I’ve heard from several women lately who want to start exercising again but don’t know how to begin. Some have been inactive for several months, some for years. Bladder leaks certainly make taking that first step more difficult. But there are other factors in play: time constraints, nagging injuries, fatigue, being pregnant, post-partum or menopausal. While our reasons for remaining inactive are as different as we are, one common concern is the fear of never being able to get back to the shape we were once in, whether that was in high school, college, pre-children, or even just last year.
I’ve been there myself. In my mid-forties, I was convinced I was seriously ill because I couldn’t complete a 10-mile bike ride without my heart pounding and my lungs heaving. Twenty years prior I had completed a 4200-mile cross-country bicycle tour, so why was I struggling so much to do something that had once been second nature? I insisted on getting a battery of tests only to be told that I was “just deconditioned”. How embarrassing! I was indeed.
So, how should you approach getting back in shape after you’ve been off for a while? Here are highlights from an NYT article that recently appeared in my news feed. Excellent advice, and good timing for getting in shape this spring!
Growing up, I was lucky enough to have two athletic older brothers who, when they needed one more kid to field a neighborhood kickball or soccer team, would draft me to play. I was expected to hold my own, meaning I had to “play like a boy”. I played my heart out. When I reached junior high, I couldn’t wait to sign up for soccer, only there wasn’t such a thing for girls, outside of gym class. It was the 1960s, before Title IX and well before the founding of National Girls and Women in Sports Day. So, I turned instead to individual sports - horseback riding and diving - to satisfy my athletic inclinations.
Today, girls and women who want to engage in sports can do pretty much whatever they want to do. That’s something to celebrate, and we’ll be doing exactly that on Wednesday, February 7th.
A new survey from Forbes Health/OnePoll of 1,000 U.S. adults found that the most commonly selected New Year’s resolution for 2024 among respondents is… fitness! While that’s great, the survey also found that the average resolution lasts just 3.74 months. That probably explains why your local gym is standing room only on January 2nd and half empty come March. According to Forbes, “Failing at New Year’s resolutions is so common that there’s even a slew of (unofficial) dates commemorating such failures— some sources cite “Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day” as January 17 while others denote the second Friday in January as “Quitter’s Day.”
While there’s some humor here, there are also some sobering realities. The quitting early rate suggests that many of us are either setting unrealistic expectations, giving up when things get hard (as they inevitably will), or lacking the strategies necessary to stay on track.
It’s the holiday season! Bring on the appetizers, the eggnog, the desserts, the after-dinner espresso! Then, ugh, form a line to the bathroom. Why? For those of us with leaky bladders, the extra food and drink we enjoy will probably mean more trips to the bathroom or an increase in our use of incontinence products. That’s because a lot of the foods and drinks we enjoy over the holidays are bladder irritants.
Are there measures we can take to prevent this seasonal bladder overload? You bet!
A few weeks ago, I rolled my right ankle and found myself back in physical therapy, fearing I’d really done it this time. After reassuring me that the sprain was minor and I’d be running again very soon, my PT said, wistfully, “If only we could put exercise in a pill form, then everyone would live longer, healthier lives.”
Back home, foot iced and elevated, I thought about what he’d said. Just for fun (and for something to do now that I was stuck on the couch) I googled “exercise and longevity”. The first thing that popped up was a June 14th article in the Wall Street Journal titled “What If the Most Powerful Way to Live Longer is Just Exercise?”
When I got serious about triathlon training, I started working with a coach and running track. That’s when my bladder leaks became a serious problem. I couldn’t run a lap without soaking my shorts. Rather than quit, I turned to the internet to find out what other active women with leaky bladders were doing about it. What I found – or didn’t find – was surprising. This common complaint was shared by women of all ages, fitness levels, and regardless of whether they’d borne children. Equally common was the frustration of wearing bulky pads that shift and bunch a mile into a run, settling for absorbent underwear meant for period protection, and worse, the sense that there was nothing to be done about it. I tried everything too. Nothing worked, so I gave up looking and instead launched Prickly Pear Sports – performance apparel for active women with leaky bladders.
An alert reader asked me if her coffee habit counted toward her daily hydration requirement. A regular coffee drinker myself, I wanted to reassure her that yes, coffee counts, so drink away! But I needed to be sure, so I did a little research. Here’s the scoop!
Do you stop hydrating an hour before you run in hopes that you won’t pee your pants? I hear this a lot from my running club friends. In fact, it’s what I used to do – with disastrous consequences. I wouldn’t drink before a run and consistently had to end it early, feeling dizzy, weak, and nauseous (but my pants were dry, woohoo!) After a particularly scary episode, I called my doctor who said I was clearly dehydrated and likely down on electrolytes too (I could just see her rolling her eyes). She ordered me to start drinking a hydration/electrolyte mix before, and during, my run*. I followed her advice and have not had an episode since.
While more common in women who’ve had kids, bladder leaks are not normal no matter our age, fitness level, or whether we’ve borne children, and up to half of us will experience urinary leakage during our lifetime. Over 40% of elite female athletes (kick-ass women out there blasting stereotypes) experience bladder leakage during athletic activity. Worst of all, about 20% of us give up doing what we love to do because of the embarrassment.
One of the most common conditions active women deal with is one that no one talks about: we accidentally pee when we run (or jump, or lift, or laugh.) Judging from the volume of TV commercials for disposable incontinence products, you’d think that half the women in this country suffer from bladder leaks. Guess what? We do. We also don’t talk to our doctors about it. We tell ourselves that it’s an inevitable part of childbirth, menopause, or aging. It’s embarrassing but nothing can be done.
