The Core Truth: Incontinence, Intimacy, Pain, and Performance: Healing from the Inside Out with Leah Keller (Episode 268)

Hit Play Not Pause

Medicine, Health & Fitness, Fitness

4.9 • 769 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2026

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If you've ever leaked when you laughed, jumped, or sneezed–or felt like your core disappeared after pregnancy, injury, or into perimenopause–you're not alone. This week, fitness specialist Leah Keller joins us to unpack deep core dysfunction: what causes it, and why healing it changes far more than just your abs. Leah's breakthrough came when she realized she could help women actually heal the separation between their abdominal muscles–known as diastasis recti–even years after giving birth. Clients who came for core work started reporting that they'd stopped leaking, that sex felt better, that back pain eased, and that their bodies finally felt like their own again– issues they never mentioned at the start. She explains exactly how fixing the deep core resolves problems women didn't even know were connected. We’ll give detailed descriptions of the exercises. You can also watch this one on YouTube to see the exercise demonstrations as well as the anatomical illustrations referenced in this episode, showing the difference between a healthy midline and one with significant diastasis recti separation.

Leah Keller is a certified personal trainer specializing in core and pelvic floor health, and co-founder of Every Mother (formerly The Dia Method). Her approach earned medical validation in a 2013 Weill Cornell pilot study — published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology — and was further supported by a 2021 Hospital for Special Surgery trial in the Journal of Women's & Pelvic Health Physical Therapy. She has been featured as a women's health expert by NPR, Goop, and Good Morning America. You can find Leah’s published studies, resources, and learn more about her work at leahkeller.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to Hit Play Not Pause, a feisty menopause podcast for active performance-minded women.
0:12.2	I am your host, Celine Yeager. Each week, I bring you advice from athletes, scientists, researchers, and other experts to help you feel and perform your best no matter what
0:21.7	your hormones are doing. This show is a production of feisty media.
0:27.3	Hello, strong feisty women. I hope you all are well. So, if you have ever leaked a bit while
0:35.1	doing box jumps or deadlifting or when you just laughed or sneezed or you felt like your core disappeared after pregnancy or as you've gone into the menopause transition, you are not alone.
0:48.3	And this week, I sat down with women's fitness specialist Leah Keller, who specializes in core work and pelvic core connections.
0:58.1	And she joins us to unpack deep core dysfunction.
1:03.2	What causes it and why healing it changes far more than just what your abs look like.
1:09.6	Leah's breakthrough came when she realized that she could
1:12.7	help women actually heal the separation between their abdominal muscles known as diastasis recti
1:20.0	that happens during pregnancy, even years after they have given birth. But then she noticed
1:27.3	something else happening. The clients who had come to her
1:30.6	to work on that condition of the abdominal separation came back and said, hey, I stopped leaking urine.
1:39.3	I don't have incontinence issues anymore. Or they told, like, my sex life has gotten so much better
1:44.7	and the pain went away, or their back pain went away, when these weren't issues that they
1:50.5	had even mentioned when they first came to work with her. And she got to understand, and she
1:56.2	explains how fixing deep core issues resolves problems often women don't even know are connected.
2:04.5	And we give detailed descriptions of these exercises in the show.
2:08.7	They're all part of a system that she developed, which has actually earned medical validation in 2013
2:15.3	in a while Cornell pilot study that was published in the American
2:19.3	Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. And then that work was further supported by a 2021
2:25.1	Hospital for Special Surgery trial that was in the Journal of Women's and Pelvic Health
	...

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