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Monday 9am - 3pm Tuesday 9am - 3pm Thursday 9am - 3pm Friday 7am - 1pm

http://empoweredpelvicrehab.squarespace.com/

Empowered Pelvic Rehab, 600 3rd Street SE, Suite 201, Cedar Rapids, IA (2026)

04/08/2026

Hi! I’m Kelsey — the pelvic floor physical therapist and coach behind this page 👋✨

Every few months I like to reintroduce myself because this community continues to grow and I’m so grateful you’re here.

My path into pelvic floor therapy actually started with realizing how little we’re taught about the female body.

When I first learned pelvic floor therapy existed in grad school, I remember thinking:

“Wait… why didn’t I know this was a thing?”

I also felt a little embarrassed because I realized how much I didn’t know either.

But the more I learned, the more fascinated I became.

The pelvic floor isn’t just one muscle — it works with your breath, core, hips, and movement patterns.

And suddenly it made sense why so many women were told to just do Kegels, yet still struggled with leaking, pressure, or pain.

Fast forward and I’m now doing things I never expected:

• owning my own business
• specializing in pelvic floor health
• helping women return to activity

And something I believe strongly:

You don’t have to identify as an athlete to deserve to move like one.

Building strength and capacity in your body is often far more supportive to your pelvic floor than avoiding activity altogether.

That’s why my approach focuses on helping women:

RESET → REBUILD → RETURN

So they can move confidently and get back to the things they enjoy.

If you’re here because you want that too — I’m really glad you found this page. 🙌🏼✨🫶🏻

04/03/2026

She was doing online core workouts… but her back pain wasn’t improving.

She came to me frustrated because it was supposed to be a postpartum restore your core kind of program.

She wasn’t skipping workouts.
She wasn’t doing things “wrong.”

In fact… she was doing exactly what the program told her to do. And the exercises are good options.

But here’s the thing most programs can’t see:

👉 how your body moves
👉 the compensations your body has learned
👉 how your breath, core, and pelvic floor are (or aren’t) working together
👉 where YOUR starting capacity is (it’s often generalized to offer to more women safely)
👉 whether to progres, modify or regress

When we looked at her movement, it wasn’t about doing more core work.

It was about helping her body finally connect the pieces and work as a system.

Breath.
Core.
Pelvic floor.
Movement patterns that actually support her spine.

A few weeks later she sent me messages like this…
(see her words on the screen)

“My core finally feels like it’s working.”
“My back pain is getting better.”
“I feel stronger in a way I never have before.”

And that right there is why I do this work. ✨

Not to make workouts harder.

But to help women understand their bodies and realize:

✨ Your body just might need a different approach.

Reset. Rebuild. Return. ✨

03/17/2026

Aren’t we lucky ✨🍀

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

03/11/2026

Someone once told me to imagine being 80 years old in a rocking chair looking back at my life.

That visualization changed how I see my health. 🥹

Not just workouts.
Not just weight.
Not expectations of others.

But building a body with strength, energy, and pelvic health that lasts a lifetime.

Present + Future me is the reason I keep showing up. ✨

Who’s with me?

03/06/2026

If you want a better systems approach, it beats passing a few items on a checklist. What do I mean?

Most postpartum runners are screened before returning to running. But even if you “pass,” you might still be missing key pieces:

✅ Pelvic floor strength (yes, it’s tested—but often in isolation)
✅ Core endurance (planks and crunches, but not how your core manages pressure upright)
✅ Hip and single-leg strength (can you tolerate impact one leg at a time?)
✅ Load management and progressive running (are you building capacity gradually?)
✅ Recovery and rest (did anyone check if you’re actually giving your body time to adapt?)

Passing the checklist doesn’t always mean you’re ready to run symptom-free. True readiness comes from training the whole system 👉🏼pressure management, strength, and recovery🙌🏼 so you can run with confidence. ✨

03/05/2026

Where are my runners at?

Maybe you’re reading because you’re curious, have leaked a little while running even though you’ve been doing your kegels? Or know a friend who has 🤭🙃

It’s probably not because your pelvic floor is “weak.” All too often it’s a tension problem, coordination issue, pressure management system issue, or not ready for impact.

One of the biggest misconceptions I see as a pelvic floor PT is that leaking during running means you just need to squeeze harder and that’s all that pelvic floor PT’s test for (and if so, get a second opinion).

Because your pelvic floor isn’t meant to be clenched all day.

It’s meant to coordinate.

When you run, your body is managing pressure with every stride. Your diaphragm, core, nervous system, and pelvic floor all have to respond together to handle that load.

If that system is out of sync, pressure has to go somewhere… and sometimes that shows up as leaking.

Here’s the piece almost no one talks about too:

Constipation can make this worse.

When your body is regularly straining or holding tension to have a bowel movement, the pelvic floor can become overactive and less responsive when you actually need it to reflexively support impact like during a run.

So instead of a responsive system, you end up with a fatigued and poorly coordinated one.

Which means the answer usually isn’t:
“Do more kegels.”

It’s learning how your system actually works:
• pressure management
• pelvic floor coordination
• gut motility
• nervous system regulation

Because when the system works together, running feels very different.

Less pressure.
Less symptoms.
More confidence in your body.

And most women have never been taught this.

Comment if you learned something new ✨and DM me “RUN” if you want clarity in your own symptoms

02/19/2026

32 looks like this: ✨

Sick kids.
Cold coffee. (Actually thanks for my husband grabbing a cold brew) 😘
Laundry half folded.
And choosing presence over productivity.

For years, I believed my value came from doing more.

More school/education.
More reps.
More clients.
More squeezing.
More pushing through.

But here’s what I wish more women understood:

Your pelvic floor doesn’t fail because you didn’t do enough Kegels.

It struggles when the entire system isn’t supported.

Example: When you run, force travels from the ground → through your hips → into your core → and your pelvic floor has to coordinate with pressure from above and load from below.

And this is where traditional pelvic care often misses the mark:

• Short appointments
• Isolated muscle focus
• “Here’s a handout”
• No load progression
• No nervous system support
• No return-to-run strategy

But leaking on mile 2?
Constipation under stress?
Heaviness at the end of the day?

Those are system issues.

At Empowered Pelvic Rehab, we don’t just train “the floor.”

We train:

✔ The foot-to-core load chain, “from ribcage down”
✔ Pressure management
✔ Nervous system regulation
✔ Progressive strength
✔ return to run capacity over protocol

Because your body is not a single muscle.

It’s an integrated system.

This year, my birthday wish isn’t about having a certain day or the number of candles.

It’s that fewer women normalize symptoms that are solvable. That more high-achieving women realize their worth isn’t in doing more but in learning how to be supported. To be educated about our bodies. To invest not shy away.

Cheers to 32✨🥳
Flu germs and all. 🫠

01/25/2026

Starting pelvic rehab, an exercise plan, a new habit doesn’t always start out easy for everyone. Here’s a little perspective from common things I hear and then stating they wished they started sooner ✨

Your body whispers before it screams.
Most of us were taught to ignore the whispers.

To push through.
To override discomfort.
To wait until life is calmer, quieter, easier.
You’re a go getter. Stuck in the go, go, go cycle.

But pushing through doesn’t make your body stronger..
it teaches your nervous system to stay in stress mode.

And pelvic floor symptoms?
They’re not just minor problems. They’re signals.

Leaking, pain, tension, heaviness 🥴
they’re your body asking for a different approach, not more willpower.

Motivation doesn’t magically arrive one day.
It’s created when you choose to listen instead of ignore.

Yes, change feels uncomfortable.
But so does staying stuck in the same cycle, year after year.

Imagine how it would feel to actually feel the difference in your body —>
more ease, more trust, more confidence in how you move through your day. [Empowered] ✨

You don’t need more pressure, more things on your to-do list. But a plan integrated into your life.
You need permission to respond sooner.

✨ What is your body whispering to you right now?
What needs to shift, what is required of you to take action? I’m here if you need the support!

01/19/2026

“Is this exercise safe for diastasis recti?”

The real question is:
Is it safe for your body, right now?

Because the same exercise can be:
✔️ helpful in one phase
⚠️ too much in another
❌ or simply not addressing the real limiter

An exercise that helps one mom at 6 weeks could be the wrong choice for another at 6 months.

True healing requires:
• pressure awareness
• progressive load (not just random)
• symptom-informed decisions

Not endless lists.
Not fear-based rules. (Avoiding sit-ups altogether has actually been de-bunked in research and can help your healing if applied at the right time).

Healing isn’t a checklist.
It’s a process.

That’s why I teach phases over protocols
and help moms move from protecting → trusting → strengthening their core.

If this lands, share it. 🤝
If you’re ready to stop guessing, you know where to find me. 😊✨

01/01/2026

2025 - a year full of lessons that I’ll carry into next year for both me and the women I serve 🫶🏻

I love to reflect and making this post was one I wanted to capture and look back on.

It was a year of doubling the amount of women I got to help support and 2 locations.

“Work that challenges you in a way that helps become a better person is the greatest gift a career can give.” and wow did I stretch, heal, and expand myself. But the amazing thing to see unfold was so did my patients journey. There were SO MANY WINS. To get feedback that they didn’t just do their exercises but had so much more awareness, habit change, strength, resilience and adaptability. 🥹✨

Changing the way pelvic floor therapy is offered isn’t an easy task but I’ll continue to do it for the outcomes ✨

Cheers to a New Year!

12/24/2025

Hesitations and limiting beliefs I’ve heard along the way of treating women’s health and pelvic floors.

Chronic stress changes muscle tone, breathing patterns, and pain sensitivity including in the pelvic floor because of the way it’s innervated. I often hear “I hold my tension in my neck.” And then also realize they have tension in their pelvic floor not just weakness.
If stress feels like something you just have to “power through,” you’re not alone.
Many women were taught that resilience means ignoring their nervous system but your body doesn’t work that way. Addressing it over only doing a stretch is where the real relief comes.

A lot of women are walking around believing their pelvic floor is weak or “damaged”.
In reality, many symptoms come from poor coordination or excess tension, not lack of strength.
When we label the body as weak, we often respond with more force —> more gripping, more bracing, more effort.
The reframe is learning how to relax, coordinate, and respond, not just contract.

Women who strength train are often taught that effort equals progress.
But strength isn’t just about load —> it’s about adaptation.
Training through stress, pain, or symptoms doesn’t make you mentally tough —> it often keeps the nervous system stuck in protection. It’s ignoring your body’s signals.

Postpartum beliefs are often shaped by timelines and comparison.
“I should be back by now.”
“Everyone else seems fine.”
“Six weeks means I’m cleared.”
Healing doesn’t follow a calendar. Postpartum is a season of rebuilding.
The reframe isn’t getting back to who you were.
It’s integrating strength into who you’re becoming.

Many beliefs about care aren’t about the whole body.. they’re about the broken health system.
We’re taught that if insurance covers it, it must be enough.
That paying upfront is indulgent.
That short visits are normal.
The reframe is understanding that time, education, and individualized support matter especially in women’s health. ✨

Empowered Pelvic Rehab

04/08/2026

04/03/2026

03/17/2026

03/11/2026

03/06/2026

03/05/2026

02/19/2026

01/25/2026

01/19/2026

01/01/2026

12/24/2025

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Monday	9am - 3pm
Tuesday	9am - 3pm
Thursday	9am - 3pm
Friday	7am - 1pm