a corporate track girl. That's what I was gonna do, getting my MBA, gonna bust through some glass ceiling in said corporation. And then I had my own pain journey, eleven medications over four years, told by my doc that the pain was in my head, I was seeking attention, and and that's when I actually turned to Pilates and four months after my first Pilates class, I was off all my meds, no headaches, no joint pain, gut pain gone. And at twenty-one years old on those eleven medications, I was fully incontinent. So I peed
My pants every single day, going to business school. And so Pilates was my vehicle for healing. I was actually at a Pilates conference and I heard a Eurogynec, an American Eurogynecist, was presenting, Dr. Bruce Crawford. He was presenting his latest research in the mid-2000, like 2014-2015, and his latest research showed.
That 90% of pelvic floor dysfunction was a fitness issue, not a medical issue. And it was tied to this trifecta, these this this threesome essentially of poor breathing mechanics, poor posture.
And a lack of blood flow to these 14 muscles. So in that moment, I was like, wait, because I had my Pilates studio, I at that point I had my integrated health therapies clinic, and I had, you know, I had a team of Kairos, I had a team of osteopaths, naturopathic medicine docs, I had Reiki reflexology, I had pelvic floor PT, I had re you know, I'm gonna say regular PT, I had a team of 16 massage therapists, and I was like, wait, do you
You mean that yes I can send clients to my patients, but can do you mean that ninety percent of people
I and my Pilates staff could be helping in the studio. And then when they went to the clinic, those clinicians could actually have a different body every time on their treatment table to be able to go deeper into their healing. Like it was it was almost like heaven opened up. And so I started working with Dr. Crawford. I actually brought him up to my studio and clinic. He did some training with my staff. And
The pelvic floor became a very integral conversation to what we were teaching to those beating hearts that were walking through our studio and and clinic doors. And it was almost like I was paying homage to like now at almost 53, like that was 32 years ago that I was peeing my pants every day. I'm definitely not peeing my pants now. So th you know, it just the more work I did with it and worked with clients, it got weird. Like my clients would like not make eye contact.
With me, you could you could tell the energy shifted when we started talking about the pelvic floor in a class, and I was like, what is going on here? Like, no one does that when I talk about you know the shoulder complex or the glutes or the psoas, but I I mentioned pelvic floor, and all of a sudden there's this weird energy, and I wanted to find out why that was, and that's why I ended up creating the product and naming it what I did because I was like, I gotta, I'm gonna.
unmute
these men and women and we gotta unsubscribe from this belief system that we need to be silent about this or this is just about aging 'cause it's so much more than that.
Dr. Spencer Baron (06:10)
Well, I am definitely gonna bring up the fact that, you know, this is not just a woman's issue like it's always been thought of. So, you know, you talk about a guy with tight hips or low back pain or urinary dribbling, or his erections aren't what they used
Jana Danielson (06:21)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (06:23)
to be, he probably never thinks pelvic floor. So what is happening underneath the hood? And when should a man start paying attention?
Jana Danielson (06:32)
Well, I mean I think so th think about the I mean, men, women, like ch children have pelvic flora. So I mean, as a mom of three boys, one of my one of my boys as as toddlers, those boys, especially this one, was he was always too busy to poop. Always too busy to poop until he would come running to me crying and he would say that he had swords in his bum because he was so constipated. So those those constipated toddlers become the eight, nine, ten year old boys that are wetting the bed, become
the young adults that are in the gym not being able to get a full squat, not being able to
Get or sustain an erection. So what people don't realize is yes, there's 14 muscles, but there's 36 other muscles that connect into the pelvic floor, and the pelvic floor has teammates. So these muscles don't act on their own. The adductors are the inner thighs, the glutamids, and the deepest abdominal muscles, the transverse abs are all part of this complex. Then you have the fact that the pelvic floor is the core or the floor of our core. You know, we think about I gotta go, I gotta strengthen my core. So what do we do? We think of doing sit-ups and plants.
And things like that, but we have this canister. The pelvic floor is the bottom, the diaphragm is the roof, the the muscles of the abdominals are the cylinder that are the walls, and then the multifidae, like the little zippers, run up the back of the spine. So you have this beautiful canister. And
Like you mentioned, Dr. Spencer, it's not just, you know, erections and incontinence, it's chronically tight hips, it's low-grade back pain, it's cold tingly feet, it's sometimes it's even things like plantar fascitis and hammer toes, because once we get locked in our pelvic floor, our gait starts to change. There was a study out of Japan that looked at men men's gait, and they correlated shorter stride.
to hypertone in the pelvic floor to
Erectile dysfunction. So there is so many, there are so many connection points here that really, if you get, you know, as as men, if you get to the toilet, you're standing at a urinal and you get like the dribble, dribble, dribble, and then the long, strong flow of urine, and then more dribbles. That is an example of a classic hypertone or too much tension in the pelvic floor. You should be able to get in position.
Do
your little exhale, your pelv you know, your pelvic floor relaxes, you're you know, you're just breathing basically, and you should have a strong flow of urine right to the end. There shouldn't be those little post-urine dribbles.
And you shouldn't have to go pee again for two or three more hours versus 15 minutes, which happens to a lot of guys as they age because they're not fully emptying their bladder. There is, you know, the deep front line of fascia that starts at the big toe and goes up in through the inner thighs, the pelvis, the diaphragm, the tongue. I'm doing a lot of work now on my social media doing these tongue release exercises, and I'm getting, I was just answering DMs before I came on to this conversation, and I'm getting a lot.
of
like how is I can actually feel I can feel like
you know, my rectum relaxing or I can feel less tension holding, guarding. So once we start to help people connect all of these pieces of the body, it just gives them like it it kind of empowers them versus what we've been led to believe that, you know, as we age, okay, you might get erectile dysfunction. Your prostate might get enlarged. You, you know, you might you might have little drips on your underwear. Like that's just all normal, right? Because we just had another birthday candle on our birthday cake, but it's it's not normal. It's common.
And those are two different things, normal and common.
Dr. Spencer Baron (10:15)
Glad you mentioned that. So, you know, people are most familiar with the, you know, like you had mentioned, you know, core strength. Build your core strength.
Jana Danielson (10:22)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Spencer Baron (10:22)
You didn't mention Kegels, which is like the age-old conversation that people often comment on, you need to strengthen Kegels, you know, do Kegels exercise. But but you argue that sometimes the pelvic floor, what as you had mentioned, isn't weak. It can't let go. How does someone know whether they need more strength or less tension?
Jana Danielson (10:38)
Yeah.
So the latest research I saw was 70 to 90% of humans are hypertonic, which means tense. And tense does not mean strong. I want to I want to really delineate that. If you have a muscle that is too tight, like if the muscles of my hands, the fascia, the nerves in my hand were too tight, and I couldn't open my hand, and it was my friend's birthday, and I needed to sign her birthday card, how do I even hold on to the pen? I've got too much tension, hypertone. So that's what's actually happening in the
pelvic floor for most of us. Why is that happening?
Because we live in this world where our sympathetic nervous system, that fight-flight-freeze, tends to get jacked up really easily, and we don't even realize it, right? We can tell when we have tension in our neck, right? If our shoulders are jacked up, you've been driving on an icy road or you're, you know, working on a big project and you you you come away from your computer and you're like, my gosh, I got I need a massage, I need my acupunctures, I need to go for Cairo. I just feel like I need a little bit of a, you know, a a a realignment. But that same
Understanding or acknowledgement or awareness does not translate below the belly button to the pelvic floor. So we don't even realize that we're creating this perfect storm of more and more tension. And so here's what happens we cough, sneeze, laugh, pee a little bit. So our logical mind says, My pelvic floor is weak. Dang.
I
I gotta get back to doing my Kegels. But in over half of the population, you are adding more tension. You're not building strength. Because normally we're taught when you're doing a kegel, you want to hold and squeeze and think like you're stopping the flow of urine and starting the flow of urine. Well, that's just adding tension on top of an already tense group of muscles. And so if we use like an elevator in a hotel as a metaphor.
When the pelvic floor is at rest, that elevator is at the lobby. But for most people, their elevator stops at the first floor, maybe the second floor, but they don't realize that. Their brain thinks it's the lobby. So there's this big miscommunication, and we just keep getting more and more tense. So that's what Kegels do. They actually, in most cases, exacerbate.
That issue. So, what I believe we need more of is the release work, which you get through pelvic floor physical therapy. Of course, for a woman, that's either vaginally or rectally. For a man, that's rectally. And that's precisely why I saw a huge opportunity going back to Dr. Crawford's research. If 90% of this is a fitness issue.
God's green earth would we not create a fitness solution for that? And that's what I believe I did with the cooch ball to help people at home sit on the ball for three minutes a day, doing their diaphragmatic breathing, to start to melt through those fascial restrictions and get the blood flow, which is the muscles nutrition, to essentially
Wake the muscle back up. It's like CPR for your pelvic floor. So that's that's kind of how that snowball starts rolling downhill. And then I know we're gonna talk more about pleasure and intimacy, but did you know, and this is according to Dr. Sarah Reardon, so she's a pelvic floor physical therapist in her latest book called Floored, she shares in her book that in order to achieve an orgasm, the physicality of the pelvic floor needs to be.
Functioning so that it can work and relax. So contract and relax between two and thirty-two times in the duration of that orgasm. So imagine that. If we know physiologically, those muscles have to contract, relax, contract, relax, contract, relax for that sensation to occur, and we have hypertones, so we're holding on for dear life, the relax part of the orgasm is you're not going to experience that. So that's where people get very frustrated and they think, well,
Well, okay, I'm almost 53. Maybe I shouldn't orgasm like I did when I was 33. On the other hand, if they're lacking tone, truly hypotonic, getting up orgasm mountain is a challenge for those people. So, you know, when I talk about this in in general, it's in order to pee well, poop well, have sex well, and live well, you need to focus on your pelvic floor.
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:07)
questions have come out now. Let me ask you. I know Dr. Terry wanted to say something, but but you know, the especially, you know, I'm sixty-five and so several of my friends all talk about, you know, prostatitis or you know you know hyper herp pro benign prostatic hypertrophy, things like that and their you know the inability to pee so easily and all that. And they're often given the prescription flow max. So is that
meant to relax, is does FlowMax actually relax the muscles or to in order for them to be able to pee better?
Jana Danielson (15:46)
I don't know Flow tell what what is the active ingredient in FlowMax?
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:50)
I don't know, but it's very similar to Cialis. That's why they tell you not to take them t at the
same time.
Jana Danielson (15:55)
okay. Well, I mean, if it's regular testialis, then it it must be some sort of a vasodilator, right? That improves the the blood flow to you know to that area if it if it if it has a similar mechanism. So
Dr. Spencer Baron (16:09)
Yes, yes.
Jana Danielson (16:10)
again, I'm not familiar with that drug, but you know, from from a general erectile dysfunction
perspective is, you know, that's what those drugs are doing. They are, in most cases, have lab-made nitric oxide, which we know already is a molecule that our body produces on its own, right? So when we breathe diaformatically
In through our nose like we're smelling a fresh baked apple pie, and then out of our mouth like we're fogging up a mirror. The little cilia, the little hairs in our nose when we breathe that way, that triggers the production of the molecule of nitric oxide in our body, which is our body's own vasodilator. So we have the ability to create those, you know, the that.
Well, that that molecule in our body. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. We are very, we don't breathe like newborn babies do, where their bellies rise and fall. I mean, that's the purest form of breathing. And here's the thing: the pelvic floor is so influenced by the diaphragm that it literally takes cues on function from the diaphragm. So the pelvic floor is like the downstairs neighbor, looks up at the diaphragm, doesn't see the diaphragm moving. Because we're so brilliantly designed, we can transfer our breath from the diaphragm.
Is the main muscle of respiration up into the SCMs and the scalenes. Well, we know these little beef jerky muscles already have a job. They're holding our bowling ball on top of our spine. And if we're gonna be breathing 20 to 22,000 times a day, that's a lot of extra work for these little muscles. And I'm sure you guys see it in your practice, right? Like the chronic TMJ and headaches and the tech neck, all of that. So that plays into the diaphragm almost be given, it's almost like it's given a hall pass.
You
don't you don't we don't need you right now because we've got these backup generators doing the breathing. And then the pelvic floor gets the message like,
Diaphragms on a vacation, maybe I should also go on a vacation. So when the breath function switches from diaphragm as main muscle of respiration to the backup muscles in the neck, it's not if there will be some sort of pelvic floor dysfunction, it's a matter of when will the body start to experience some type of pelvic floor dysfunction. Like, isn't that wild to think that?
Dr. Spencer Baron (18:32)
Yeah, yeah. Very nice nice way you
Dr. Terry (18:34)
Incredible.
Dr. Spencer Baron (18:34)
put it all together and everything's dependent
Jana Danielson (18:36)
Thank you.
Dr. Spencer Baron (18:37)
on each. Go ahead, Dr. Terry, you were gonna ask.
Dr. Terry (18:39)
She she's never sh yeah, she well,
she's never said this stuff before, has she? Hey, all right, we talk we we did talk about you you started talking about blood flow and yeah, when people have painful sex and lack of libido
That all that's all blood flow. But I want you to add a twist to it 'cause a lot of people think about this is as we age. What happens t when it's i people in their twenties? You know, 'cause I don't want somebody to listen to this and they're twenty five, they're thirty and they're like, this conversation isn't for me. This is you know, when this is for my parents, my grandparents. 'Cause I'm sure 'cause it is for younger people, especially nowadays with kids sitting so much on computers so much and and not moving as much. So this all involved
blood flow, nerves, and muscle or function, how much is that contribute to the pelvic floor performance? And can you talk about that this isn't a older person disease?
Jana Danielson (19:35)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is so let me just use a little case study for you. I am working right now with a twenty-four year old D one college football player. And he reached out to me, he saw a video on my Instagram, DM'd me and just said
Explained, you know, and I I mean I've got boys that are 21, 23, and 25. So as soon as he like was like I'm a twenty you twenty-four-year-old D1 football player, my boys played college golf. I was so I I reached out to him and I'm like, let's get on a call. So this 24-year-old young man ham the
His athletic trainers and the docs that were working with his football team had suggested that he go on some sort of an antidepressant medication because they started to notice his mannerisms and just his zest for life really becoming impacted. But they didn't dig down as to the why. This wasn't simply a young man.
who was asking for help from a mental health perspective, his body wasn't wasn't working. And so what he shared with me
was
he has a lot of low back pain, a lot of tight, you know, tightness, chronic tightness in his hips, is getting to the point where he was having trouble putting on a pair of jeans because the pain through the scrotum, even just with the seam of his jeans against his scrotum, he was unable to just really manage wearing a pair of jeans. He was embarrassed because getting an erection and having intercourse with his girlfriend was becoming less or more and more of a challenge.
For him. he worked part-time as a bartender, so his feet became so achy, it was impacting his sleep. He wasn't eating like he should. Like this is a 24-year-old athlete, all right? And he said, I saw your video and I wonder, it was one of my videos on around men and pelvic floor, and he said, I just there was something about your video that made me wonder if that really is the root cause of what's going on in my body. Like, such, like so.
So intuitive for this young man who you might think, you know, maybe his ego would stop him from reaching out to me. And I said, I don't know. I have no idea, but I know
Working with me, it's not gonna hurt you. Let's see what adding in the cooch ball, adding in some of the the cooch ball has a little sister called the scooch ball. So I sent him the cooch ball, I sent him the schcooch ball. he had like a a wooden pencil, so immediately we started working on his feet, getting the pencil in between the toes to get that fascia released. He was working through the planter fascia with his with the schoch ball, sitting on the cooch ball for him. We work up to about three minutes. He started at about 15 seconds.
because the the the we call it the ouch factor was just through the roof and he couldn't even breathe diaphragmatically. So he started very slow. Like in the tortoise and the hair Aesops fable, he was absolutely the tortoise. And you know, so we hit we had a check-in after week one and he's like, okay, so I'm feeling a little bit of warmth in my feet that I haven't in a long time.
You know, I was able I when I got home from my shift from work, I didn't have the same ache in my feet, so I'll keep going. So he was very, very consistent with kind of with the with the movement protocol that I gave him. And
Gosh, that was about seven months ago, and I am like happy to report that he is like what he calls it back in the saddle. He is he's got really zero pain. when he does, he does his coochie ball work every day, and he can tell he's a little bit more.
Of an individual that's kind of tighter, he's wound a little tighter, right? Like he's just that kind of person. So he's now learned that his pelvic floor is almost like his litmus test or his barometer when he's getting, you know, if there's more stress on the field or more stress at school, he'll he'll notice the ouch factor elevate a bit. He's got a whole new meditation, you know, kind of strategy and habit that he does when he starts feeling a little bit more of the ouch factor because it's telling him that he is holding on. And, you know, his relationship, he's like
It hasn't been better. I can re really just on demand. And that was one of the things I said. I'm like,
Dr. Spencer Baron (24:05)
Ha ha
Jana Danielson (24:05)
you're gonna know this is starting to work when when you wake up with an erection. And it did take a while, but and it's funny, right? I get a text one morning, I woke up with an erection, he goes, right? So so you're right, Dr. Terry. I mean, this can very easily get positioned as
Older, you know, women in perimenopause and menopause, men that are in their fifties and sixties, seventies, eighties, but really it the pelvic floor does not discriminate between age, gender, nothing like that.
Dr. Terry (24:37)
Well I wanna add on to that because Spencer and I both work with a lot of athletes and we see these guys are strong glutes and and you know, six pack abs, you know. I'm still working on getting more than one ab. I have ab, you know, I'm trying to get my abs. I I
Jana Danielson (24:52)
You have a one pack?
Dr. Terry (24:54)
well thank for this I just have ab, you know, so
Jana Danielson (24:57)
Yeah.
Dr. Terry (24:58)
but you know, we're so you see these guys with the with the rip glutes and the and the strong back and abs.
What do you look for in how they move that will tell you, okay, they may be strong around the edges, but inside they're weak or too tight?
Jana Danielson (25:14)
Yeah.
So I mean the first thing I do, and like I said, two of my sons were college golfers, and so with with the athletes, what I look at first is I I just look at, you know, distract them a little bit, I'll look at their posture because most of them are loading their feet forward. So they're not in that what I call the 60-40, right? 60% of the weight on the calcaneus, that heel bone, 40% across the widest part of the foot, the metatarsals to create that tripod. The tripod is critical for the support above it of the pelvic floor, is that whole chain. So I'll look at how they're standing.
I'll actually look, I'll get them to walk around a little bit. I'll look at their stride. Because again, like I mentioned, as soon as I see a shorter stride, I'll
I'll that that'll give me some information. And then I pay attention to like joint range of motion. So, you know, as a Pilates person, I've got all these little tools, I've got, you know, little discs that I can put people on. And I look specifically internal rotation of the femur. When, you know, when that is when there's a ton of external rotation, and obviously they're not supposed to be equal, but when there is like when I can't even see if if we're looking at the face of a clock and they're not even getting to like 11 o'clock on an internal rotation.
That gives me another hint. I'll look at how their upper, like their upper head, like their upper body, their their neck, their head. I'll look and see what's happening through there. I watch how they breathe initially. So when I call I call them my goldfish, so when I see people bypassing the diaphragm and going into their neck, they're I imagine them like little goldfish using their gills to breathe. So again, because I'm not like I'm not a Cairo like the two.
Of you. I'm not a physical therapist. I don't diagnose. I don't prescribe. I just watch through movement and range of motion what I'm seeing. And I mean, gosh, you guys, for 12 years, I got to be the quarterback of a clinic and a studio with 60 clinicians. So I got to be in conversations and rooms that most Pilates instructors don't get to be in. And I was like a sponge learning from all of these amazing people. So that's what I do, you know. And then of course I would I would take them through like the basic five Pilates, you routine.
Rotation, lateral flexion, and then flexion extension, and put them into a bridge. Put a football player into a bridge and get them to execute a bridge in I'm gonna call what I'm gonna call a Pilates way where their toes aren't gripping, where their arms aren't pushing into the ground, truly accessing hamstring, calf, you know, back line, hamstring, calf, glute.
Like and as soon I just I just pray, I'm like, please let this be a cramper. I call them my crampers. And like within two or three reps, they're either grabbing their butt, their hamstring, their calf, or under their foot. And I know if something if a basic bridge has caused some sort of back line cramping, then I'm pretty and I would, right? I'd still, you know, I'd want to send to some sort of diagnostics.
With a pelvic floor physical therapist, if they're open to it. But if not, or it's not available in their area, or it's not financially accessible, I feel like, again, without prescribing or diagnosing, I can I have a pretty good sense of what's going on. And then I just start, you know, doing my thing with them. And they start, those things that I watched initially start improving.
Dr. Terry (28:32)
You know, you touched on it a little bit. I wanna go back, the foot. The foot is so important and most people don't think
Jana Danielson (28:39)
Hmm.
Dr. Terry (28:39)
below the knee for everything above the knee to work better. Can you connect the dots between the big toe and the pelvic floor?
Jana Danielson (28:47)
Yeah, yeah. So the deep front line of fascia starts at the big toe, right? It goes up through the arch, up through the inside of the shins, up through the inner thighs, in through the pelvic floor, up the diaphragm, like through the respiratory cavity, up through the throat and into the jaw and the tongue.
But then there's also its partner, the deep superficial back line, right? That's going to come from the toe diagonally across the foot to the outside, to the lateral malleolus, that ankle bone on the outside of the leg, up the outside of the shin, back across the back of the knee, up the up the hamstring, up the glute, and then up on either side of the spine, up the skull, and then it wraps, untucks underneath the sockets of the eyes. So now, so the imagine, like those are like the two pieces of bread in a sandwich.
And imagine if you know you you put the bread in the toaster and one one gets one side gets crinkled. Well, it's gonna impact what the other one does. And so
Setting the stage for that fascial system, fascia's not like muscle. I mean, most muscle, some muscles cross multiple joints, but most muscles start and end at a joint structure, right? So because fascia responds differently, and again, there's different layers, and of course, you know, in a map, it's even different between men and
that's why women, well that's why we as a gender tend to have more cellulite show up because of how our fascia is I guess designed compared to a man's fascia. So we have these fascia lines and they they aren't
They aren't exclusive. So if my fascia is tight near my glutes, it doesn't mean that I'm just going to feel it in my glutes. I can feel it anywhere along that chain and the back of the body or the front of the body. And that's what is that's what really is fascinating. Now, why the big toe is so critical is because in our gait, when we step forward, imagine stepping forward with your left foot, the big toe on the right side is responsible for about 40% of that force transference as we as we walk.
When the big toe stops functioning, it doesn't mean that we stop walking. It just means that the body starts, you know, you're borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. There's different parts of the body that start to really compensate for that. So that's that's the first piece with the big toe. The other piece is
And gosh, I learned this so long ago. I did some work with an osteopath from New Zealand. His name was Dr. Philip Beach, and I learned this from him. He would call shoes, he didn't call shoes shoes. He called them sensory deprivation chambers. That's how he referred to shoes. Right? So
Dr. Spencer Baron (31:39)
True story.
Dr. Terry (31:39)
I love that. Yeah.
Jana Danielson (31:43)
So this is what I learned from Dr. Beach: that our our foot has a bone rhythm, right? 26 bones, 33 joints, and the bone rhythm essentially, if you slowed gait down, would be heel, baby toe, big toe, heel, baby toe, big toe, right? I mean, that's that's how the foot is meant to function. And why the big toe is the last kind of in the bone rhythm is because that's the you know, the big toe is meant to propel you forward. So
When we come out of that 60-40, which I've talked about before, that, you know, that the gate or the not the gate, but the weight distribution through the feet, we become like these Olympic ski jumpers and we bring our weight forward into our toes. And remember, small bones are built for mobility. Big long bones, big solid bones are meant for stability. So now we're taking what that calcaneus, that big heel bone is meant to hold.
We're shifting our weight forward. And now all the little moving bones are getting a text message like, hey guys, we're gonna change your job. You're not gonna be movers anymore, you're actually gonna be holders, and they're like, Well, okay, but I don't know if I've got the right characteristics for this. No, trust us, you're good. So then we now have this weight distribution that's forward. If you look at us from the side, we no longer are in that beautiful plum line and the pelvic floor is like, it's like hung out to dry. It doesn't have the support.
Of the skeletal system around it to hold it where it should be. So it's kind of hanging on for dear life. What happens at that point is our calves turn on, and that's what again, we know that a lot of plantar fasciitis is the gastroc and the soleus of the calf, the imbalance, the gastroc is way too strong, too tight, not strong, too tight, and the soleus is weak, which then pulls on the Achilles tendon, which pulls on the plantar fascia. And now you have, there you go.
and then you think, well, my mom had plantar fasciitis. Of course I'm gonna get it. It's genetic, right? I go back and forth with people all the time about plantar fascia and bunions, right? And I'm like, this is a hill to die on for me people, because I follow my mom's patterns and habits, but there's not a gene in my body. Yeah, there might be some genetics around, you know, elasticity of our tendons and ligaments for sure.
I'll buy that. But just because you know Auntie Sue and Grandpa John had plantar fascitis or bunions doesn't mean that it is co encoded in your DNA that you're also going to have bunions. And so that's how the big toe plays such an integral amongst all these other systems and functions with the pelvic floor. The pelvic floor follows the health of our big toe. It really does.
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:37)
Wow. That was a brilliant explanation. D th d did you there several years ago there was a book that came out, Fascial Planes or Fascial Lines. You seem to almost describe how the fascia, you know, crosses and all the way up from the bottom to the top.
Jana Danielson (34:55)
I love the work of Thomas Myers and his
Dr. Spencer Baron (34:58)
That's him, yeah.
Jana Danielson (34:59)
yeah, yep. So I did a lot of and again remember you guys like I am not I didn't come through like you know kinesiology and physical therapy and so when my body was so broken and all of a sudden I realized movement was healing me, my curiosity just sparked. And so I learned all these things, first of all, for me, and then I mean I love my mom dearly, but my mom is like my barometer. Like if I can explain something to my
mom and she's like, that's interesting. Then I'm like, okay, I got it. I now understand it and now I feel like I can share it. So it's it's it's fabulous to be
A you know, a clinician of biomechanics and movement, but unless you make the information accessible to people, like this is an example. So when I still own my clinic in studio, people would come in for an a you know, like an initial kind of meet and greet with me. You know what? Here's what was so sad. Most of them would come in and they wouldn't, before they told me their names, they would be like, Hi, I have a bulge at L4, L5, and I'm like, my god, you don't probably even know what that is, and you've become
That bulge, like they're just using the words that someone told them. And I'm like, hi, and I'm Jana. And what's your name? And let's figure this out, right? We want to stop people from believing that they become their diagnosis. And
That there usually is a way out. We were we weren't born with replacement parts, right? We were th the th this was meant to last us till our last breath. So let's let's figure this out, right?
Dr. Spencer Baron (36:39)
I think it's absolutely criminal and I I want to make this really you know public. How patients come into us and probably go to you and say, no, I was told I have arthritis. What it like as if it's a death sentence or they have it for the rest of their life. Meanwhile they don't realize that there's only two arthritis that are, you know, for the most part irreversible, you know, rheumatoid and psoriatic, but you know, just change your diet, change your movement patterns, things like that. It's crazy.
Jana Danielson (37:07)
Yes.
Dr. Spencer Baron (37:08)
Did they tell they come to you
Jana Danielson (37:09)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (37:09)
with that? I I have arthritis. Right?
Jana Danielson (37:12)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Terry (37:13)
yeah.
Jana Danielson (37:14)
Yeah, and then then and then they would go on and tell me about their family tree and and why this was their destiny, right?
Dr. Spencer Baron (37:22)
Go ahead, Terry, sorry.
Dr. Terry (37:24)
No. I I mean people tend we were we just talked this with our other guests. People tend to love diagnoses and they put themselves in a box and then they just live in that box forever 'cause they that's just it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (37:35)
Yeah.
Were you gonna ask something else?
Dr. Terry (37:40)
So
no so when we talk about gait patterns, what are some until they can you know, what are some people that they're listening to this right now can start to do to kind of if they're like, that's me, that's me, that's me, what's some things that people can start to do to get their pelvic floor working a little bit better?
Jana Danielson (38:03)
grab a wooden pencil or a chopstick or a knitting needle needle needle, a little tiny, like I you you can get these at little little craft stores or even maybe at like a department store. It's just a little wooden dowel. Start working the fascia between your toes. That is a game changer for so many people. We hold so much tension there. My mom, I'll use my mom as an example. She had a hammer, like two hammer toes, and she
She's my mom's 74. And she's like, I just am so self-conscious. Like, you know, in the summertime, I don't want to wear my nice sandals because I look like I'm an eagle with like eagle, you know. And so over five months, my mom worked every day. And I know sometimes accessibility to toes is an issue for some people. so at that point, I would get them, like, you know, to use something on the bottom of their feet. But so she did this religiously. Have you guys ever done this between the toes? Okay.
Dr. Terry (39:00)
I I wear toy spreaders which
do a lot of stuff.
Jana Danielson (39:04)
Yeah, toast spreaders are great and I love toast spreaders and they're part of a strategy. Like they're great, they're more of a passive strategy, but when you get in here, I promise you, you will start sweating. You will i y it it usually is like a religious experience because
You will be shocked at how much tension there is, even getting your fingers between your toes. I do a lot of content on that. That is probably the biggest impact people can make on their gait is actually starting to work from the foundation, from the feet up. So my mom did this every day. About five months later, her hammer toes, she's like, My hammer toes are fixed. And she had a baker's sist behind her knee, and she's like, I don't know if this is related.
But I just realized my baker assist is gone. And I'm like, I don't know either, but the body is brilliant. So let's just be, you know, be grateful that that happened.
Dr. Terry (39:57)
All all by just t
taking this all by taking the stick and rubbing it between your toes.
Jana Danielson (40:05)
Yeah, like I mean, do you want me to change the angle of this so I can do a little demo? Or is that too much? Okay. Okay.
Dr. Terry (40:09)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (40:10)
Sure.
Jana Danielson (40:13)
Let me I'm at my kitchen table, so I don't want to really put my feet where I'm gonna be
Dr. Terry (40:14)
Let's see how flexible you are.
Jana Danielson (40:19)
eating in little bit. Okay, let me let me f okay, let me just get into this position. Okay, I wasn't planning on doing this, but
Okay.
I just want, I don't want okay, there. You guys can see my foot, okay? Okay,
Dr. Terry (40:35)
Yep, yep. Yep, yep.
Jana Danielson (40:38)
so here's the dowel. So I'm now on the inside of the big foot and I'm pressing against the dowel.
Actually, let me do this side so it's closer to the. So I'm on the inside of my second toe and I'm pushing the dowel against my toe. And I'm gonna start rolling down like see, sweet Jesus, like this is what I mean. It becomes a religious experience. So you start to roll. I'm just rolling literally in between my toe and then back up, down and up. I'll at the at the bottom of the toes, I'll do a little bit of a like a little seesaw, teeter-totter thing, and then I'll come up the inside of the big toe.
I'll do that like five or six times, and then I'll go and work between the second toe and the third toe. Down, down, down, in the middle, down, down. And you can go down and up. So I'll go through literally every single toe on both feet. And so you can spend a whole Netflix episode doing one foot if you wanted to. And like I okay, I hardly did that, you guys, and I am breaking a bead.
I feel
Dr. Terry (41:46)
Huh.
Jana Danielson (41:46)
I don't know what it's like what it's actually, maybe there's a technical term for it, but I feel like it is the holy grail. And I there's no scientific, trust, I there's I maybe we should do some sort of a a research study to see if someone, you know, the impact of rolling fascia between your toes and pelvic floor health and gait repatterning. but that's as simple as it is.
It's best if you can use something that's natural like woods. That's why a wooden pencil is better than like a jiffy marker. And then even getting your fingers in between your toes and like working those toes. There's like a snap crackle pop. Some people it'll take a while for them to be able to get their fingers all the way down. But that that opens up space. And as soon as there is space, there is healing, right? When space is taken away, that's when
Inflammation can happen. We know that inflammation is the precursor to disease. And I actually I'm gonna share this because I thought it was so profound. Doc I heard Dr. Zach Bush on a on a podcast, and he was right, yeah. And
Dr. Spencer Baron (42:55)
Brilliant. Brilliant guy. Jeez.
Jana Danielson (42:57)
so he was talking about this kind of like this linear number line that you know.
We don't just end up with dis disease or disease. Lots has gone on before said disease is diagnosed. So the precursor to disease is inflammation.
And
he said, but have you ever thought about what the precursor to inflammation is? Like what happens prior to inflammation? And in his brilliant words, he said, he believes that it's an absence of light. And we have like literally physical light, right? We have light inside our cellular structures. And when that light is dim and or lacking,
That's the recipe for inflammation. So in this podcast, he was talking about the basic things we know, right? Like morning sunlight within 20 to 30 minutes of waking, you know, that four o'clock afternoon sunlight, getting our feet on the grass, you know, not having our feet in those sensory deprivation chambers all day long, exposing ourselves to the light, really, and and people's good energy, right? You know, there's people that walk through a door and you're like,
Swipe and by because that is some nasty energy, right? We we need to protect ourselves because of that. So I would say that the feet really are the key to unlocking a lot of the pelvic floor dysfunction. And then if we were to look at the opposite end, it is what's going on here. with you know peep grinding our teeth, a lot of tension, like the TMJ, you know, the masseter, those gum-chewing muscles totally jacked up. And so the
The protocol that I have there is, and I just had my hands on my feet, so I'm not gonna grab my tongue. But it's simple, like I mean, grabbing a face cloth or grabbing a, you know, a paper towel and just gently holding your tongue, keeping your head centered, and then just gently drawing your tongue away from your body, and then doing small.
And you can stay three or four or five breaths. Your body is intuitive. It will know what it, you know, if you want to move like the face of a clock. But that's how I actually
Encourage people to think about or feel into improving their pelvic floor health. Start with your feet, focus on your tongue, and by virtue of that, those fascial lines will start to improve and your pelvic floor is gonna benefit simply from proper breathing, proper posture, and starting to remove some of the tension through the jaw.
Dr. Terry (45:45)
Basically you're just flossing
Dr. Spencer Baron (45:45)
I love it. I think that
Dr. Terry (45:46)
your feet. Right? Like flossing your teeth, you're flossing your feet.
Jana Danielson (45:48)
Yes, yes, that's exactly
what you're doing. That's a perfect way to ex yes, flossing your feet. Yeah.
Dr. Terry (45:55)
Sorry, Summens.
Dr. Spencer Baron (45:55)
Yeah, it was only
just over the last several years that
I realized that there your feet are have such a rich supply of nerves and proprioceptive fibers that, you know, allow you to know exactly what the ground feels like and different patterns and things that you don't have to look down and watch with every step you
Jana Danielson (46:15)
No.
Dr. Spencer Baron (46:15)
take. So feet are much more important and I even mentioned to a lot of chiropractors what would be the the most important area of the body if you had one adjustment to make
And they're just sitting there, well the neck, you know, the low back. You know, I go, No, the toe, the big toe. Your big toe is so important. And if you
Jana Danielson (46:33)
Mm, mm. I love that. Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (46:37)
think about, even at a the pro athlete level, you got, you know, your quarterbacks, they push off with their big toe. The pitchers, the major league baseball pit, they push off with their big toe, you know, and on and on and on.
So I think you know, I'd be rip remiss in in asking you, you know, with clarity, because you've gone over some really really cool and informative things, but someone listening right now has that has no diagnosis and doesn't even know whether their pelvic flora is working correctly or not. Give us just isolate three signs that their body may already be giving them a warning sign to.
And one thing that they can do tomorrow morning to test or improve it.
Jana Danielson (47:20)
So
the first thing is when you go to pee, how long is it taking you for the strong flow of urine to start? Because that should be fairly immediate. You know, you should sit down or be standing at a urinal, get in position, and a strong flow of urine should start. So if there's dribbles or if there is like
You know, the Jeopardy music playing and you're like waiting and waiting, that is a classic sign. Okay, constipation. We truly should be pooping after each of our big meals, not immediately after, but within two to three hours by the time our body digests, uses what it wants to, and then eliminates. So how many times a day are you pooping? Do you have to strain to poop? that is another classic sign that there is restr or constriction in the pelvic floor because it's holding on and
Pooping is an issue. And then I would say the next piece would be if somebody has, yeah, like cr chronic I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna say two things, but I'm gonna make it with like a comma and put them into the third one would be if you have any of those plantar fasciitis, bunions, hammer toes, anything going on with your feet or the tension in through the jaw, like my god, I you know.
I have headaches five out of seven days. Well, there's a good chance that there's a bunch of tension sitting here, which then will play through those fascial lines that we described earlier. So peeing, pooping, tension in the feet and jaw.
And what could they do? Breathe. That's the first thing.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:56)
Beautiful.
Jana Danielson (48:57)
That is the absolute first thing is learn how to breathe properly. When you're breathing diaphragmatically, so really quick instructions: you place one hand on the sternum, this flat bone here at the end of one hand on your belly button, you inhale through your nose like you're smelling a fresh baked apple pie. Your body fills the waistband of your pants on 360 degrees.
Then you exhale like your trunk is a soft bark tree. The belly button melts away from the hand and the waistband narrows on 360. So the inhale expands the waistband and the exhale melts the waistband. That is now in these moments, you guys, you're taking in 600% more oxygen. You are giving a hug to your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest. So I like to do my diaphragmatic breathing just before my before.
I eat. You know, I have a little moment, thank thankful for the food, breathe eight to ten times. Now I eat slower, I digest better.
A lot of times physiologically when we are yawning, that is our body saying, We are oxygen deprived, you are not breathing for us, I'm gonna make you open your mouth and take in big volumes of oxygen. And you're you know, it's like our in a in a vehicle when your low gas light comes on, low fuel. That's what's happening when we're yawning. So that is the number one thing you can do. And then it starts to wake up the pelvic floor.
Dr. Terry (50:29)
Brilliant. You know, you've mentioned your cooch ball. Let's talk about that for a second before we go on to our rapid fire.
Jana Danielson (50:34)
Mm. Yeah.
Dr. Terry (50:36)
You know, I've had you were graciously to send me one and when i and when I put myself and then and one of my patients on it
the the female patient immediately goes, I can't send this. It's too painful. So talk to talk to us, you
know,
Jana Danielson (50:53)
Yeah.
Dr. Terry (50:53)
all it is is like this little ball. What are we doing with it? What's the purpose on it? Yep. Go ahead.
Jana Danielson (50:58)
Yeah.
Dr. Terry (50:59)
And and and tell us how to how to use it and and why it was painful.
Jana Danielson (51:05)
Okay, so what I did with this actually, it was when I created it, it was it was like the three bears in the porridge. I tested all the sports balls out there. They were, most of them were too hot. They were too hard. The sympathetic nervous system was guarding, holding, protecting. Then I tried Pilates balls and yoga balls, which were too like meh and really didn't interact with the fascia, creating that release so the blood flow could come in. So what you don't see in the cooch ball is the third layer that goes underneath the blue outer coating and above the bladder of the ball.
We found some really cool nylon thread. When we wrap the bladder of the ball and put the outer coating on it, it creates a different experience for the body. Optimally, you want to have a little bit of squish. Do you guys see that? A little bit of squish to the ball. So it's not, it's not unsafe if you completely fill it, but if you completely fill it, I know that you haven't watched the instruction videos because I say that in the instructions. But here's what gives you, here's what is the this is the invitation to your nervous system. So a little bit of squish.
Basically, you're sitting on a chair on the floor. For many clients, they'll start on their couch or on their bed because of the ouch factor, Dr. Terry, that your clients are experiencing, your patients. Sometimes I'll get women and men to put a folded hand towel on top. Your breath is your guide. That's the only rule with this. I'll have men and women get on it, and I'll see them like kind of shimmying around, and I'm like.
Guys, this is not a lazy boy recliner. We're not looking for comfort here, okay? And that's what they're looking for. Their b their brain is searching for comfort. I don't think I'm using it right, Jana, because I it it it's it's uncomfortable. Yeah, yes. The more your pelvic floor is like a desert,
We want it to be a rainforest. The more desert it is, the higher the ouch factor is gonna be. So guess what that means? You've got a bigger opportunity for healing, a bigger opportunity for change and improvement. So they stay as long as their breath in their nose and out their mouth is calm.
As soon as the breath is erratic, or they're holding their breath or clenching their butt or their fists, they come off. So for some men and women, they're good for three minutes. That's that's what it is, three three minute practice every day. And you're basically sitting on it, so the pubic bones in front, the anus is behind, and the ischial tuberosities or the sit bones are like bookends on either side of the ball. So you're right on that perennial body. For men, they may have to lift the scrotum out of the way a little bit, but that's basically where you are. You almost can't get this wrong because of how.
The pelvic floor is situated. You can't be too far back because there still are muscles back there in and around the rectum. So you know you can be in slightly different positions and you're still going to be getting the benefit. So the weight of the body on the ball interacts with the nervous system through the breathing to create a situation where, if you're hypertonic, too tight, it's almost like a massage, it's melting through those fascial restrictions. But if you're truly hypotonic or lacking tone, the ball becomes bio.
Feedback and the brain now has something to really feel beneath it. So when you're exhaling, because the breath is important, right? Remember, I said the diaphragm and the pelvic floor are best friends. So they're doing they're moving in the same direction, but doing two different things. So when we're inhaling.
Right, the lungs are filling with air, the diaphragm has to duck and get out of the way, it contracts, it descends. Well, the pelvic floor sees that, and the pelvic floor is also descending, but it's expanding. So they're both lowering. The diaphragm is contracting and descending, the pelvic floor is expanding and descending, and that's where we are peeing and pooping when our pelvic floor is at rest. When we exhale,
The lungs empty, the diaphragm ascends and expands, like that mushroom cap or open umbrella. The pelvic floor ascends, but it's in its contracted state. So that's where moms are picking up their baby in the bucket seat. That's where we're grabbing the rubber made with Christmas decorations. That's when we're doing our deadlift at the gym on the exhale because the pelvic floor is lifting and working. We want to create that.
that that system, we want to create a new neurological pattern in the brain to understand what the pelvic floor is doing at the different phases of breath. And that's what we start to train. So the protocol is the first thirty days, three minutes a day, we call it the release phase. Then once we get into month two
In the guided videos, there's the cooch ball method exercises. There's 13 exercises. There's like a modified lunge, a modified squat, butterfly, bridge, that have been shown to be like, did you guys know? And this is from Dr. Crawford's research, a bridge executed properly is 56% more impactful than a Kegel is in working the pelvic floor and the co-recruiters. So in month two, we start adding three times a week. Three of those 13 exercises that take about seven minutes.
Minutes to execute because we're now in the rebuild phase. And this is like a lifestyle tool. I'll have men and women say, How for how long do have to do this? And I'm like, Ever. Like, do you brush your teeth once a week and think you have good oral hygiene? No. And and don't even get me started. We have 1440 minutes of day, three minutes, you deserve three minutes for these muscles that impact so much above and so much below. And
So that that's the basic protocol and how it works.
Dr. Spencer Baron (56:42)
I am so impressed. That was absolut i it was brilliant. The idea is brilliant, it's a great tool. And I really I'm
Jana Danielson (56:48)
Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. Spencer Baron (56:50)
I'm very impressed with how you came up with that. We are going to our rapid fire questions right now with the limited time we have. I know y I
Jana Danielson (56:56)
I'm ready. I'm kinda nervous.
Dr. Spencer Baron (56:59)
I well you should be, because it's all about you. No, no.
Jana Danielson (57:01)
Ha ha
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:05)
And the and the the most brief answer you could provide would be best.
Jana Danielson (57:09)
Got it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:10)
All right, Jenna, if you're ready for question number one out of five, here we go.
Jana Danielson (57:12)
I'm ready. Yep.
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:15)
Jenna, you grew up a farm girl in Saskatchewan. What's one farm girl habit you still have that would surprise us?
Jana Danielson (57:26)
I love weather, so as soon as I know if there's gonna be a storm coming, I am out there on the steps waiting to experience Mother Nature.
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:35)
Very nice. Well, we got a hurricane coming, so very nice. Okay. Question number two. Yeah. All right.
Dr. Terry (57:39)
Hey, we got hey, we got one coming here. Cal California yeah, we're
yeah, California's got one coming.
Dr. Spencer Baron (57:47)
Question number two, your mom, wife, entrepreneur, and perpetual teacher, which version of Janna would your family say is the most difficult to live with?
Jana Danielson (57:58)
I'm also a Capricorn, which means I am very much like a goat in set in my ways. So I would say of those.
I would like to say that my kids would say the mom, but then I would also they would also follow up by saying they hit the jackpot and they're so grateful for that.
Dr. Spencer Baron (58:20)
That's nice. that was good. Good. Question number three, Jen. When you are alone and nobody is around, what is one song you like to rock out to at full volume?
Jana Danielson (58:36)
Pour some sugar on me by Def Leppard.
Dr. Spencer Baron (58:42)
Yes, that's a stripper song. Very nice. Okay.
Jana Danielson (58:43)
Which I thought was actually and I thought was sugar
Dr. Terry (58:44)
Ha ha ha.
Jana Danielson (58:46)
until I learned it was cocaine. I'm like, my God, it's not real sugar, like it's not icing sugar. It's about cocaine.
Dr. Terry (58:52)
Uhhuh.
Dr. Spencer Baron (58:53)
Wait, I didn't know that.
Dr. Terry (58:54)
Yeah. You
you didn't know that?
Jana Danielson (58:55)
Yes. Well there.
Dr. Spencer Baron (58:57)
No idea.
And I'm in South Florida. You know, the 80s were like the cocaine
Dr. Terry (59:00)
Ha ha ha.
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:01)
capital of the world. Okay. Well, I'm I my god, that's hilarious. I didn't know. All
Dr. Terry (59:05)
Ha ha ha.
Jana Danielson (59:05)
Ha ha ha
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:08)
right. Question I don't even want to go to the next question. All right. Question number four.
Dr. Terry (59:11)
Ha ha ha.
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:13)
What are you ridiculously competitive about that you probably shouldn't be? R what? Your teeth?
Jana Danielson (59:19)
My teeth. My teeth.
So when our family goes to the dentist, I am like,
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:24)
Yeah.
Jana Danielson (59:25)
How many cavities do you guys have? What do you need to like what what was your so I v I very much value my teeth and I love being like my husband and I are very competitive around our teeth. To the point where I'll say to I'll say to the dentist,
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:37)
Really?
Dr. Terry (59:37)
I've never heard that.
Jana Danielson (59:39)
like, I'll say like if there's even
Like a cavity needs to be like a big frickin' whole cavity. If it's not like that, it does not count. And do not tell Jason about it.
Dr. Terry (59:50)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (59:54)
my gosh. All right. So we went from big toe to teeth. Very good. All right.
Dr. Terry (59:57)
The things we learn.
Jana Danielson (59:58)
Yeah. And
the l and we s we we made a we made a we made a little pit stop on cocaine too, don't forget that.
Dr. Spencer Baron (1:00:04)
Yeah, and cocaine too.
Dr. Terry (1:00:04)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (1:00:07)
Two completely different ends of the body. All right. Last question, Jana. Question number five. You went from a 21-year-old who was hurting, scared, and taking 11 medications to build a career around helping p other people understand their bodies. If that 21-year-old Janna were still sitting across from you right now, what would you tell her that you wish somebody had told you back then?
Jana Danielson (1:00:35)
That, my gosh, and this I don't want to cry during this one. that there is a bigger plan for us. And in the middle of what was what felt to me like the darkest time of my life, I was newly engaged. I didn't know if I should marry.
my then high school sweetheart, who is now my husband of 30 years. I didn't know if I'd ever be a mom. I came from an entrepreneurial family. I didn't know if I'd ever own my own business. And so I just want to tell her that it is because of her of who I it's because of her that I am who I am today. And thank you for taking that backpack of pain for four years and carrying it valiantly because it was all worth it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (1:01:26)
Wow, that is cool. Jenna, thank you so much for being on the show today. That was really enlightening.
Jana Danielson (1:01:33)
You're welcome. This
was so fun. This was so fun.
Dr. Spencer Baron (1:01:36)
It was, really.