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What load actually reaches your pelvis when you run? For years we couldn't really answer that — we just said "wait twelve weeks, then go." Babe, we've come a long way.

Dr. Megan James is back — and this time it's Dr. James. She finished her PhD and brought two new papers that quietly shift how we think about returning to running postpartum.

First: a graded pelvic loading pathway, built by measuring how much load actually reaches the pelvis across walking, hopping, jumping and running. The surprise star? Grounded running — a gliding, no-flight-phase style that showed consistently lower load at the pelvis than slow running at the same pace.

Second: a return-to-run guide co-designed with postpartum runners. Their ask — treat us like mums who run, not athletes who happen to be mums. It's a guide, not a deadline. And if you're not running yet, you are not behind.

We talk about:

-Returning to running after injury versus after pregnancy

-Why the research began with a nulliparous population

-Hypervigilance and fear of movement

-What impact forces actually reach the pelvis during running

-Slow running, grounded running, and perceived impact

-Creating a postpartum return-to-run guide

-Looking at the whole person, not just the pelvic floor

Note: This is education, not a prescription. For a plan built for your body, your birth and your symptoms, see your maternity care team and a pelvic floor PT.

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

6:23 setting up the research

12:28 what they measured through the research

16:45 surprises in the study

21:20 slow running and grounded running

26:42 rate of the perceived impact

32:29 explaining the guide paper

40:23 changing perception with feedback from moms

45:32 the one-size-fits-all trap

52:05 looking at the mom as a whole

54:46 advice to former self

58:12 potential future research

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL

CONNECT WITH MEGAN:

LinkedIn: @meganljames16

The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.

This show has been a long time in the making!

You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry.

If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!

If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)

Send us Fan Mail

Becoming a mom can take your lifelong habits, chew them up, and spit them out. So how do you build new ones when there's no such thing as a typical day in parenthood?

In this Summer Rewind — our season one finale — Dr. Carrie Pagliano sits down with James Clear, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Atomic Habits. Carrie picked up the book thinking it was about business... and realized it was secretly written for every mom trying to find herself again after kids.

They get into systems over willpower, the four laws of behavior change, identity-based habits (casting a vote for the person you want to be), the two-minute rule, and how to set up your space to outsmart yourself. If you've ever set a goal to get back to movement in postpartum or perimenopause, this one was built for you.

Lane note: returning to activity looks different for everybody — loop in your maternity care team and pelvic floor PT as you go.

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

1:35 setting habits for parents

7:20 life as a series of seasons

10:00 comparison on social media

15:22 navigating your identity as a parent

22:20 taking the first step to building the habit

27:25 scaling to build momentum

37:00 mental toughness as flexibility versus rigidity

40:15 James’ experience as a parent

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

CONNECT WITH JAMES

IG: https://www.instagram.com/jamesclear/

Website: jamesclear.com

Atomic Habits: atomichabits.com

Newsletter: https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1

The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.

This show has been a long time in the making!

You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry.

If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!

If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)

Send us Fan Mail

Thin evidence. Loud opinions. And a body that still wanted to climb.

That's where professional high-altitude climber Lotta Hintsa found herself when she got pregnant — wanting to stay active and keep doing her job, in an area where the research on altitude and pregnancy barely exists and everyone seemed to have a take on it.

In this episode, Lotta walks me through how she navigated her own risk tolerance: gathering what evidence she could find, weighing it against her body and her experience, and making informed calls instead of fear-based ones. It's an honest look at staying active on your own terms when there's no roadmap handed to you.

We talk about:

-becoming a professional climber

-motherhood as an extreme athlete

-advice based on evidence instead of fear

-losing contracts due to pregnancy

-losing followers after getting pregnant

-having a plan but not expectations

-finding your identity as a mom

🛟 Lane note: altitude and pregnancy is genuinely under-researched, and risk is individual. Decisions like these belong with your maternity care team — Lotta's story is her experience, not a guideline.

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

6:34 thinking about starting a family as an extreme athlete

9:35 deciding where to go to for advice

13:54 concerns with oxygen availability

18:20 reactions of the climbing community and sponsors

27:28 last weeks of pregnancy

32:29 climbing a mountain versus having a baby

36:00 exercise and activity postpartum

43:22 expectations for competing as a new mom

48:59 surprises in motherhood

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL

CONNECT WITH LOTTA:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lottahintsa/

Website: https://youtube.com/@highaltitudexperience?si=WS0EbOlKWiDb1bHx

Substack: lottahintsa

The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.

This show has been a long time in the making!

You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry.

If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!

If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 start rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)

The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.

This show has been a long time in the making!

You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry.

If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!

If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)

Send us Fan Mail

Gráinne Donnelly is back — and this time she's the editor and primary author of a brand-new Elsevier textbook, Sports Medicine and the Pelvic Floor: Science to Practice. It's the book this field has been waiting for... and the honest truth at its heart is that we don't know everything yet. What we do have is the clearest picture so far of where the science actually stands.

An Advanced Practice Pelvic Health Physiotherapist and doctoral researcher, Gráinne walks us through what the current evidence shows on returning to running, graded loading, and where adjuncts like pelvic compression garments may fit — and what they can't promise. We get into grounded running as a bridge back to impact, the gap between research and real clinical life, and why "we don't actually know yet," said with confidence, beats the false certainty all over social media.

A conversation for the clinicians and the active moms in the same room.

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

5:46 updates on the research

11:40 external support garments

20:24 clinical implications

23:24 Sports Medicine and the Pelvic Floor - Science to Practice book

33:13 planning for what is next

41:50 storytelling as a form of health communication

49:30 reexamining advice you give patients as you learn more

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL

CONNECT WITH GRÁINNE:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grainnedonnelly_absolutephysio/

Website: www.absolute.physio

The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.

This show has been a long time in the making!

You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry.

If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!

If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)

Send us Fan Mail

Hildee Weiss didn't run her first full mile until she was 46. And honestly? She was convinced she'd look ridiculous doing it… like Phoebe from Friends, flailing around while everyone stared. (If you're Gen X, you already get it.)

Fast forward 12 years and she's 57, a mom of five, a grandma of five, and she's done 5Ks, half marathons, trail races, two Spartan races… the whole thing. Not to shrink herself. Not to earn her food. Just because she gets to.

We get into all of it: starting from zero in your 40s, finally walking away from the scale she called her "metal monster," lifting heavy after 50, and what it actually took to come back after a hysterectomy when she didn't even recognize herself anymore.

If you've been telling yourself it's too late… I really want you to hear this one. Her book, Embracing My Inner Athlete, is out now.

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

7:10 having 5 children in 8 years

10:05 Gen X weight loss culture

15:29 changing mindset around diet and exercise

19:11 chasing number goals

23:16 difference in generations and how they view exercise

26:15 remembering the first starting line

35:58 redefining success and failure

41:35 coming back from injury and hysterectomy

49:01 it’s never too late to start

51:41 rapid fire questions

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL

CONNECT WITH HILDE:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/momoffive68/

Website: http://sites.google.com/view/Hildee-Weiss-author

The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.

This show has been a long time in the making!

You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry.

If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!

If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)

Send us Fan Mail

What happens when the body that carried you through marathons suddenly starts changing the rules on you mid-stride…?

In this episode, I sit down with Whitney Heins — founder of The Mother Runners run community, host of the Mother Runners Podcast, and a lifelong runner who chased an Olympic Qualifying marathon time through years of frustrating injuries before becoming a certified running coach herself. Whitney knows the gap between what training is supposed to look like and what running through motherhood and perimenopause actually feels like… and she's here to talk about all of it.

We get into the realities of masters running: how shifting hormones change training, recovery, and injury risk as you move through perimenopause, why pelvic health belongs squarely in this conversation, and what it takes to stop rushing the comeback and start recovering smart. Whitney opens up about the mental side of injury — the pressure to bounce back fast, the identity tangled up in our race times — and how learning to reset goals instead of abandoning them can change your entire trajectory as an athlete. Plus, how raising active kids reshaped the way she thinks about her own running, and why staying open to doing things differently might be the most athletic move of all.

Whether you're a runner navigating perimenopause, a mom training around real life, or a clinician supporting active women through these transitions — this conversation is for you.

In this episode:

• Masters running and what really changes after 40
• Perimenopause, hormones & pelvic health for runners
• The mental load of injury recovery & the pressure to "bounce back"
• Resetting goals and expectations when your body shifts the rules
• Raising active kids — and what they teach us about our own training

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

6:39 speaking “teenage boy”

10:04 training your daughter

14:30 navigating years of injury

17:55 deciding to find a new coach

23:55 talking more about perimenopause and menopause

29:45 hormone therapy in perimenopause and menopause

33:23 having guests on podcasts

39:43 being open to trying something different

43:50 rapid fire questions

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL

CONNECT WITH WHITNEY:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themotherrunners/

Website: www.themotherrunners.com

The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.

This show has been a long time in the making!

You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry.

If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!

If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)

Send us Fan Mail

Your bones started changing before you noticed. Most women don't find out until something breaks.

Dr. Jocelyn Wittstein — orthopedic surgeon at Duke and co-author of The Complete Bone and Joint Health Plan — is here to change that. We dig into what perimenopause and menopause actually do to your bones, joints, and shoulders, why osteoporosis risk flies under the radar for active women, and what the research on frozen shoulder and hormone therapy is finally telling us.

If you've felt "off" in your body in your 40s and couldn't explain it… this is the episode.

We cover:

• Bone density loss in perimenopause & menopause
• Frozen shoulder, hormones & why women are disproportionately affected
• Osteoporosis risk factors most providers miss
• Low energy availability & your musculoskeletal system
• Sleep, nutrition & exercise for long-term bone health
• What rehab after hip surgery actually looks like

Not medical advice. Always consult your own provider.

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

6:12 starting the perimenopause journey

12:12 why do we wait until 65 for DEXA scan?

18:23 the importance of HRT
23:20 how exercise intervention helps

27:33 inflammation and joint pain

37:04 putting together all of the symptoms

41:45 changing reception of HRT

43:40 advice to former self

53:20 practical advice with nuance

57:32 worst health traits

62:41 rapid fire questions

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL

CONNECT WITH JOCELYN:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jocelyn_wittstein_md/

The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.

This show has been a long time in the making!

You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry.

If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!

If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 start rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)

The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.

This show has been a long time in the making!

You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry.

If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!

If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)