Here’s what you can do before, during and after a round of coughing, sneezing or jumping to prevent problems:

When you’re in the middle of jumping, coughing, sneezing, or laughing, what can you do to protect your core?

Connect your breathing with the work: Exhale to engage with each exertion. Put simply, breathe out with the work. Be pre-flexed on the impact. And don’t forget, each cough and sneeze is major impact on your body. Achoo! Boom!

Look Up! I love what Kelly Dean, licensed physical therapist and founder of The Tummy Team told me that she tells her clients: “I tell people to look up, support your tummy and cough/sneeze in your elbow. When you look up it is much easier not to tuck your tail and then to better activate your TA and PF at the same time.”

Support Your Abs: When you cover your mouth with one hand or elbow, cover your tummy with the other one. If you are pregnant or still in the healing stage of fixing a dysfunctional diastasis recti or hernia, it’s wise to splint your abs during a cold or bouts of strenuous activity. If you don’t have a splint like the ones I recommend here, you should at least put a hand in front of your belly.

Support your Pelvic Floor: This tip comes from Mama Lion Strong who wrote to me and said, “I’m glad you tackled this. This is actually a pretty big issue! I have myself and had clients that catch colds while in hospital delivering and their pelvic floors cannot cope. I give them many of the same cues you gave here, and also told moms to support their pelvic floors when coughing and sneezing with whatever – a rolled up towel or even their hands.” Excellent advice!

Stop before your muscles get so tired they fail you! This is when leaking happens, and leaking isn’t the sign of a good workout, nor is it something to ignore! It means you’ve gone too far. So if you leak after 15 minutes on the trampoline, next time go for 10 minutes. If you have leaking issues for the following week after doing 15 box jumps, next time try doing just 6-8 jumps and work up or down from there based on how your body responds. If you have a bad cough, do something about it; don’t just hack away without trying to treat it. Do your best to shorten the attacks!

How I did this: When I was on that trampoline, I could feel my PF meeting the extra pressure of each jump on that trampoline. I would inhale when I was in the air and start exhaling (breathing out) just before I’d land and jump back up again. I’d stay engaged through several jumps and then take another good breath and engage again. When I felt a little tired or couldn’t coordinate my breathing, I’d bounce lower or get off for a minute. The moment I felt a slight urge to “let go” I got off for good before I really did let go. Done for the day. Tired but no leaks. Stopping while I was ahead.

How to prevent problems afterward:

What are some ways you can immediately work to recover your core and pelvic floor right after jumping or between rounds of coughing and sneezing?

Be still and connect: Close your eyes for a moment. You did your best to stay connected during the work, now connect again afterward by taking some belly breaths, drawing your navel in gently as you breathe out to stabilize your body from the center outward. Align your body. Stack your bones. Feel for what areas of your body are happy with what you just did, and feel for the places that are wobbly and “off.” Offer those areas a gentle flex and release. Stretch a little bit. Get a drink of water. Relax.

How I did this: As soon as I got off the trampoline, I stood still, aligned myself, and spent a couple minutes doing some breathing and gentle TA holds. As I did that, I could feel how tired my PF was and how it was responding differently than normal. It wasn’t as quick on the draw, per se, but it was responding. It wasn’t too tired. In terms of coughing, after I could breathe straight again, I would lengthen my body out, reach and turn, drink some water, take a belly breath, engage my pelvic floor gently, do some neck rolls… and then go back to watching TV with bleary eyes 😉