The Uneducated PT Podcast - Pre & Post Natal Exercise Specialist Emma Dowling

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

In this episode we speak to pre and post natal exercise specialist Emma Dowling who has been working in the industry for a decade helping mums through their pregnancy, postpartum and long term changes of their body.

pre and postnatal specialist. What does that involve? What does your day to day look like? Tell me a little bit about that. So a pre and postnatal exercise specialist, what we really do is we try and bridge the gap between rehabilitation and mainstream training again. What that kind of means, I suppose, is helping our clients understand what their body needs, understand where their body is at and help them meet their body where it is at, which is much harder to do than you would think because post-pregnancy you're so disconnected from your body and you're kind of in a new body it just feels so different and I don't think I really even understood how different it would feel until I experienced it after my first pregnancy

and what was the what was the kind of struggles that you had then that you've experienced that you kind of use now in your in your coaching program loads to be honest and that was how empowered mama kind of kind of came around. So I had my first baby six years ago. Pre and postnatal coaching didn't really exist in Ireland back then. So it was really trying to kind of sift through all of the grey on the internet and find the black and white answers. Yeah. Which don't really exist. That's what I was going to ask you.

Like is there like a black and white now? Not really, and it is really down to every individual. So that was a, that was a problem. that was the struggles that I faced as a personal trainer as an ex-competitive Olympic weightlifter someone who'd been training for years loved training and I didn't know what to do I didn't know how to rehabilitate my body I went back to training way too quickly doing like not crazy exercises but things that I just had no right to be doing at that point and I ended up

giving myself a pelvic floor injury which is an absolute nightmare from a so it put a pin in in training completely for a while until we kind of figured out what was going on. Financially, it costs a fortune in women's health physiotherapy to actually rehabilitate and come back from it. And still, to this day, it's something that I have to consider in my own training because of that mistake that I made personally in my first pregnancy. Do you find that it's a mistake that a lot of your clients face, or is it more so like women who, you know, are very, very into their training and very experienced? trainers but yeah we're all like postnatally so vulnerable especially to

pelvic floor injuries and people who are untrained and think this is that I'm gonna get my body back and all this I'm going back into us they're really susceptible to it because they're untrained any of the kind of musculature and fascia surrounding their pelvic floor isn't strong so there's no kind of scaffolding there to help support us so they have that then from a highly trained person point of view they're in that mentality of Like they don't listen to their body. They're constantly pushing, pushing, pushing.

They've untrained themselves to listen to their body. They're trying to, you know, push on and maybe kind of like I did, try and resume their training where they left off, you know, pre-pregnancy or even pre-delivery, and it's too much. I'd imagine that's a difficult thing to go through from being I was able to do X, Y and Z to, oh, I have to scale this back

and... To nothing. to like breathing yeah you know for a while from like a identity point of view like yeah unbelievably hard because you're dealing with the whole kind of transition into motherhood as it is you know the push and pull of metrescence the loss of identity the your schedule is just like blown to shreds you know with this new little thing that's completely dependent on you you're sleep deprived it wasn't the case for me but other people might have like postnatal depression or postnatal anxiety so the mental health aspect of that

and then to take away the one thing that you love that makes you feel like you that makes you feel connected to your friends and to people in your community is gone it's really really tough it's it's where i honestly wouldn't want any of my clients or friends to end up and that was why i was like i need to go back and retrain figure out how how to rehab my own body was why i initially did it because the information wasn't here and but also sorry and I was seeing an amazing physiotherapist at the time but even back then six years ago the whole concept of cross-foot and all was still a bit like just don't do that you know it was like well kind of what I like doing so we need to cross road there yeah so and that's the one thing that like irks me so much in the whole

postnatal thing we're always telling women what they can't do you can't do that or be careful doing that don't do that let's teach people what they can do and make it fun and make it suitably challenging and that's what I love to do. Well so are you kind of is your job kind of in the role of you know that fine line between you know being cautious and being sensible with their programme but not being overcautious the fact that they and tell them that they basically can't do anything. Yes and there were a couple of pre and postnatal trainers in Ireland kind of around when I started doing it and I and I was I kind of irked them a little bit because I was kind of pushing the boundary.

I was like, you know, this just isn't enough for me. That's not the type of client that I want to work with. I want to work with people who, you know, want to like progress and push on and not necessarily. And he weren't like afraid. I'm not afraid. That woman's body isn't broken. My body wasn't broken. It just needed something different.

And it's up to us as coaches to help people. It's exactly like a regular client. You know, you're pushing them. Okay, that's your edge there. that's as far as we can go but let's work on that and progress and then push them on and push them on so would that mean like you even saying that would be like a lot of mums who have been in the gym for years and love training like that's going to be music to their ears that they want a coach like that who's you know and they can like they deserve to have a coach like that they like this just like

this topic um what was the 60 000 babies are born every year in ireland so there's 60,000 women out there every year. I don't know how the percentage of them that trains, but I'm assuming today's, you know, it's probably quite a lot. Hopefully a lot. Probably is quite a lot. So we owe it to them to show them how to do it. And then like that's big numbers and I assume there's probably not that many like coaches to clientele in terms of, in terms of your your demographic. I think that a lot of people who think they're coaches for the demographic. So is this the problem even with the industry is that it's not regulated and that, like to coach pre and postnatal, like do you have to have, do you have to meet certain standards

or is it kind of like the majority of the industry or it's just like, yeah, I could be a coach of anything as if I put in me bio, basically. 100%. There's zero regulation and people are always so shocked to hear that. Do you see, like you would notice it more than. most people because most people are like they're not specialists in it so they're just going to like take people's word for it and stuff like that so I presume you see it more often than the most yeah I'd hear about it and often in hindsight yeah someone

comes ever birth injury or a pelvic floor injury and they're like oh my trainer had me doing X Y and Z and it's like oh probably just wasn't we weren't ready for that at that time red flag's going off in your head straight away yeah maybe just tell your friends not to go to that person for a while but the thing is like that person could be an and trainer. It's not. They just don't have the experience and they might even have the qualification but I think the experience and the hands on with women on the gym floor is so important you know because it's really visual you need to see like how their core is working. You need to like talk to them like at different ranges like how's that feeling how's that feeling can we push

push push okay we're going to stop there we regress back a little bit. Do you know it's it's a lot of that And it's also a lot of working and liaising with physiotherapists, which I do a huge amount of. And that will be a lot of what I kind of do in my day to day as well. Just physio is referring clients onto me working with the physio because obviously I can't do an internal on a woman down in the gym floor. So I'm depending on the physio to say, look, this is going on with her. We'll start a program, see how it goes. She'll go back to her physio. That's improving.

Amazing. Let's keep doing that. Or it might be a little bit much for her at the moment. let's just pull it back a little bit. So it is a lot of like pushing, pulling, give and take and adapting. So that's kind of the training aspect of it. What about even the mindset aspect of I was going to touch on even like, I'm sure you get a lot of clients who come to you and they're like,

oh, when am I going to get my, you know, body back the way it was and so on and so forth? Do you have to work with clients with a lot of kind of that mindset, stuff around you have a new body now. Managing expectations. Managing expectations. It's a funny one. So, and it's one that I feel a little bit ambivalent about because mainstream media is going to be really pushing that kind of

bounce back post-pregnancy, the celebrities, all of that kind of stuff, which is obviously really damaging. But then there's like a big pushback as well on social media that I see and it's like, you know, accept your body where it's at, you know. you know your body's done so much for you look at your beautiful children and it's just like guilt guilt guilt guilt guilt it's like why don't we just kind of take all that away and find a middle ground because a lot of people are like emma i don't like how i feel in my body yeah i miss how my body you know was and i'm not going to be like oh it did so much for you though yeah yeah yeah you're like okay oh thanks for the help yeah yeah it's like

okay let's let's let's make a plan and start working you back towards that in a way that you're going to you're really good, that's not like putting you into a huge calorie deficit, giving you punishing workouts while you're sleep deprived, you know, probably at the end of your tether as it is, and just finding that kind of middle ground to work on again in a suitably challenging way. But I think the social media and media in general just has so much to answer for from a, like, guilt perspective on mums because you can't do right for doing wrong. You know, and it is like can we just let everybody decide how they want to approach their training, they want their body to feel and if they're not happy with that it's okay for them to want to change

that too yeah you're allowed to want to see progress in any form absolutely you're allowed to want to lose weight yeah do you know even if you're a mom yeah newsflash like it because it is it is almost at some spectrums of the internet it is almost a bad word to even suggest that people want to lose weight i get a lot of women coming into my in-person classes and we'd always do like a little intro at the start because we're really big on trying to like build community and build mom friendships because moms really need mums but it's so funny like it's not funny it's just something that happens is yeah is that they'll be going around and it's like I just really want to get stronger and then someone be like oh I just kind of want to lose a bit of weight oh sorry sorry and I'm like please don't apologize like it's

okay you know like it's you don't need to say sorry or feel guilt you're here and I don't really care while you're here I just want you to have a good time and feel good about your body and hopefully make some mum friends as well what about clients who obviously do want that one to lose weight or want to have that kind of body that they had pre-pregnancy and have them kind of unrealistic expectations about how long it's going to take do you have to deal with that absolutely yeah and it is just managing the expectations and being realistic and also you probably see it as well as well you know when you give someone their calories and they're like I could never eat that amount of calories like that's way too many and you're like like just let's

give it a try and see how it goes like and you know it's a real kind of eye-opener I think for people when they do if they're going the kind of tracking macro route but they don't have the time either to train the way that they used to train it just doesn't work well that's a big that's a big mindset shift that they need to make as well a mindset shift and also their energy levels aren't the same they're you know, a lot of the time extremely sleep deprived, like, just worn out. So would you say your job more so is stopping people from ruling themselves when they're trying to kind of go back early and end up overtraining and realise

where they can't do it? Yeah, yeah. And one of the hardest demographics for me to work with is crossfitters and people who have, like, competed. Yeah. Because they come back and they're like, you know, I used to deadlift, whatever. And I'm like, yeah, it's amazing, but I actually don't care. what we're doing today.

Yeah, it has to humble them kind of. Yeah, and you do kind of have to, like, be a little bit like that sometimes, you know, and it's not like, it is exactly what you said, like having to just kind of humble them a little bit and just say, look, let's meet your body where it's at, your body's really different to what it was,

even a few months ago. I will get you back there. We will get there, but just not today and maybe not next week or the following week, but we will just work slowly back. I'll tell them a bit of my history, like about my I was a competitive athlete

and I love cross but I love lifting weights and I got a pelvic floor injury and that's just not where you want to be and I think when you can share that with someone they're like okay I don't want that to happen to me I do not want that to happen yeah

learn from other people's mistakes rather than make a mistake themselves yeah 100% so in terms of talking about cross-fitting training in general like I was going to say like what would be the do's and doance when you're pregnant but even then you kind of just touched on it it is not it's not black and white it's not black and white but there are some things that we can

look at and as I said like let's focus on what we can do yeah so we can keep training yeah if we've been training to high intensities we can keep going to high intensities in pregnancy not personally it's slightly different postnatally so just yeah let's let's let's speak just just pregnancies at the moment yeah perfect and so we can push intensities if we have been And that was a study that came out just quite recently. I think it was a 2020 study. No, actually, I think it was a 2020 study. So what would high intensity look like?

90%. Yeah. Yeah, the study basically was two groups. First group, high intensity training. 90% for one minute on, one minute off for 10 rounds. Yeah. Like you and I both know, that's a tough session. Yeah.

Yeah, for a pregnant person. Yeah. And pregnant they're not. Yeah, exactly. versus 30 minutes of moderate continuous training at a 64 to 75%. This is generally what we would have recommended. Being overly cautious and safe. Yeah, like that kind of conversational pace, like 50 to 75%.

Do you know, even for a highly trained person, this is what we would have recommended. But the parameters from that study came back that in both sets, everything looked good. like the blood flow to the mother, blood flow to the fetus, like everything looked pretty similar, which is amazing for people who do CrossFit and want to continue doing their CrossFit-style training if they are feeling up to it, if they're arriving to training well-fed and hydrated,

if post-training they're feeling good afterwards, you know, and they can still, like, function throughout the day. So there's obviously certain different, what's the word? Sorry, you have to edit that. Protocols? No. I cannot think of the word. So, like, this is only a recent study.

So before that, there obviously hasn't been that much research done or coming out on pregnancy and training when pregnant. And that's why there's obviously people being overcautious in terms of their advice. Is it a case where just more research is coming out now so people can be more confident in terms of their coaching abilities to the client? Yeah, I think definitely a lot more research is coming out at the moment on females in training in general, which is amazing. And it's interpreting that research and putting it through to training. So what would still be the misconceptions for the majority of people who don't research

like yourself and put that into practice? What would be the misconceptions people still make about training when pregnant? A lot of them would be where think that they can't train with they're pregnant. They think that, you know, walking, swimming and yoga is what they have to do. Do you know, resistance training, cardiovascular training is really, really good for the mother, but also really, really good for the unborn baby as well. And that's research that has come out too, that like you are literally, you know, altering your babies, epigenetics by training and eating well in pregnancy.

Yeah. It's amazing. So it's a continuing on what the habits and behaviours you do. been doing previously just just being able to continue them on what if it was like someone who hasn't been training it at all really essentially and the advice I think would always be like you know do what you've always kind of done but I would still always say if they wanted to come and train at somebody like me yeah that I could train like get them to start doing some very like

light and realistic and resistance training and to support their body and through the pregnancy through their birth through their postnatal experience and through motherhood because that is a looking marathon yeah because because I presume that most clients would or most soon-to-be mums would be like oh you know I have someone grown inside me now I want to make sure that I'm like even if they hadn't been training before and they hadn't had like exercise as a priority that like they get pregnant and they're like oh I want to you know make sure that this baby is as healthy as possible and they're probably

like okay maybe I should start exercising but then I like oh is that that's probably too dangerous no I'd say that you definitely can start doing something yeah definitely start doing something and even if that's just getting more steps in if that's doing like a you know pregnancy safe training program if that's doing a pregnancy yoga class you know definitely start doing something yeah so that's the misconceptions about training when pregnant what about post pregnancy post pregnancy I think is a little bit more of a minefield than prenatal training,

and I think that's often overlooked. I think a lot of the time we focus in, especially as exercise professionals, on pregnancy, because it's just a much more visual thing, maybe, and because there's obviously a baby grown inside, you know, it seems more risky, but actually I think the postnatal stuff is a little bit more high risk because you're dealing with someone who might have a birth injury,

might have birth trauma, all of those other kind of mental health things going on, adjusting to their new life, adjusting to their new body. It's definitely a little bit more complex, I would say, and that is where I would start being a little bit more cautious as a trainer than in pregnancy. Okay, and what would be the things that you would need

to be cautious about, would you say? The weights that we're lifting, the impact that we're exposing our body to, and the exercise difficulty, so maybe just peeling all that back a little bit. So like for example, if we were doing like kettlebell swings, let's just do like an ordeal instead. So just making movements a little bit less dynamic, learning how to work with our breath, how to connect our core and our pelvic floor, like just so important and so overlooked. And even when I was told about it, even with the pelvic floor injury and biophysiotherapist,

I kind of eye rolled. I was like, oh, she's talking about breathing. Jesus, like, how have we ended up here? But the more I read into it, the more I was like, this is just so important. And not even just for like pregnant or postnatal women, but in particular, like all women who train, it's really important because we need to protect our pelvic floor for our life.

Do you know, it's one of the most important muscles in our body. Like we needed to function, especially if we're training for longevity. And if we want to keep training in our like senior years, like you need your pelvic floor to be in a really like good nick. Yeah and that's obviously what gets neglected the most is the aftercare after. So neglected especially in Ireland, really, really bad. In France, for example, they get, I think it's six postnatal physiotherapy checks. Well.

Paid for it by the government compulsory. Yeah. You know, every single person there gets us. Do you know, we get nothing? Nothing. Even at our six week check, it's kind of like, check over the baby, how are you, a bit of contraception advice, off you go.

Honestly, I know, it's mad. I swear. Okay, right, so that's on pre and postnatal. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your career as well, because obviously, all right, mum of three, runs her own business, all right, partner, everything, like, I presume takes up a lot of your time in terms of do you have even any time

yourself like what does the what does the day to day look like for someone who runs their own business has three kids to look after you know still wants to keep a relationship alive all these kind of things yeah it's really tough I'm not gonna lie yeah absolute juggle and something that we're constantly just adapting and trying to like figure out as we go as well and work is mental at the moment it's really really busy the kids it's just carnage yeah like absolute carnage, we're really lucky, we have really good childcare three days a week, we have a girl that comes to our house and mine's the kids, so that's my opportunity to go and

work and get my training in, which is an absolute priority for me. My own training is like... Keep you saying. It keeps me saying it honestly, I don't want to say it's the crux of my mental health, but it's close there, you know, so I make that a priority because if I don't train, I'm not a good mom. Yeah, everyone else would suffer because of that. Everyone would suffer. The ripple effect would be huge. I need, I only train three days a week. Like, it's not crazy, like three hours of training a week, but it just keeps me ticking over nicely.

Oh, that was a question that I wanted to ask. I just came up in my head there. Do you think that a lot of moms have that kind of guilt of training and during, like, these busy periods as well? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you ever? No, because I know. Because you know. I know now. Yeah.

The ramifications actually are just not even worth it. And it's something that I work on with my clients all the time. Well, that's why I was going to ask. All the time. Yeah, it's one of the biggest things that we work on is like giving people permission to take time for themselves. Do you know, it is just like they really are like the moms and the females at the household. It seems to me really are like the glue of the house. They keep everything going.

Everything depends on them. Like if my mental health failed, my business has gone. my children are going to majorly suffer, my relationship is going to suffer. My, like, everything, my life is bound to be in bits. So me looking after myself and prioritising what I need to stay in a really good mental space is probably one of the number one priorities in my life and that's what I try and teach my clients.

Like you have that awareness that you're, like for you to go and do that training is the most self-list thing you can do because you know then it impacts everyone else on a positive way. Yeah. And the other thing as well that I find, especially with clients who are just starting to train at me is that, like I do other things that have been training as well. Like I love reading and you know other things. It's not like for mums like having a shower or like going to Tesco's on your own is not a break. Yeah. They're like fundamental essentials for your to live. Do you know find something that you enjoy doing. It doesn't even have to be training

and do it often. You do not have to be on your knees to ask for a rest or to take a break. Your battery doesn't have to be run out. Like start to learn when you're in orange, when the red flags are gone, that you're like, I'm starting to... Some people wait until they do burn out

to realise that though, do they? I know, and it's teaching people, and that's why I love the check-ins and stuff with lines to be like, just, you know, it's kind of like another set of eyes, I suppose, to look into like what's happening in your life to be like, have you noticed this and you know maybe just schedule something for well it's also nice for the

client as well because it's like okay if they're looking after everyone else they're looking after everyone in the household but now they've come to you and then they have someone to look after them essentially yeah it is it is really like that that's one of my favorite parts of my job is minding mums and minding women and like they said like giving them permission to do things that they love speaking on your career I was obviously researching top mum in business 2020. What do you think are some of the some of the things that have contributed to that success and just your success in terms of longevity of a business over the last couple of years? I think being like really relentless and really consistent. Do you know like every time you get

knocked down just find another way like and there's been plenty yeah plenty of them from like you know my business been closed due to a pandemic find another way pregnancy find another way, twin pregnancy, find another way. I did eight full weeks bed rest in that twin pregnancy, like I was literally not allowed out of bed, find another way to keep the business going. The rehabilitation post-nacly, like find another way, do you know, it is just like there's always a way you just have to keep finding it. And whenever another woman in business message to me, you just been like, Emma, this is really hard. Like, I don't know if I can keep doing this. I'm like, you have to keep doing this. And this is the point that everyone else stops.

Yeah. This is the point where they're like, this is too much, this is affecting me, too much, I have to stop. If you can just push on for another couple of weeks, another couple of months, you'll get through that. And then there'll be another thing. But I just think that you just have to keep pushing forward and the obstacles and the challenges and the absolute shit shows are just inevitable part of running a business, aren't they? It's just how it goes, but you just, it's the relentlessness to be able to keep going. Yeah, you kind of weighing out of just longevity of just keep going regardless. Absolutely, because everybody else stops when it gets too hard.

Yeah, yeah. If you could give yourself one piece of advice when you were starting your career, what was it 10 years ago? Is that correct? In fitness, probably eight years ago. A year ago, long time. Yeah. I think for the fitness industry it is, isn't it? For the fitness industry, it's a really long time.

So what advice, if you could go back to when you were starting, what would be the advice you would give to yourself? because obviously there will be personal trainers and there will be people who want to start up their own business in the fitness industry listening to this and a lot of them will literally just be starting so for you even if you could you probably can't even think back to them a year ago long ago. I have two pieces of advice and the first thing is delegate

the things that you are not good at, get someone else to do it. It'll cost you like a little bit but what you will actually gain in the long run and the time it will free up for you to do what you're good at is worth, it's waiting going. How long did it take you to learn that lesson? It took me about three brown envelopes in the revenue to be like, I need to get a bookkeeper. Sleeveless nights, I've been like, oh my God.

Yeah, they're coming for me. Yeah, they're coming for me. But because I'm not a bookkeeper. Like, I don't know how to do all of that stuff. So I have an amazing bookkeeper. She's just brilliant. So that would be delegate. And it's gone and just know that it's,

is going to be hard, like it's going to be really tough at times, but just knuckle down and just keep going. And the other thing is that remember that everyone has an agenda. Every single person who wants to work with you, who wants to do something with you, has an agenda and that they're not all really nice and kind. And I know that sounds so pessimistic, but, you know, I think especially as a female in the industry, I just feel we're just at a slight disadvantage. in some ways because there's a lot of really strong like alpha males kind of in it and it is kind of being able to stand your ground and be like I'll do it if X, Y and Z or you know just always get a second opinion as well and expect and like when you saying that I

completely agree and I agree even more you start and probably eight years ago where it would have been even more so as well oh god so much like there was very few people women in the Irish fitness industry and if they were they were bodybuilders and they were it was just all of that kind of stuff going on and that never really appealed to me or sat well with me or remember back then did you have when you were starting out did you have any kind of like um was there self doubt there was there imposter syndrome or was there still is yeah absolutely huge huge I remember thinking like I really don't want to be a bodybuilder but I think I'm going to have to be a bodybuilder if I want to succeed I know that sounds mental

but it was all I saw. Especially eight years ago. It was literally all you saw. Just body power and stuff like that. Yeah, and it was just, I just didn't know another way. And I remember it been like, there must be another way to do this. And then it occurred to me. Soon, maybe after I had Jacob or in and around that time,

that it was like, Emma, like most of the population don't want to be bodybuilders. They just want to maybe lose a little bit of body fat and, like, fit into their clothes a little bit better. so maybe go for those people. I always, it's literally one of the running jokes. And like I have loads of bodybuilder friends, nicest people in the world, but it's always one of my jokes on like any video I do. It's like, if you just stay away from the mean bodybuilders over there

and come over here and I'll help you with this show videos. Tell me about someone who's being influential in your life and also in your career. I suppose my life from a business point of view, my dad is an entrepreneur and my mum as well, to be fair. She like... Tell me about them. So they...

My dad started off his career working in Sullis Lifeboat Factory down in Braille. And he basically started his own business then as a toolmaker in his mother's shed and now has a huge business and the business has evolved over the years and it is that kind of relentlessness thing that we were talking about, you know, it's like when things stop working and you need to change it up and go again and find another way to do it. I've definitely learned that from him. But also my mum is a huge sounding board for me when I go to where, like, I'm thinking of doing this, what do you think, you know?

And they're just, they work together now. My mum and dad. My mum works in the business as well. And I've learned so much from them, you know. And again, that kind of find out why they want you to do that. And, you know, like they're always trying to see the bigger picture, you know. And it's really good. I found it really good for me.

And also you touched on there even. being in being a woman in the fitness industry with her own business you said that not everyone has a not everyone's agenda is going to be sound and kind and stuff like that and obviously you getting advice off them you know it's going to be genuine and it's for your own good yeah exactly they're always looking out for the best of me and and I think they love like seeing what I'm building and like they're always rooting for me and I think they are just kind of like yeah go on em and like keep going you know which is it's a real driver for me as well how long has their business been gone um

about 38 years wow yeah yeah yeah so it's evolved a couple of times in that time but they're anyone needs alohua who ever a pair of our tires a town a little gray they are lovely shout out okay i'm gonna i'm gonna leave you with two more questions am i right so first one would be what's one lesson being a mom has taught you that you would pass down to others adjust your expectations of what you're able to give, what you are able to do and also of your children. I think our expectations on our kids are so high, do you know, that we really just need to constantly keep stepping back and then like, why am I reacting to this in this way? Do you know, and that's something that I have to do an awful lot?

So what do you mean by that, so, like in terms of having the patience to... Patience, yeah. And so say, say I planned a lovely day out and off we went. And Jacob gets there and he's like freaking out over, you know, and it is kind of like, okay, why is he freaking out? Okay, he's in a new environment. He doesn't really know what to expect. He whacked his foot on the car seat on his way out of the car. You know, all of these things and they just like explode and these little people.

But it's managing, it's me being able to step back and say he's doing all of this because of this. I was going on this, been like I've spent a bloody fortune on this day. I booked a day off work. You're here being an absolute nightmare. Your two sisters are crying in the back of the car. But it is when you can do that and be like, you know, I know Jacob, all of this has happened. This is what we're going to see when we go in.

I think you're going to really enjoy it. We'll just take a few minutes here and then we'll head on inside. And it's certainly doing the same with ourselves as well. Like lots of deep breaths required. Would you say they're your biggest coaching job? yeah absolutely but like my my greatest teachers yeah yeah I think often we think we're our children's teachers but I think they teach us so much more than then then we do them and last question I have for you then on off the back of that which is good so what do you want your kids to say about you when

they're older that even though I didn't get it perfect but I always did my best for them and that all of the sacrifices that we've made like as a family You know, we don't get a huge amount of time together and things like that that it really was all for them and for their futures and Any like I always gave everything that I had but just sometimes I didn't have that much to give to them but I always did my best Emma I appreciate your time today. Thank you