It’s spring, a time for new beginnings and new life. If you are a mother who is busy raising a new human, you may be interested in checking out The Bump Method with BB, a post-natal fitness program run by fitness instructor, Brittany Brie.
Brie is a passionate professional who has made a name for herself in the local health and fitness community as both a Pilates and dance instructor.
She works primarily with women and children, teaching them how to move their bodies in fun and challenging ways.
Her mom-and-baby classes run throughout York Region and Simcoe County — including in Bradford West Gwillimbury starting June 14 — offering women a chance to get out of the house with their young ones and work on their pelvic-floor muscles.
Brie said pelvic floor issues are important when it comes to postpartum health that is often not talked about by obstetricians after women give birth.
“Which is kind of upsetting,” she said. “But we have pelvic floor physiotherapists for that. Not many women know what they are and there are not many of (those types of physiotherapists),” she said.
The Bump Method is an extension of The Belle Method, a Toronto-based Pilates program run by Canadian health and fitness expert Nikki Bergen.
Bergen teamed up with a pelvic-floor physiotherapist to create specialized pelvic-floor classes for new moms, which Brie is licensed to teach. The classes focus on alignment, breath and choreography.
“I think that pelvic health is very important for bringing the tissues back together because if you don’t do the work…. you’re going to have a lot of problems down the road with prolapse,” she said.
Prolapse is a condition where the organs, like the uterus, slip down and become unaligned, causing problems with incontinence.
“A lot of prolapses happen with women ages 50-plus… and it’s because after having children they haven’t rehabilitated themselves,” she explained.
With consistency, Brie said women can strengthen and repair their pelvic floor muscles that often become tightened or weaken after pregnancy.
Brie had noticed some issues with her own pelvic health, which was the catalyst for her starting to teach the classes.
“I was holding my stomach in and I couldn’t breathe so my diaphragm wasn’t able to move and work with my pelvic floor, and I was causing myself a lot of pain,” she shared.
Brie works behind the business name, Brittany Brie Movement. The term “movement” originally started off as a verb of physically moving the body, but she said it seems to have evolved into more of a noun — a movement of women who want to stay active and healthy with physical exercise.
“The movement sort of changed out of physical movement, to a movement of feeling good,” she said.
Brie recently became an ambassador for Canadian fitness apparel company, lululemon. She has been chosen by the Upper Canada Mall store location to represent the community through Pilates and dance.
“I’m pumped,” she gushed.
To learn more about Brie and her classes, visit The Belle Method website thebellemethod.com or follow her on Instagram @brittanybriemovement.
Her mom-and-baby Pilates class will be running at Kinnect Studio in Bradford West Gwillimbury starting Friday June 14. To register, email [email protected].
