Pelvis Has Left the Building
By Stevie Z Fischer
Women writers, here’s a multiple choice problem. When we toil ceaselessly at our laptops, we: A) conjure new worlds; B) talk to ourselves in a manner that alarms others; or C) ignore our loved ones. How about all of the above plus D)? It’s not really a head-scratcher but try this clue. Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson left a trail of breadcrumbs when they crooned, “Maybe I didn’t treat you good as I should have.”
Or, you might be more contemporary in your musical tastes. Try the cover of “Maybe I Didn’t Love You” by the Pet Shop Boys and the Killers, appearing together at Glastonbury Festival in 2019. Ladies, let’s not break up with our pelvises.
How much do you sit? If you haven’t already received the memo, sitting is toxic, and we women writers do far too much of it. We just need to finish the page, the thought, the chapter. Deadlines galore. But what we do to ourselves to feed the beast, er, I mean muse, can be practically criminal. Nothing worthy of the evening news, mind you, but sustained negligence of our earthly being is in no one’s best interest. How about we try a little tenderness?
Lucky for me that I limped into a pilates studio a few years ago, frozen and contorted from gluing my butt to a chair to finish a book. Actually, I had to drive there because where I live, it’s a car culture, and the amount of time I spend driving definitely contributes to my problems. One of my favorite pilates instructors, Sophie Leon-Argue, smiled sympathetically when I asked her why my mid-body hurt like hell and what I could do about it. There was zero hesitation in her response. “Many women don’t think about pelvic health outside of sexual health, but women of all ages should.”
Hmm. OK, so sex. For me, it’s not exactly the time when I’m writing. Or thinking about writing. However, once I’m sprawled on the couch or slumped in a chair over my trusty laptop, I don’t have a thought in the world for my pelvis. Unless I sneeze or laugh or cough. Did I mention that I’ve had kids? That my hips, back, shoulders, and neck easily get tight as a drum?
Sure, I get up. To get a refill on the coffee, take my dog for a walk, drive to a few universities to teach, and go to the gym to sweat on the elliptical. But that sitting? We as humans were never meant to do it day in and day out; it’s hazardous to our health. Women enjoy a double-whammy: our hormones, our changing bodies and oh, just for the sake of argument, let’s throw in stress, fatigue, weight fluctuations, aging, sedentary jobs, and not enough hours in the day. Listen up, ladies: we need to up our games, pelvically speaking.
Francesca Durant, a physical therapist and pilates guru who owns Durant Physical Therapy and Centered Body Pilates in Glastonbury, Connecticut, says that more and more, she is hearing the phrase “sitting is the new smoking.” Durant, who has specialized training in pelvic health physical therapy, is a poster woman for a healthy lifestyle, but even she faces activity challenges.
Her job is hands-on but often she doesn’t get over 5,000 steps a day unless she goes for a hike or a run. She also points out that putting all of our faith in a magic number of steps isn’t the panacea it’s marketed as. “Getting our 10,000 steps in per day isn’t enough if we’ve picked up bad habits with our posture, gait and breathing combined with the aging process, the aftereffects of childbirth, obesity, and pain. We need to strengthen our entire bodies, especially the pelvic and core muscles, and nothing does that better than pilates on the reformer.”
Not every woman has the time, inclination or pocketbook for specialized exercise. Yet, every writer I know can relate when Leon-Argue says, “Issues in the pelvis can cause a chain reaction of hip discomfort, back pain, hamstring tightness, and more. When we are in a sedentary vocation we tend to slouch and collapse in bad posture.” Even if writers use standing desks, they have to be vigilant and meticulous about weight distribution, core engagement and posture. Otherwise, the bad habits pile on.
Our culture tends to tiptoe around a big issue that arises from ignoring our pelvic core needs but we need to name it so we can deal with it. It’s one that no one likes to discuss: urinary incontinence. Dr. Maduri Pratindhi, a family practice physician in Vernon, Connecticut, says that women are over 70 percent of her patients, and many of them have some degree of urinary incontinence because of weak pelvic muscles or specific diseases that exacerbate the condition. “Many women who have experienced childbirth, aging or obesity have some variation of this problem.” Modern lifestyles and technology also play a role in the increasing incidence of pelvic weakness complaints. Pratinidhi observes that, “the cycle of driving to work ,long commutes and jobs that require sitting for 8 hours with very few breaks hurts our pelvic health much more than we know.”
So what’s a woman writer to do? First off, stop ignoring the aches, pains and urges. No more blocking out the warning signals of bad posture wreaking havoc with our organs and skeletal structure. Show of hands, please: how many of you even putting off going to the bathroom until it is convenient? By then, our bladder is bursting and we’ve totally confused our bowels. Seriously–I get that no one wants to go there but this is a health emergency. Does anyone really want adult diapers in their future, looming as an inevitability? (By the way, Pratinidhi says that there is an intriguing new invention just waiting to disrupt the adult diaper market if only investors cared about something as unsexy as urinary incontinence.)
I’d love to do my student meetings while walking but that’s not practical. I’ve tried sitting on a balance ball and various ergonomic inventions, but they’re either uncomfortable, dangerously wobbly or super-expensive. Ditto standing desks. I try to dictate ideas into my phone if inspiration strikes while walking and develop them later. What about you? We need to give each other tips and suggestions. It’s not a one-size fits-every-woman-writer problem.
Durant wants us to know that our number one concern needs to be the quality of our sitting. It’s the only way to forestall and work with pelvic floor dysfunctions. “Sitting equals an idle and inactive pelvic floor that lacks support. Every system is affected including breathing. We don’t use our diaphragms; we use our neck muscles and our breaths are short and shallow if we don’t stack our pelvic ring. It weakens our trunk system if we don’t sit right on top of our sitz bones, so the stomach pushes out, the back is collapsing, and this creates a cycle of increasing pain and decreasing energy.”
Durant is optimistic that women writers will engage in on-going pelvic care once we acknowledge the perils of sitting and give our bodies the love they deserve. Pilates on the reformer, quality sitting with supported spines and a renewed focus on core breathing to engage our abdominal muscles plus simply getting up and walking around will help. Face it, in order to get our bodies right as we write, we need to commit to pelvic wellness.
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Stevie Z Fischer writes about the dynamics of people, nature, and power in small-town New England. In River Rules, her debut environmental suspense novel, she explores how the refusal to be marginalized and second chance opportunities create everyday heroes. Stevie teaches college writing, loves dogs and lives in Connecticut.
River Rules is published by Green Writers Press—giving voice to writers and artists who will make the world a better place—Contact info@greenwriterspress.com
Follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/StevieZFischer
Find out more about her on her website https://www.steviezfischer.com/
River Rules is a small-town suspense novel with a deep heart and powerful conscience. What the housing bubble didn’t break in Bridgeville, a small New England community blessed by the Connecticut River, greed, double-dealing and rapid-fire change just might. Peter Russo, a part-time farmer and full-time rambler with his rescue dog, has a knack for conflict and a burning desire to protect Bridgeville’s land and water from exploitation.
His best buddy, John Tomassi, a local cop, doesn’t want to be his babysitter nor does his brother, Jeff. Peter’s ex-lover, Carmen, has no use for him as she double-downs on her profitable apple orchard, but Rachel, his niece, needs his partnership in a food truck. Peter’s trouble with Bridgeville’s bureaucracy reunites him with two of his former club baseball players, Marco Torres, now on the wrong side of the law, and Kenny Johnson, a young cop. Peter’s helping hand not only gives Marco the chance he needs, but Marco and Kenny find that there’s more that connects them than divides them.
The food truck is a lifeline to almost everyone except Nancy, Peter’s old friend, sinking fast from health issues and the aftermath of date rape.
Nobody’s famous and nobody’s rich except Brock Saunders, a local bully turned Ponzi-schemer and sexual predator. With Bridgeville life at the mercy of cultural crosswinds and economic forces seemingly beyond control, love, loss, baseball, and the search for truth create a spinning wheel of unexpected alliances, unsung heroes and treachery.
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