E12: The Hidden Impact of Desk Jobs on Your Body—and Relationships

E12: Is Your Desk Job Hurting Your Sex Life?

Podcast: Work it, Remote

Host: Erika Bergen

Guest: Nya McKenzie, DPT

All content in this podcast belongs to Erika Bergen. 

Published: February 12, 2025 [

00:00:00] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: How many hours a day or in a week do you sit at your desk, in your car, at the kitchen table? Probably way more than you care to admit, right? Me too. And we all understand at this point that sitting for long periods of time is not good for our health. But do we understand why the mechanics of it, And did you know that sitting for too long, your desk job is hurting your sex life? Yeah, it's hurting your back and your hips and all of these other components, but it's also hurting your sex life.

And that's what we're going to get into today. How do we Understand more about what's happening so that we can raise our well being and raise the quality of our life I have a Nya McKenzie joining us. . She is a physical therapist a pelvic floor therapist She's certified in Pilates and also carries lots of other specialty certifications that give her a really well rounded view of how our bodies work 

And she's going to teach us. She's here to teach us, give us more awareness about our bodies and what we can do to better support them. Nya has a really interesting journey that led her into this work. 

She experienced a traumatic injury at a young age. And that really shaped the rest of her life and so she's going to go into that and how it has really inspired her work Which at its core is all about helping people understand the sources of their pain and helping them live Healthier lives

 This is a conversation that every woman needs to hear. We need to better understand how our bodies work, especially the parts of our bodies that sit in our pelvic floor area.

 But you do not want to hear this with young ears around with colleagues around or with strangers lingering. So put in your AirPods and get ready to learn about your vagina.

 I'm excited to have this conversation because health is such a huge part of what I care about.

 and I have cared about health for my health for a long time. My mom's a personal trainer. Both my parents served right in the military. And so they would run all the time. They would lift weights all the time because they had that PT in the morning they had to do right those tests and my first job ever was working at a gym Handing out towels

[00:02:26] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: I love it.

[00:02:27] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: and I was and I lived in Germany on a military Installation on it.

Yeah on an army base and I would hand out towels to the soldiers as they would train It was like by five o'clock in the morning because they all had to train And so health is, and fitness has always been a part of my life. So it has shocked me in my now 40s to learn that so much of what I knew or what I thought I knew is, um, it's so, it's so much, it's so much bigger than that.

There's so much more about our bodies. And

[00:02:56] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: And

[00:02:56] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: thing that,

[00:02:57] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: that you had that because most people don't, you know,

[00:03:00] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: yeah, I did get exposed to it at an early age.

[00:03:02] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Yeah, most people do not grow up exercising or seeing their parents exercise because exercise really became trendy in like the 80s. So, um, yeah,

[00:03:13] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Why I'm an 80s baby

[00:03:15] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: so that's me. So maybe if our parents were trendy, they started with jazzercise and things like that.

But if they weren't trendy, they weren't really doing anything.

[00:03:27] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Yeah, well it was a job requirement for my parents, but I'm excited about this conversation because it's gonna I think open a lot of minds to how to think about health So let's introduce you Nya, Nya McKenzie the owner of Pilates PT and Pelvic Floor Rehab Before we get into the discussion and and what that means pelvic floor rehab and Pilates PT and our health Give us a little bit of background on you

[00:03:55] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Okay, so that is going to be a long winded story. So bear with me. So I have had a very, um, life. Um, I would, I grew up, uh, in the country in Maryland. Um, I was a pretty feral kid, like climbing outside all those trees. Um, but then life happened. My parents got divorced. I was really angry and sad I started acting out.

I was like a wild and crazy adolescent, like drugs, drinking, all the things. And when I was at 15, I was in a car accident with my crazy friends. And in that car accident, I had a traumatic brain injury and I severed a nerve in my neck that. Goes to my arm. So I was in a coma for like two weeks. Um, and then I was in hospital learning how to walk again, learning how to function again.

Um, but my arm never did anything. It was just flaccid. Nobody really knew why. Um, because they were focused on my brain. So I started PT myself and, um, it was just very, uh, it was God that led me to this incredible woman. I have the best PT ever. didn't even know what PT was before I started. And she just treated me like I was her child. she just happened to be. one of the best PTs in the nation. And it wasn't like my mom found her, it was just divine intervention. Um, and you know, as like an out of control kid, I just started spending all my time in PT. Like I was, you know, cheerleading captain and now all of a sudden I couldn't walk.

So I was super depressed. Sometimes even suicidal, like I was in therapies for a really long time I looked different, I moved different, and there was no hiding it. So I just kind of like hid away in a PT clinic and I started working there and like volunteering there I was getting all my therapies.

Um, and then I was like, Oh, maybe I should be a PT. Um, and that really turned my life course around. I didn't have any. inclination of going to college before this car accident. Uh, so my PT wrote me my recommendation letters and I got accepted to the number one PT school in the nation, was USC. So I head

[00:06:47] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Well,

[00:06:47] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: USC and that was just like PT on steroids. They created the PT program, like the history of physical therapy like starts and ends at USC. It's like a really, really big deal. Everybody who's writing the literature were my teachers, the experts in every area. Subject was coming to do our lectures. So I really left that school over prepared with an incredible network it really produces the top 5 percent PTs in the nation.

So like, most of my classmates were working with the Lakers working. you know, personal physical therapist traveling with Kobe with, you know, so working

[00:07:32] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: yeah Mm

[00:07:33] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: it's definitely like produces the upper echelon of PTs. Um, I got to work in LA. I really experienced that market. back to D. C. And that's where I just honed my P. T. Skills as a general physical therapist, I think we really lack nowadays. Um, I had this incredible orthopedic background, and I was just a general P. T. I worked with a lot of seniors. Um, just kind of figuring my niche there. I've always done Pilates, Myself. This was part of my car accident.

I was super active before my car accident and all of a sudden like I lived with chronic pain, so I couldn't exercise like I really wanted to. And I found for myself. was the only mode of exercise that didn't leave me in a lot of pain afterwards. Like, I couldn't go lift weights because the weights they were too heavy for my arm. gym didn't have what I was looking for. Personal trainers didn't understand my injury. I couldn't get through a class. I couldn't go to just yoga. So Pilates was the most gentle. I didn't get hurt, but it was also like a real workout. Like I

[00:08:54] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: hmm.

[00:08:55] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Tai Chi in the woods with a bunch of old people.

Like I was fit. So Pilates would kick my butt. I would get stronger, all the things. And it really helped with my chronic pain and I felt empowered all the things. So I started, um, incorporating it slowly into my PT, just with my patients on my own. Uh, then I got married, my husband and I moved to New York. And New York is really the hub of Pilates. New York is where Pilates starts and ends. That's where Joseph Pilates did his thing. like all the who's who people. And then there's just a huge dance community. again, Divine Intervention. I got a job in this. Amazing clinic that started Pilates based physical therapy.

And I got to like build this clinic with this guy in Brooklyn. not build it with him, but I was part of his journey as he was building it. So I got to see everything. his wife was an incredible dancer and Pilates instructor. I started going through the Pilates training and the Pilates training took me about two and a half years to like, learn all the exercises, millions. Test out on them, treat them. And I just was Pilates PT in New York it was in Brooklyn Heights. So it was like actors. celebrities, movie stars, Wall Street guys. which was nice in the sense that they demanded such a high caliber. So we had to rise to the occasion.

So was one thing. The Pilates certification is something very rare that a physical therapist has because it takes so long to get. And, It's expensive. It's time consuming. So most PTs, if they're doing Pilates based care, it's more like they took a con ed course. They didn't go through the whole thing and do it themselves

[00:10:59] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Hmm.

[00:11:00] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: the dancers that can move in these incredible ways.

And it's like me, stiff. Softball player, you know, so I

[00:11:08] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Wow

[00:11:09] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Pilates from the best of the best. I challenged myself further and got another Pilates certification with STOTT, so I have two of the best Pilates certifications. It started to attract so many moms, postpartum people, cause you just hear, Oh, Pilates is good for them.

[00:11:29] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: yeah

[00:11:30] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: So I, me and my coworker at the time, we just started seeing all these moms. We hadn't had kids yet. And we just kind of felt like we were always missing something. And it was from the inside out. Like, people would be complaining of this pulling deep in their groin, or constipation, or It was really obvious that we were getting people, like, 85 percent of the way. So, her and I, together, we were like, let's dive into this pelvic floor thing. I mean, it took us a long time to work up our courage, because we were like, you know, we're PTs. Like, what are we gonna be in people's vaginas everyday? Anyway. And we just did it. And it was like, I remember the first time we saw our first pelvic floor patients, we like came out and like, high five.

Like, I can't believe I just had my finger in this lady's vagina, but it just took off. And it was like, the first year was like, what the fuck am I doing? Sorry. But you

just, You just grow and you learn and we just started helping people together and it was really cool. I found my niche.

I'm in the Pilates, I'm in the pelvic floor thing, my chronic pain was starting to rear its ugly head as I, especially as I got older. I realized again, I was missing something. I always kind of felt very tight and like restricted. And, like in this fascial straight jacket is what I call it now I was strong, I just always felt uncomfortable in my body, in my skin.

[00:13:06] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Hmm. 

[00:13:06] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: then We moved back to D. C. and I started renting space from this incredible therapist. Um, I didn't really know what myofascial therapy was at the time, but he was just like, uh, take a course just so we're like speaking the same language around the clinic. Even though you're doing your thing, I'm doing mine. And in this course, it was like, like maybe 200 people like rolling around in their underwear, screaming, chanting, convulsing, vomiting.

[00:13:44] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: What is my, can you, what is my, you've said a lot of terms that I think we need to define.

[00:13:49] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: So

[00:13:49] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: start with,

[00:13:50] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: myself was like, what is this? So myofascial therapy it's a lot of things. The way that I learned it is something different though. So if you ask a PT, 10 PTs, you're going to get 10 different answers. I started my. Myofascial journey with a specific teaching called John Barnes, myofascial release. And if you Google it, you're going to see this old white guy with like a beard and like, he looks like Santa Claus and he's just laying hands over people on like these red rock vortexes in Arizona. And it was the craziest thing that I've ever seen, but I'm just like sitting back, taking it in. And then it happened to me. And it was just like, you peel back layers of an onion, having somebody with their hands in my neck. I felt releases. I had never felt before. And when that released, it traveled down my spine, my shoulder blade. It traveled, you know, behind my right hip. traveled down into my calf. And that kind of started unwinding this fascial straitjacket. Kind of like, if you're used to sitting and your neck is tight and you're always like this.

[00:15:04] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Yeah.

[00:15:05] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: tilting like this and then and I'm exaggerating but your body kind of winds up and so releasing those old wounds And letting the tears come out because the fascia holds a memory and it's usually not good So allowing yourself to just let go and like go to your channel 3 Which is like the fuzzy station where your semi conscious you're just listening to your body and what the universe is talking to you and having these good cries and good screams and good laughs. And yeah, so

[00:15:43] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Wow. And

[00:15:44] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: that. So I am a Pilates based pelvic floor therapist that does myofascial work. So I have a huge variety of patients that see me. I think that my, I've

[00:15:57] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: you now have your own private, we said this at the beginning, but you now have your own private practice. So you have your, you are in your studio right now.

[00:16:04] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: and so I opened my own clinic and I hit the ground running. day that I, maybe I had like six weeks where I was like getting my name out there and doing the business card thing. after, once people knew I was there, I just never slowed down every year.

I'm so blessed and you know, I thrive through the pandemic. I was already booked and busy, but then the pandemic really made pelvic floor trendy.

[00:16:37] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Mm hmm.

[00:16:38] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: There was a couple of articles in the New York Times. most pelvic floor conditions get worse with sitting and stress.

And that was the pandemic. So pelvic floor therapists, we exploded everybody during the pandemic and we were already booked and busy. 

In all these moves I started having babies and I'd have to take time off and One of the times I took off, but I wanted to keep my feet wet. I went back to my mentor, who was my PT, who now has specialized in the face. so she treats like TMJ, Bell's palsy, facial palsies.

She's like the best literally in the nation. 

[00:17:16] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: What's her name?

[00:17:17] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Her is name is Jody Barth. And she is in, uh, Rockville, Maryland at the Center for Facial, not Fascial, Facial Recovery. I did a little stint working for her for a year when I was, like, postpartum one of my babies. and she taught me how to work the jaw, how to treat the jaw. And the jaw is so important. Something that PTs don't do well, but we should. And so I treat the jaw and the jaw is also very connected to the pelvic floor. And in that time, me having my babies, I had three kids back to back. For better or worse, um, very diverse birthing experiences. Like the first was unmedicated. The second was a plan C section. The third, I was two weeks late and I had an induced VBAC. So I think like just being a mom also in going through so many different birth experiences, and a fertility journey initially that was with loss, full of loss. It definitely gave me, a different. lens to help patients because I

[00:18:27] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: wow, 

[00:18:27] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: also the moms that have suffered loss are a very quiet, underserved population 

[00:18:35] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: yeah. 

[00:18:35] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: they are post-partum too, but we kind of forget about them when they leave the hospital or when their miscarriage is healed in their par, their period is back

[00:18:43] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: wow. I mean, I'm, I, I didn't know. Thank you for going through all of that. I didn't know that much about your story and how you got into this work. And I knew you were specialized in all these areas, but the depth at which is impressive. So we are very fortunate to have you talk to us.

 the reason why we started talking, right? One of the reasons we started talking about doing this episode together is because you mentioned that you have been able to build a living. off of people who work desk jobs and people who work.

[00:19:12] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: of dollars and there's no secret. I tell 'em all. giving you the tools.

[00:19:18] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Yes. Yes. And, and that's what remote workers do or people who are working any desk job, but particularly remote workers are people who are now in sort of flexible environments where you're working from home, from home. I have found in, in working from home, I'm just sitting way more than I did when I commuted into an office and we're talking to women here too, right?

So help us unpack. What is pelvic floor because it's a term that gets thrown out there and I've heard of it mostly in terms of postpartum care and maternity, but you talk about it in a much broader way. So just , like literally walk us through the anatomy of what is our pelvic floor and what does it mean to have a strong or weak?

What are the implications of that? That's a two part question.

[00:20:02] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Okay, so the pelvic floor is a bowl of muscles in your pelvis. I actually have a pelvis right here. So here's a pelvis. This is a female pelvis. Okay,

[00:20:14] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: this audio, but we have video that'll be on YouTube. If anybody wants to see this pelvis. Okay.

[00:20:20] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: this is a pelvis inside of it is a bowl of muscles. and the muscles in here, this is just a handful of them. There's so many more, mind boggling, like there's so many muscles in here and nobody knows anything about them.

[00:20:37] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Yeah, I'll count myself among the,

[00:20:40] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: the

[00:20:40] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: the ignorant.

[00:20:41] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: that you have all these holes here that runs through the pelvic floor. first one is the urethra. here, that connects your bladder to your p hole. Um, that's on everybody. And this is men, women, everything in between. Everybody has a pelvic floor. So you have dysfunction whether you had kids or not, whether you're man, woman, child, trans, non binary, everybody has a pelvic floor.

So the urethra, this is a vagina, so this would be absent if it was a man, and then the rectum. All three of those things travel through all these muscles. if you have dysfunction with your pelvic floor, you are going to have some dysfunction with the urethra, bladder issues. You're going to have dysfunction with the vagina. painful sex usually. You're going to have dysfunction with your rectum that usually looks like constipation. The job of the pelvic floor, its actual job, is to hold up your organs. That's really its only job. But when we have low back pain, when we have hip issues, all these little muscles will try to help out. So a lot of times it's fixing those things first. Um, and a myriad of things go wrong here. There's also a lot of like, nerves and arteries that travel through this pelvic floor. So we get nerve pains and entrapments. We get decreased blood flow and um, venous obstructions. There's so many things that happen down here. And you know, childbirth is one of them, but the postpartum mom is not like the biggest part of my population. anytime we're sitting, so this is for the sitting people. pelvis moves. It

[00:22:41] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Okay.

[00:22:42] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: a lot. So when we sit, if we're not sitting in good posture, upright like this. And we kind of curve back like that and get into our slump position.

So this

[00:22:54] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: I'm

[00:22:54] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: sitting upright.

[00:22:55] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: physically like moving my pelvis trying to, yeah, connect with what you're saying.

[00:22:59] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Like if you sit upright, you can feel those two sit bones underneath you.

[00:23:03] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Yeah.

[00:23:04] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: That's where we want to be. So I always tell people, feel those sit bones. Do they feel equal? That's where you want to be. How long can you sit on those sit bones?

Because it's your abs, ultimately, that hold you in this position. I tell people, That's going to wake things up. So if you're sitting like this, know, and you start to feel a back pain, you probably have some back issues that you need to address. So when you go into that sitting, rocking back this part, your sacrum, it gets pushed in.

[00:23:41] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: The sacrum is at the bottom of your back. Right.

[00:23:45] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: where your

[00:23:46] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: What connects. Yeah. Okay.

[00:23:48] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Here's the tailbone down here. the sacrum, it kind of pushes in and it allows the pelvic floor to get tight. So if you rock back and sit on the pelvis like that, your pelvic floor is tight. And that's what mostly everybody does, because it's hard to sit up tight. If you don't have hip or back pain, you probably just don't have the abdominal strength to keep you there. Well,

[00:24:12] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: And so if you're sitting like that, where you have a curved back, then your pelvic floor is doing more work than it should be doing. Right. Right. It's.

[00:24:21] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: there, now let's talk about how people work, right? We really are working more than 40 hours a week. So you're sitting there for, let's say, 50 hours. The pelvic floor is getting really tight, it's used to staying tight now. So it doesn't really know that it can relax and turn off. The pelvic floor is very much like the jaw.

That's why I treat them both, because they're very connected. When you clench your teeth, you don't really realize you're doing it. You can do it in your sleep, you can clench and grind overnight. The vagina is the exact same way. You can clench and grind your vagina at night. So these vaginas are tired, and they're helping your back pain. And then what they do is you have pain with sex. And it's like we want, we expect too much from these little vaginas. It's been working for you at your desk all day. It's helping you pick up your kids, all this stuff. And then at night you want it to work extra hard and give you this amazing orgasm. But the

[00:25:24] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: So,

[00:25:24] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: like Hello, I need medical attention.

[00:25:29] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: so what are some of the symptoms? So I wouldn't have thought of pain during intercourse as a symptom. What are some of the other symptoms?

[00:25:38] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: one symptom that

[00:25:40] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Okay.

[00:25:40] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: me. Most

[00:25:42] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Wow.

[00:25:42] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: people are not having sex comfortably, but it's not something that they talk about. Because when they're with their girlfriends at lunch, they're talking about they've had sex four times this week, which is bullshit. It's lies, because the men have been sitting like that too. And when men sit like that all the time, their pelvic floor is tight and tired too. So, they are not going to be able to maintain the same erection for long. It might be not as hard as it used to get. having trouble peeing. You see them leaning over in the bathroom forever. So it goes both ways.

[00:26:22] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Hmm.

[00:26:23] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: also talk about that authentic ness, where our vaginas were traumatized by a childbirth. And have we had space to unpack that? Have we had a safe space to thank our bodies for what it's done? And to unpack them, let them know that they're safe, and that they can let go of some of this old stuff.

[00:26:46] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: So what does pelvic floor therapy do? Is it about correcting that posture?

[00:26:52] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Everybody does it a little differently. pelvic floor therapists, they come out of school and they go into pelvic floor therapy. So you go see them, you're on the table, they're in your vagina, you're out and you're back

[00:27:04] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: So they are manually. Loosening those muscles. Okay.

[00:27:09] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: My of doing it is different. I believe in authentically healing, like I have some really cool tools and tricks to help the body unlock itself from the inside out and teach people how to do it themselves because a lot of times this pelvic floor issue might rear its ugly head again, I want people to know how to fix it because I don't have time to treat everybody that needs it. I just

[00:27:37] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Yeah, and so It's one way that we can manage it ourselves Just correcting our posture.

[00:27:46] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: No, it's way too, um, complicated than

[00:27:50] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Okay.

[00:27:51] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: You would need a medical professional.

[00:27:53] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Okay.

[00:27:54] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: where, like, I'm starting this exercise subscription. So anybody who's listening, they can go to my website. PilatesPTrehab. com and subscribe there and you'll be able to get all these cool exercises that I'll update weekly and add things on. recommend that people go see a pelvic floor therapist in their community. They're not always easy to find. The good ones, unfortunately, are usually cash based. because of the nature of the beast. Um, I need to see my patients one on one. I need to give them a safe space. And you can't do that at a traditional P. T. Clinic when there's eight people in the gym and you're working out with this high school kid

[00:28:40] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Mm hmm.

[00:28:42] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: P. T. Is seeing five people at once.

[00:28:44] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Yeah

[00:28:45] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: that same dollar that I'm doing, with one. So that's why it's out of network usually. And unfortunately, and then the good ones like me are gonna be, hard to find. It's not an accessible thing. And I'm like a, You know, little screw in a cog wheel of a big, huge health care system problem, They're hard to find. They're inaccessible. They're expensive. But I say that that you don't give up. We are out there. We are around ask around, ask your gynecologist. They don't typically refer to us because we are expensive and we're out of network. So they're going to refer to the in network person that they know, and that person is not going to give you the same care, unfortunately, because of the medical model that they're working under. So I think, The biggest thing is to bring awareness about it, that like painful sex, constipation, pelvic pain, um, pain

[00:29:46] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: And when you say pelvic pain, do you mean hip pain?

[00:29:49] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: sometimes the hip, yeah, cause the hip is part of the pelvis, this is your hip right here, all these pelvic floor muscles attach in there, the littler ones, so hip pain that doesn't go away, like say you had hip pain or back pain and you went to a traditional PT, and you just never got better,

[00:30:07] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Yeah.

So where does the Pilates part come in?

[00:30:11] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: So the Pilates part comes in where I've taken Pilates and I've turned it upside down. I've changed it. Because traditional Pilates, I think, is dysfunctional for the pelvic floor because it causes more pelvic floor tightness. And most people have a tight pelvic floor. Um, so I've changed it

[00:30:30] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: You know, I was interested. sorry to interrupt you, but I'm going to build on that for a second. my first baby, when I got a Uh, doula for the birth and I really wanted a natural birth and I was trying to, you know, we're going through exercises and I have a dance background and I had been reading all this stuff online about strengthening your pelvic floor, doing Kegel exercises.

And she was so good at what she does. She told me, don't do that. You have a dance background. You have a strong pelvic floor. I want you to focus on releasing those muscles and breathing through it. And so what you're saying, I just want to add context to that because I think we, We don't really understand what I didn't really understand what it meant a strong versus a weak.

[00:31:15] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Yeah.

[00:31:15] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: anyway, please continue I didn't mean to interrupt you

[00:31:17] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: that's also like I do see a lot. I have another patient population of moms get preparing for birth do think that the tight pelvic floor delays labor. baby has to go through that.

[00:31:29] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: they have to right And so you were I didn't mean to interrupt your line of thinking you were talking About how you're turning Pilates upside down because so much of the typical Pilates is about tightening the pelvic floor

[00:31:41] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: unintentionally, but you know, dancers, when you do that turnout, it's your pelvic floor that's holding on to that. So most dancers have tight pelvic floors and a lot of dysfunction from that for the rest of their life because it was ingrained in them from a little baby. Um, and Pilates attracts dancers because it's in that turnout.

It's doing all these dance like moves. It's dancing laying down.

[00:32:07] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: no, Pilates for that very reason. I feel like I'm going back to my dance roots

[00:32:12] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Um, so I've really changed it with different breaths with different exercises of the 2 million exercises I've learned. There's probably like 100 that I would do with my patients. I think that, uh, you know, it's 1 on 1.

It's focusing on your compensations. And that's something that takes a really fine eye to do. And most Pilates instructors, they're not taught pathology of the body, biomechanics of the body. They just know Pilates really, really well. And I think dancers have been extremely Amazing body awareness. So like Pilates instructors are great for that, but, , they don't understand the compensations and they don't understand the pelvic floor.

It's a science that has taken me 10 years to learn. So it's not great when like people have done it down and like this, this, this, cause it's a, it's so encompassing of your physical, your mental, your spiritual, your. your gut nutrition, mean everything, your stress, your vitamin deficiency, where you are in life. So I've really changed it and I've given people these amazing one on one workouts that are really tailored to them. that's why I decided to create this exercise subscription so I can get this word out and make it a little bit more accessible, especially for black and brown women and busy moms.

,

[00:33:48] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: I know you have, you have a client coming in soon, so I want to be mindful of your time and respect your time. Let me ask you if it's fair to make the parallel between dancers, Who have stronger, tighter pelvic floors and people who have desk jobs because you also just told us that because of the way that people are sitting in their chairs, they may more naturally have a pelvic floor.

 Is there a parallel there? And what you said about dancers? Is that true too for desk workers?

[00:34:17] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: the spine, top of the spine, the extension of it is your upper cervical spine and your jaw. upper cervical spine and your jaw. That's the extension of your spine from the top. The pelvic floor is the extension of your spine from the bottom. So the jaw and the pelvic floor are very much connected. So people at the desk, what I always say where you really, where really all goes wrong is right here. When you're at your desk, you get busy working, but now we've put a computer screen in there. First of all, we're not our bodies aren't meant to sit at a desk for 40 hours, right? Like, we all can say that that's super dysfunctional.

That's not normal in 1950. that's not how people were working. So. We didn't work this capacity. We weren't stuck behind a desk,

[00:35:08] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: We didn't have really have, we didn't have computers. So

[00:35:10] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: So now that's where I was going to say. So we now we're at our desk. Our bodies have evolved to this, now we have a computer screen in front of us and what that does.

And you're going to watch this area, my neck and jaw. This is the

[00:35:24] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: And this is a visual for people just listening. Yes.

[00:35:28] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: and to see that computer. You do this.

[00:35:31] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Yes.

[00:35:33] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: just that little neck tilt. And that's where you can make the biggest difference as a desk worker. That thing gets tight, and then the pelvic floor gets tight with it. When this gets

[00:35:48] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Ah.

[00:35:49] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: the jaw gets tight. And you clench your

[00:35:51] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Oh, I, I feel that, I mean, I can mm-hmm

[00:35:55] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: giving birth, you're in pain. When you clench the jaw, you clench your vagina. So if we can unclench the jaw at our desk, you're gonna do that. So I, as a desk worker, I would take time to think about, am I sitting up with my sit bones? Number one. And then I would focus on this motion. It's called cervical retraction. It's not this. It's not this. It's pulling your chin straight back. We all have this forward head posture where our ear is in front of our shoulder. a forward head posture. We're trying to create, correct that. So if you're thinking of pulling your chin directly straight back, and you feel a little stretch in the back of your neck, muscles engage in the front of your neck.

[00:36:51] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Yeah.

[00:36:53] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: want to try to get into this posture. Your ear should be directly over your shoulder. So that's what you need to focus on. And a lot of times. all goes wrong. I see pelvic floor dysfunction, literally, from somebody who needs to get their eyes checked. If you wear glasses, I'm, I'm looking at those patients.

I'm like, House? I'm like, okay, when was the last time you got your eyes checked? Because you should be going every six months. If you wear glasses once a year, you don't. Because if you need glasses, you're just going to go like this to see the screen.

[00:37:31] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Right.

[00:37:32] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: And that can cause headaches. all kinds of things that you start to see when this jaw gets tight. So the cervical retraction is what I would work on. Um, you can start off doing it in the car when you put your head on the car seat and you just try to pull your chin back. a great place to practice it. And that's what you want to try to think about. The posture starts up here at C1 and C2, but most people don't know how to treat that far up. And you can't, you can't treat this yourself as a person. You need a therapist to do it. So if you can unlock your posture from here, the rest of the stuff pretty much falls in line. So I would say sitting up on those sit bones and pulling your chin back into cervical retraction. And I, you know, I've created a lot of exercise flows that focus on that cervical retraction, sitting, standing, using household things.

So again, just go to my website um, get onto my mailing list and I can send you some things, but that's really where, where it starts and ends

[00:38:48] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: I knew that this would promise to unlock just an more expansive way of thinking about our health and how we can take care of ourselves.

[00:38:54] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: getting the

[00:38:55] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: And

[00:38:56] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Like you can't sit that long. Like when I do my admin day, whenever I'm on my phone, that's my cue to get up. I'm, when I'm taking a phone call, I'm pacing my office

[00:39:07] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: that's a good trick. 

[00:39:09] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: otherwise you set a timer, you can set a timer and it should be, you shouldn't sit for more than 40 minutes straight.

So 40 minutes sitting should be followed by 20 minutes standing. The timer never worked well for me and it was just got on my nerves, but it might work for other people. But I just know when I get a call. Sometimes I'm on the phone for an hour. I am not going to sit down while I'm talking on the phone. And if I'm tired of walking, I'm going to get down on my foam roller. Every, you should have a foam roller next to your office, your desk. I, I have my husband's, we should do another podcast from my husband's office. Cause I have it all outfitted because he is a desk worker and the foam roller needs to sit there so you can take breaks.

You can't sit all day and expect to be healthy.

[00:39:54] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Thank you, Nya. This has been incredibly insightful and helpful. And you can find Nya on her website. Nya, can you say that again for everyone?

[00:40:02] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: Pilatesptrehab.Com.

That's also where you can find My email address, like if you want to shoot me any questions, I love educating people about their bodies. Like, this is what feeds my soul.

So reach out, let me know if you're in the DC area, I'm located in Silver Spring, Maryland, right on the. Maryland, D. C. Line. Come see me. I have lots of patients that travel to see me and, um, they might do like a two day thing and then get back on the road. So whatever works. I have lots of patients that I see virtually.

 So hit me up.

[00:40:42] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: , thank you Nya

[00:40:43] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: you

[00:40:44] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Have a

[00:40:44] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: welcome.

[00:40:45] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: rest of the day. Thank you. Thank you

[00:40:47] nya-mckenzie--dpt--prpc--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094904: great.

[00:40:48] erika-bergen--she-her-_1_01-29-2025_094908: Wow, what a great episode. So many insights there and I hope you learned a little bit more about your body and how you can better take care of it 

if you haven't already hit follow or subscribe, go to workitremote.Com so you can get connected to the community and we'll see you next time.