I get so many questions about fertility and fitness and my wonderful guests today are going to help answer them in this article.
Rachel Katzman is the co-founder of P.Volve, a multimillion dollar femme-centric fitness brand that merges physical therapy, women’s health, and functional movement. She started the company in 2017 when her own body was diagnosed with scoliosis and realized that she needed a change in her workout routine.
Dr. Shannon DeVore is a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist at NYU Langone Fertility Center. She joined the P.Volve clinical advisory board in 2022, where she helps to create fertility focused content using evidence-based practices, as well as improve the women’s fertility journey through functional movement.
I’m so thrilled that Rachel and Dr. DeVore could join me for this extremely informative discussion.
Dr. Aimee: I’m so pleased to have special guests Rachel Katzman and Dr. Shannon DeVore on today’s show to talk about your personal evolution of fitness and fertility.
Rachel Katzman: Thank you so much for having us.
Dr. Aimee: You guys are launching something amazing called the ‘Moving During Fertility Treatment Series’ through P.Volve.
Where does the name P.Volve come from?
Rachel Katzman: It stands for personal evolution. Just, at the beginning of this, I was really thinking that women’s fitness needs to evolve, but it’s so personal. What you as a woman need at each stage of your life is so different, and it’s different from woman to woman, from person to person.
Dr. Aimee: Will you share a bit about your vision in starting P.Volve?
Rachel Katzman: Yes. My vision has changed so much since starting P.Volve back in 2017. I was in my early 20s and I just wasn’t feeling connected with myself, I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror, and I really started on my health journey.
I couldn’t find a workout that was speaking to me. I wasn’t seeing the physical results that I was after. More importantly, my body was in more pain than before I started working out. I found out I had scoliosis. Like most people around this time, it was this pain equals gain, you have to be hunched over and dripping sweat when you walk out of a class. I was just going to push through that pain and keep going.
I got introduced to this world of functional movement, and I had no idea what that meant. I was used to boxing, pilates, and all these types of modalities. I really started to understand that through functional movement you are working with your body’s biomechanics and you’re training your body in the natural patterns that it moves in day to day life. That combined with resistance equipment started giving me these amazing physical results that I was after. It helped my back pain. My hips felt more open. My ankle felt more open. Just all these things that weren’t really at the top of my mind prior to this.
My whole life changed from the inside out, and I just had this lightbulb moment of there needs to be an evolution when it comes to fitness, specifically women’s fitness. I thought this was the answer. As I set out to build this company and started working with different trainers that had different patients and different backgrounds. Yes, I wanted to give myself a great butt, great arms, and great abs, but it should be doing so much more for me. It should be enhancing my life, it should be improving my balance and stability, creating strength in my body, and activating my major muscle groups while supporting the ones around them for these life-changing results.
We set out to launch P.Volve back in 2017, and it’s been an amazing journey ever since.
Dr. Aimee: For people who are listening that don’t know the difference between functional movement and a regular workout, what are the differences?
Rachel Katzman: The way that we apply functional movement to our method and to our classes is utilizing these different movement patterns. I explain to people imagine if you’re moving in 3-D, like I’m moving my hands right now, and you’re going to take up all this different space and you’re going to be working your body in external rotations and internal rotations, and a lot of physical therapy inspired moves, so maybe a lot of stretches and opening up the back. You’re really making sure that your body is moving in all different planes of motion that it’s meant to move in, versus some classes where you’re stuck in one position or you’re just moving front to back instead of opening, closing, side-to-side.
I really think our magic sauce is that and combining it with our resistance pieces of equipment.
Dr. Aimee: Has your business changed at all in the last few years?
Rachel Katzman: Just as I’ve personally evolved, as we’ve grown and as we’ve heard from our members, there really were these after benefits of P.Volve that our members were experiencing. Everything from when I jump on the trampoline, I’m not peeing anymore, I can pick up my kid and not have lower back pain, and all of these things. Maybe they didn’t come to P.Volve for that specific reason, but they’re staying at P.Volve for that reason.
As we started to hear more of these stories, and as I experienced different things throughout the past couple of years, getting diagnosed with Lyme Disease and all these different things, I really wanted to create this clinical advisory board with strong female doctors, like Dr. DeVore and other incredible women, to really work with our trainers to create this very specialized content.
Yes, if you’re doing any of our strength and sculpt classes, you can be working on strengthening your lower back and your pelvic floor, but we really wanted to create specific videos and classes that were for certain needs that a woman goes through in every stage of her life. Everything from your period to menopause to fertility, which we’re going to get into, to pelvic floor strengthening, and so on. I think our offerings and our content have really just expanded to make sure that we are supporting a woman no matter what stage of her life she’s going through.
Dr. Aimee: I’m really curious about the pelvic floor and how that plays a role in fitness.
Rachel Katzman: People don’t realize, and I definitely didn’t realize this, I had to get educated, that the pelvic floor is actually a muscle and it’s part of your core. When you think of your core muscles, your back, your abs, your pelvic floor, they really need to work in balance to make sure you’re giving yourself that stability and strength that your body needs. Like any muscle, it can be strengthened and it can be released. You can have a weak pelvic floor or even too tight of a pelvic floor. If you have pelvic floor dysfunction, that can lead to things such as pelvic pain, painful sex, incontinence, and so on.
I’m really happy that this topic is coming to the forefront. Back when we were creating content and talking about this, it was a little taboo, and nobody wanted to be discussing your pelvic floor. But we have programs on how to strengthen and how to release. You’ll hear in a lot of our videos that our trainers cue on your breath and how to activate and turn on those muscles. I think as you strengthen and become more aware and more in tune, your core strength comes to a whole new level. Your balance and your stability, you can see it start to really increase.
Dr. Aimee: You guys recently launched a program called Moving During Fertility Treatment that’s a series. What does that include and how does that work?
Dr. Shannon DeVore: That’s something I worked on in conjunction with Dr. Kolbe Hancock at Spring Fertility. During ovarian stimulation, we tell patients not to exercise. The ovaries can increase in size three to four fold and are at risk of twisting on their blood supply, something called ovarian torsion. Ovarian torsion is a surgical emergency, and in some cases can lead to loss of an ovary.
It’s easier as a physician just to say you can’t exercise at all the entire cycle from when you start your injections to when you get your period the following 28 days later, approximately. But that’s not true, you can exercise safely during the stimulation, it’s just difficult to qualify the exact movements that are safe. Low impact exercise can pose risk, for example, yoga movements like downward dog and inversions can make the ovary prone to twisting.
We worked together with the functional movement experts at P.Volve to design a series that is synched with your cycle. So, the early follicular is different from the late follicular phase. As you’re starting the injections, your ovaries haven’t started to enlarge yet and you don’t need the same restrictions that you do at the end of the cycle. The pelvis is kept stationary, which decreases the risk of torsion.
It’s a really great program that you can speak with your doctor about. There are certain patients that I still would not advise to do this, like somebody who has had a previous torsion, or is at risk for hyperstimulation, or who has a certain kind of cyst that we’re worried about. But most women can safely do this program and it’s incredible. There’s a lot of feedback involved and mindful meditation. It really focuses on the core of what you’re working toward.
Dr. Aimee: Awesome. Thank you for creating that, because I now know where I’m going to be sending my patients when they have questions about exercise. I usually just say use your common sense, it’s fine to exercise, just stop when you feel like it’s time to stop, trust your body. That’s really great that there’s now a physician approved program that you’ve worked with Rachel’s trainers to create. That feels really good for patients to feel like they have a trusted resource to go to. That’s amazing. I’m really excited about this.
I want to hear more about exercise and the benefits when it comes to fertility. Can you address PCOS and exercise, endometriosis and exercise, and just in general trying to conceive and exercise and what the fertility benefits might be?
Dr. Shannon DeVore: We’ve done the most research on PCOS and exercise. Diet and exercise for PCOS should be first-line treatment for this state because patients are at risk of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Even just decreasing weight and improving strength by a small amount can lead to hormonal regulation and resumption of menses in some women. So, at least as an adjunct to treatment, there’s a lot of data to suggest that’s very beneficial.
Endometriosis is a little bit different. That’s more inflammatory and can cause significant pain. Exercise releases endorphins, which help fight inflammation. It improves blood flow to tissues, which brings the nutrients there. It mobilizes the lymphatic system, which removes toxins. So, it certainly is a beneficial adjunct to treatment for endometriosis as well.
In women who are trying to conceive, there is some evidence that shows moderate exercise improves outcomes. Interestingly, there is a lot of data that shows high impact intense exercise can negatively impact outcomes. So, there is a right kind of exercise, which I think P.Volve hits on the mark.
Dr. Aimee: That’s great. I’m sure you are a fertility myth buster every day, just like me. There are so many myths about exercising and pregnancy. That’s the goal, we want our patients to get pregnant. They ask us about exercise, too. What are some things that you tell your patients, and what are some of the things that they’ve heard about exercising and pregnancy that you want to myth bust today?
Dr. Shannon DeVore: Exercise is really beneficial in pregnancy. Of course, starting a new program where you’re doing movements that are outside of your repertoire and possibly not safe so I wouldn’t recommend. Otherwise, starting a program that gradually builds up and plays on your continued level of fitness is really important.
I don’t think there’s a heart rate number that is safe or not. It’s all relative. There is some core work that probably needs to be adjusted throughout the pregnancy. P.Volve does a really nice job of outlining and giving you a step-by-step throughout the pregnancy, and everybody has been trained in women’s health. You can absolutely safely exercise in pregnancy.
Dr. Aimee: That’s awesome. When my patients graduate from my practice, I give them a bunch of links to my favorite pregnancy app, my favorite pregnancy books, and now they’re going to get the P.Volve link so that they can exercise in pregnancy and know that the movements have been physician endorsed.
Rachel Katzman: I do want to say that I think especially with fertility and this series, I’m so excited to launch. I actually am about to go through the egg freezing process with Dr. DeVore, in about a month we’re going to start. For me personally, exercise has always been my answer no matter what I’m going through, really just for my mental health. It was so important, especially during this time, to tell someone like me not to workout, mentally that was not possible for me.
I’m so excited for this program. I think that making sure we do have these very specific need-based pieces of content so that somebody can feel supported. It’s going to be different no matter what you’re going through in life. When I had Lyme Disease, I wasn’t doing the type of workouts that I was doing prior when I was really in a bad flare up. It was more restorative and gentle. Just having something that you know you can go to that’s right for your body on that day can do so much for your mental health.
Dr. Aimee: I agree. You guys have created a series for women during their whole lifespan basically, trying to conceive, during pregnancy, and then menopause. Talk to me about what you guys are doing to support women during menopause.
Rachel Katzman: We found that 84% of women felt their menopause related symptoms interfered with their day to day life, and that they really weren’t equipped with the knowledge or tools to help mitigate this. We worked with experts and our amazing trainers to develop a program that really combats symptoms for women in this transitional time period.
We tried to tackle loss of muscle mass, so that’s using heavier weights, into our programming, which is so important in order to increase muscle mass and help metabolism, bone density, heart health, which we use our low impact cardio, making sure that we don’t deplete the body, pelvic floor health, which we talked about earlier, and the importance of your pelvic floor. It’s very crucial for this population. They can experience sexual discomfort and uncontrollable bladder, and this program really emphasizes pelvic floor health to help mitigate this.
Lastly, mindset, mood, and recovery. During this time period, there’s a lot of psychological factors at play. Oftentimes it really increases your cortisol levels, so we try to use restorative stretches and recovery videos, and meditations that really can help this and the lack of sleep that women experience during this time.
We’ve seen a really great response from this program. It’s really nice to be able to have everything from what to do when you’re getting your period, fertility, pre- and post-natal, and now to be able to offer menopause to round out that holistic story.
Dr. Aimee: I’m beyond impressed. Where can people find P.Volve and how can they get started if they’re interested?
Rachel Katzman: You can find us at Pvolve.com, @Pvolve on all social channels. You can sign up for a free trial. You don’t need any equipment. If you want to just go in and start looking around, you can find everything on our website.
Dr. Aimee: Awesome. Thank you for sharing all of that.
Rachel Katzman: Thank you so much for having us.
