Exploring the Relationship Between Deltoid Muscle and Pelvic Floor in Motherhood

Dr. Jessica Gingerich // #ICEPelvic // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, #ICEPelvic faculty member Jess Gingerich discusses the role of the deltoid and upper extremity strength in pregnant & postpartum moms.

Take a listen to learn how to better serve this population of patients & athletes or check out the full show notes on our blog at www.ptonice.com/blog.

If you're looking to learn more about our live pregnancy and postpartum physical therapy courses or our online physical therapy courses, check our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab.

Are you looking for more information on how to keep lifting weights while pregnant? Check out the ICE Pelvic bi-weekly newsletter!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

INTRODUCTIONHey everyone, Alan here, Chief Operating Officer here at ICE. Before we get into today's episode, I'd like to introduce our sponsor, Jane, a clinic management software and EMR with a human touch. Whether you're switching your software or going paperless for the first time ever, the Jane team knows that the onboarding process can feel a little overwhelming. That's why with Jane, you don't just get software, you get a whole team. Including in every Jane subscription is their new award-winning customer support available by phone, email, or chat whenever you need it, even on Saturdays. You can also book a free account setup consultation to review your account and ensure that you feel confident about going live with your switch. And if you'd like some extra advice along the way, you can tap into a lovely community of practitioners, clinic owners, and front desk staff through Jane's community Facebook group. If you're interested in making the switch to Jane, head on over to jane.app.switch to book a one-on-one demo with a member of Jane's support team. Don't forget to mention code IcePT1MO at the time of sign up for a one month free grace period on your new Jane account.

JESSICA GINGERICH Good morning, PT on ICE daily show. My name is Dr. Jessica Gingrich and I am here to kick off deltoid week. So if you are wondering what that is, the faculty have come together and we are going to take this week and we are going to talk about the deltoid. This is gonna be a really fun week. We are going to learn just how to assess it better, how to use better pain management strategies, and really ultimately how to load the deltoid better and just treat shoulder pain differently. Now, we are coming hot off of semifinals over in Knoxville. We had wonderful, also Monday, here's my dog again, if you can hear. Olive with the trash guy We are coming hot off of semifinals where we watched Tia Claire to me dominate That was really cool You know, there are other athletes out there Haley Adams. I'm wearing her shirt today I mean coming back and just in just doing such a phenomenal job, but Tia crushed it and that was really cool to see her coming back postpartum So we're going to take today and we're going to talk about the deltoid and the pelvic floor. I know you guys are probably like, I'm sorry, what? How are you going to put that together? And you know, I a little bit thought that as well because we're not going to palpate the deltoid and then bring on pelvic floor symptoms likely. So the deltoid, we know abducts the arm. It's going to flex and internally rotate with those anterior fibers and it's going to externally rotate and extend with the posterior fibers. We want to make sure that we can take this muscle and maximize it for motherhood. So we are going to further break down the pelvic space with the deltoid, and we are going to bring this into the pregnant and postpartum space. Motherhood is a journey. I'm not yet a mother, but I treat moms every single day, and I see the different pieces that they have to do, the challenges that come with it. We have new tasks, right? Like tasks that look different than when we were before a mom. Getting back to exercise, a lot of the times is a massive goal of a lot of people. We're starting to see pregnant and postpartum people just infiltrate exercise, like the exercise space. And that's so fun to watch. So we are gonna first break down and talk about pregnancy. PREGNANCY: A PERFECT TIME TO BUILD STRENGTH So pregnancy is a wonderful time to build strength. A lot of times we have moms who don't feel great all the time, especially further into their pregnancy, getting their heart rates up. In doing these metabolic conditioning pieces, going on long runs, they don't necessarily feel great all the time. Some moms do. But we can take that time and we can bodybuild. and we can hit a strength piece and then we can sit down and rest for three minutes and maybe that rest for three minutes is also the same time as giving our baby some attention. So things that we can do in the pregnant time is work on things like push-ups, bench, elevate the bench if you have to, go down to your knees for your push-up, elevate the push-up. overhead press, variations of overhead press, whether we're doing a push jerk, a strict press, a Z press, a bent over row, hitting those posterior delts, and then even doing things like a front rack hold or a front rack carry. These movements are going to mimic a lot of the movements that they're going to have to do postpartum or they may already be doing if they have another kiddo at home. So in pregnancy, focus on setting the foundation for upper extremity strength. Breastfeeding, bottle feeding takes up so much time. Sometimes that time is valued and sometimes it's not and that's okay. Sometimes that's very frustrating. Let's prepare mom so when she's breastfeeding or bottle feeding every two to three hours that she doesn't come in and she's like oh my neck and my back hurt because we're building that strength. So now we're going to switch and go into the postpartum space. The postpartum, we have this with a zero to two weeks is our healing timeframe, right? We aren't doing a push jerk at 70%. So maybe we're doing things like stretching the posterior delt with a sleeper stretch. loading the delts with banded I's T's and Y's, stretching the anterior delts and the pecs with a doorway stretch, and then doing some banded pull aparts. And maybe we can incorporate that after every feed, or maybe if that's too much, can we do it at least once a day to help utilize these muscles to decrease back pain and decrease neck pain? So, we're gonna dive further into this week with other divisions, so extremity, dry needling, where they're gonna talk about pain management strategies. So using dry needling techniques, soft tissue, cupping, joint manipulation, and other loading strategies to help load the deltoid, make the deltoid feel really good, and incorporate this into your moms, into your pregnant women. help them. You look at them as a whole body, not just pelvic floor because that's rarely what it is. So, if you are thinking about taking pelvic courses, head over to PTOnIce.com. We've got our live course, our L1 online course, and then we've actually recently added a third L2 at the end of the year due to high demand. So if that is something that you are or that is on your list, head on over and check it out and we will see you at 9am tomorrow.

OUTRO Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice daily show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review, and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CEUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. While you're there, sign up for our Hump Day Hustling newsletter for a free email every Wednesday morning with our top five research articles and social media posts that we think are worth reading. Head over to ptonice.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.