The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! A deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, becoming the Vagina Whisperer, pregnancy and pelvic health, and more!!
Tue, 13 May 2025
Episode #26 Featuring "The Vagina Whisperer" Sara Reardon! The Pelvic Floor Episode!! How did Sara Reardon become "The Vagina Whisperer?" Dylan and Sara take a deep dive into pelvic floor therapy, the importance of training the pelvic floor, men's pelvic health, what you need to know about pregnancy and pelvic floor health, overcoming the stigmas of discussing the pelvic floor, Sara's new book "Floored: A woman's Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at every age and stage" and so much more! Sara offers insights that are nearly impossible to find and this episode will keep you enlightened and entertained all in one!! Do not miss this one!!PRE ORDER Sara's New Book: Pre-order bonus 30 days free pelvic floor workoutshttps://thevagwhisperer.com/floored/Follow Sara on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.vagina.whisperer/Follow Sara on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thevagwhisperer______________________________________________________________________Follow Dylan on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tiktok @dylangemelliEmail Dylan for booking, collaborations and/or to apply for the Dylan Gemelli [email protected] PURCHASE MITOPURE visit Dylan's landing page and use code DYLAN10 to save!!https://www.timeline.com/promotions/dylangemelliRSShttps://rss.com/podcasts/the-dylan-gemelli-podcastApplehttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dylan-gemelli-podcast/id1780873400I Hearthttps://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-dylan-gemelli-podcast-249695201/Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/3In4QlJj4IvHqq0eduKj7mPandorahttps://www.pandora.com/podcast/the-dylan-gemelli-podcast/PC:1001096187Stitcherhttps://www.stitcher.com/show/1096187FM Playerhttps://player.fm/series/the-dylan-gemelli-podcastPodchaserhttps://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-dylan-gemelli-podcast-5933919Listen Noteshttps://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-dylan-gemelli-podcast-dylan-gemelli-HDjBueWOVvG
Chapter 1: Who is the Vagina Whisperer?
all right everybody welcome back to the dylan gemelli podcast so i get to interview and i'm very blessed for this that i get to interview so many amazing people different backgrounds a lot of doctors but people from all walks of life is what i try to do now my guest today is well known and she's absolutely amazing at what she does but i will tell you this when i first got introduced to her and
caught her name, I was like, okay, let's go. This is different for me. So first, I mean, she's a pelvic floor physical therapist, and she has done some amazing work out there with so many different people that I've had the pleasure of reading about and seeing. She's got a new book coming out that's called Floored that will be releasing June 10th that I will highly recommend.
And one of her famous quotes is that she's on a mission to help people with vaginas live fuller, happier, and more productive lives. So this, my friends, is the vagina whisperer, Sarah Reardon.
Thank you for having me, Dylan. And yes, I am the vagina whisperer on social medias and to all of my friends.
I swear, right when I got the intro, which I was very blessed to have to even get with you, I looked at that and I said, huh, okay. And I told my wife.
This could go many different directions.
No, but I told my wife and I said, listen to this. And I said, how cool this was. And she said, I bet you she does exactly what you do. And I was like, well, it must be a women thing because I had no idea. So I love it. Let's start with this because that is a very intriguing name. And I love how you worked it and done with it. And it brings people in, obviously, and it grabs their attention.
So it's very well played. But how did you come up with that name?
You know, I wish I could take credit for it. So I am a physical therapist by training. I have a doctorate degree. And then I specialized in pelvic floor physical therapy. And when I was after graduate school practicing, I would get together with my girlfriends and their families every summer and practice.
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Chapter 2: What problems can pelvic floor therapy address?
And physical therapy changed their lives. And I was like, this is exactly what I want to do. And so I started eight years ago in the field and I've bounced around to a couple of different cities and states, but it's all that I've ever done. And I still practice in a clinic today, seeing women and men.
Okay. So in terms of what you do at the clinic then, is it all the same related type of thing or do you do different types of things at the clinic that you work at?
I only do pelvic floor therapy. So the way that we assess the pelvic floor, and I think that this is really the mystical part of it is- Yeah. These muscles are kind of deep in your pelvis. So when you think about the bones that we all have, like you put your hands on your hips and you're on your hip bones, but that's really the top part of your pelvis.
You put your hands kind of in the lower front part, that's your pubic bone, and then you've got your tailbone in the back. At the bottom of that bowl of bones is a basket of muscles, and that's what we call your pelvic floor muscles. And those muscles support your pelvic organs. All bodies have them, men and women and kids, everyone.
So those muscles support your bladder, which hold urine, your balls, which hold stool. In the male, they hold the prostate. In the female, they hold the uterus and ovaries. These muscles support growing babies during pregnancy. They support your spine. They hold in pee and poop. They help with erections, ejaculation, orgasm, sexual activity, the passageway for menstruation. So
I mean, they're so important, yet we don't talk about them. And we also don't even know they exist until we start having a problem in this area. And so that's really the story behind Florida is I wanted people to understand their bodies. I focused more on women, all on women in the book. That's who I have more experience treating.
And they also just experience more pelvic floor problems than men because they have a vagina. So yeah, these muscles kind of influence all of those things. And that's what we help with in physical therapy.
Okay. All right. That's enlightening too, because I didn't know this had anything to do with men at all.
Oh my gosh. Yes. So many men have pelvic floor issues like pain, sexual dysfunction. It could be anything from premature ejaculation, difficulty maintaining erections, painful orgasm to pooping problems, painful bowel movements, rectal pain, tailbone pain. I mean, so much.
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Chapter 3: How does pregnancy affect pelvic floor health?
And so it's nice to know that Because you brought up like pain when urinating, for example. So if you were a person that had no idea and you went online and looked up pain when urinating or frequent urination, you're going to get this long list of things that are going to scare the crap out of you that may not even have anything to do with it.
And see, I didn't have any idea as much as I think I know. Clearly, I don't know that much that this was even a thing and that this could be actually the direct effect or correlated with the problem that's going on.
I wanna ask you then on the men's side of things, because this is very intriguing to me and it's something now that I will have to think about when somebody comes to me with like a prostate problem or a frequent urination problem.
If you were to take a ratio or a percentage, and I know this is a difficult maybe to assess, but what percentage of like men would have this problem in comparison to women? I'm just curious.
You know, I would say 70-30, just a guess. Like I would say over the course of my career, Sometimes I have men as 50% of my caseload, sometimes less. But I would say, you know, it's typical for me to have majority female bodies and then a handful of male bodies. But I'll tell you this. I think that a lot of men experience pelvic floor issues that are underreported.
I think females for sure have underreported symptoms, but we go to see a gynecologist. We talk to our girlfriends. We go online. We kind of do the health investigation. I think that there's as much shame and embarrassment as women have around these issues. I think men also have it, and that's a barrier for them to get treatment.
And oftentimes I'll be seeing a woman, the wife, and then she's like, I think my husband might need to come in, you know? And so it's just to kind of be, you know, make a generalization. I feel like men can have urinary issues, rectal pain, you know, abdominal pain, all these things, but it's when it affects their sexual function is when they start being like, okay, I need to get help.
And yet then it's gone on for a really long time. And we're like, okay, now we're peeling layers of the onion for a bit before we get to the pelvic floor. But it usually takes something pretty significant for them to say, okay, now I need to get help.
Do you see cases where there are people that are pretty young that have this issue going on? Or is it generally like a certain age range that you see?
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Chapter 4: What are common pelvic floor issues in men?
Right.
So the hope is, is that people will listen to you and understand that they just need to talk about it and fix it and correct it. And people should be more mature and more caring about it. health than anything else. My assumption is that you have let that out to say, hey, be open about this. Come and talk to me. Get it out there so we can fix it.
I'm sure that just like anything else, if you prolong putting this off, you could make the problem so bad that it could be far more difficult for you or anybody else to fix. You want to address this earlier than later.
Totally. And I think that to your point, one, I mean, I am a woman. I have two kids. I'm in perimenopause. I have had my own issues. And so people are like, how are you so vulnerable? I'm like, if I'm asking other people to come see me and talk to me about these really intimate parts of their life and things they maybe never told anybody, I feel like they deserve that same thing from me.
They deserve compassion, transparency, vulnerability. And the other thing is that like People are not alone. I think so many people don't talk about these issues and they feel like they're the only one. But I've been in this practice for 18 years. I've treated tens of thousands of patients.
I tell a lot of stories in my book because I think it's important for people to know that if you're experiencing it, somebody else likely is too. We're just not talking about it. So I always say I want to normalize the pelvic floor conversations. I don't want to normalize the pelvic floor problems.
And that's where I think that we really need to shift the narrative of let's talk about these things. And then we're able to find solutions for them instead of dealing with them kind of so quietly, but then not even knowing that there's help out there.
Perfect. That's awesome. I love it. So I want to kind of talk about your book a little bit here. So it's called Floored. Is this something that is put out for men and women or just women in terms of what you talk about and kind of get into what you're expressing in this book or what you're trying to convey and what people can expect to learn from it?
So the full title is Floored, A Woman's Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage. So it is for women. And I say it's for everyone with a pelvic floor because if you have a daughter, if you have a mother, if you have a wife, I mean, I get men reaching out to me saying, I found you on Instagram. I think my wife has this problem, you know? And so they're searching.
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Chapter 5: How can someone diagnose pelvic floor issues?
And I want to give you the tips and tools to take care of it. And then also, if you are experiencing a problem, there's resources in the book to help you. Like, what are the exercises to start with? How do you massage? How do you know if you're doing a Kegel correctly? How should you be sitting if you have pain? If you have pain with sex, what are different positions to try?
You know, just so many things that over the years I've been practicing, this is the daily things that I tell my patients. And yet not everybody can come see Sarah. Not everybody can see a pelvic floor therapist. So how do we get this information into women's hands in a very easy, accessible, and affordable way?
The second part of this is I really want us to change the experience of the next generation. I have two kids. I have so many friends who have daughters and children, and they're like, I don't know how to teach my daughter how to use a tampon, or I don't know how to talk to her about sex or like, how should I teach my kid about how to poop properly because he's constipated.
And so if we can, we know better than I think we can teach the next generation better as parents and really help them have a different experience. And I think my generation or even my mom's generation had with respect to pelvic floor healthcare.
So is this the first book that you've written then?
Yes. And I will say right now, it may be the last, hopefully not, but it's a huge endeavor. I mean, it's a two-year process. And I mean, I had a research assistant. I mean, we dove into the research. I looked up my old cases from over the years to have really rich patient stories. I used kind of all my old techniques and tools. I mean, everything.
I mean, there was so much in this book that I wanted to put out there. And I could have written a book just about pregnancy or just about menopause. I was like, we need to start just from the basics. People don't even understand the basics of this part of their body. So it was a two-year process. But the really cool thing is the way that I got the book deal was it was a follower on social media.
And she worked for HarperCollins Publishing Company. And she said, I think that what you're saying is really important. And would you ever consider writing a book? And I was like, I'm going to have to think about that. I'm really busy. But I owned a physical therapy clinic in New Orleans at the time. And I was building up my online exercise platform. And I was like, I just don't have the capacity.
So I ended up selling my clinic. And the day after I sold my clinic, I signed the book contract. And so I had to make some shifts in my personal and professional life to take on this endeavor. And I still work for the clinic. I sold it to the two women who were my employees at the time. And now I work for them.
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Chapter 6: What resources are available for pelvic floor health?
And that's something to be cognizant of. I get some kickback on this, but I always teach people you have to lift smarter, not heavier. Yes, I want people to lift a good amount of weight, especially as we get older. That's not the wisest thing in the world to do because...
Essentially, as we get older and as we age, there's a bunch of degradation going on throughout our bodies, whether it's bone, muscle, joints, ligaments, tendons, all of that and all that pressure. And it all applies. And there's no good or point in trying to lift too heavy and then hurting yourself and being on the shelf forever.
Right.
And I get these people that have kicked back and be, oh, you got to lift heavy to gain muscle. Really? Because I've trained Mr. Olympia athletes with 15 pound dumbbells screaming and crying. If you do it right, you do eccentric movements and teach them how to do it properly. But, you know, people get this one track mind. And then just like you pointed out, it can have a
a trickle down effect all throughout your body, right? By doing things that are not necessary to do unless you're in a power lifting competition. And I'm not saying don't, I'm not saying lift baby weights all day, but what I'm saying is do it smarter, do it wiser. And that's just, it all correlates and trickles down.
Now you brought up a hernia and that immediately took me to, is there any sort of correlation between like a weakening of the abdominal walls there that would potentially cause cause that weakening from a pelvic floor issue? Is that possible? Or look at it from the other way. Could developing a hernia cause weakness down there? Let's like invert these in which or both is accurate.
Yeah, you have – the way that your brain works, Dylan, is you're really like following this track and the answer is yes. It's like you're like cluing into all these things. I'm like, that's correct. So you have different layers of your abdominals. And the deepest layer is called your transverse abdominals. That kind of wraps, you know, all the way around from your deep abs to your low back.
And then you've got your layers of oblique abdominals. And then you've got your six-pack rectus muscles, right? Those are kind of the out muscles that you would have. I know you've seen yours. I've never seen mine, but I've heard that they're in there. But all that being said, that deepest layer, the transverse abdominals, connect to your pelvic floor.
So when you activate your pelvic floor contraction, when you contract, your deep abdominal transverse muscles contract at the same time. They work in synergy. You can't isolate them separately. So if you're engaging your deep pelvic floor muscles, your deep ab muscles are also firing.
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Chapter 7: How can lifestyle choices impact pelvic floor health?
And I would point this out with what you just said. If you actually, because I do this a lot where I'll actually sit down and start to do a full breakdown of, okay, so how many minutes a day do I spend doing the X, Y, Z? You know what I mean? And you'll sit there and you'll do that. And when you act put out to do something that's so minimal and so easy, and what am I doing in place of that?
And is that helping me in any sort of way whatsoever to be a happier person and Am I thinking long term on what this could benefit me or hurt me? And when you start to do that and then you break it down, you go, oh, shit, like in a few minutes a day. And actually, once you develop a habit. especially a good one, you never want to miss it.
I mean, you get bad habits and you say it's hard to break, but when you develop good ones. So if I miss the gym or if I miss a day of walking or a day of cardio, I am not pleasant at all. I mean, admittedly, I'm just not because I'm miserable and, and it's, I think people, if they actually, it takes a week to two weeks to get pushed through something and develop a habit.
And then once you do it, you never want to be without it, especially when it's something good. And it's you wean yourself off bad foods. Well, once you have them after a month or two months, they taste like shit. You know, it's like somebody that smoked. If you stop smoking six months and then you start again, it'll blow you away how gross it is.
I did that with alcohol when I used to party and then I didn't drink for a couple of years. And then I did like now I can't even have half a drink and I just don't even want to be near it.
Right.
So it's just like anything else. Developing good habits is the question that I had for you that I was thinking of had to do with pregnancy. So. Do you start or recommend somebody that is pregnant say, hey, be aware that this could create you a problem. Let's start working on this right now. And do you find that pregnancy can be very problematic in causing this pelvic floor problem?
Yes and yes.
Okay.
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Chapter 8: What is included in Sara's book 'Floored'?
So I know this is a broad question, but who is your target audience then with the book and with your website? Do you have a general target audience or is it just the widest variety possible?
Yeah, people with vaginas.
It makes sense.
No, but really, you know, I think that when people like even, you know, my mom's in her 70s and she's like, well, I don't know if I need this book because I'm in my 70s. I'm going, well, you're at a risk of leaking urine. You could end up in a nursing home. You pee every 30 minutes when I'm with you. Like, yeah, you definitely need this book.
Or it may be a young woman in her 20s that has pain with sex. And she's like, well, I don't I'm not pregnant, but and I don't leak. And I'm like, yeah, but you might have pain or you're sexually active. What I really think that I tell everybody is read the first chapter and the last chapter. Those are my two favorites. I just did the audio book recording and reread the whole book.
And those two chapters, I think, really sum up what's important, what's kind of total BS, because there's a lot of like wellness industry stuff for the vulva and vagina, why we need this. And then you can kind of cherry pick which chapters you like. Like if I have a peeing problem, then I'm like, okay, read the bladder chapter. If I'm pregnant, read the bladder chapter.
then read the pregnancy and birth and postpartum chapters. If I'm perimenopausal, read the menopause chapter, you know? So kind of go to what you need it for, but you're going to go through every stage of life as a woman and you may be pregnant and postpartum and then a couple of years later be perimenopausal, you know, or start having pain with sex and then you need to read the sex chapter. So,
I think actually when people read it, what I do is I tell you what's normal, how often should you be peeing, what should sex feel like, how do orgasms work, how to insert a tampon. I mean like everything from the basics of your body to how should you be peeing and pooping and lifting and breathing so that you don't cause an issue.
And then if you are experiencing an issue, what can you do at home to start helping with it? Like you can start these things right now. And you and I talk a lot about like, hey, it's just 10 minutes a couple of times a week. And I know some people are like, oh my gosh, I can't put another thing on my plate. But these are really small changes you can make.
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