Defying gravity with the Booby Physio, Siobhan O’Donovan

This week’s guest, the Booby Physio (aka former Ireland rugby player Siobhan O’Donovan) shares some life changing advice (well, it has been for me!) on all kinds of ways in which we can better support our whole selves. You can find her at posturefittingphysio.com and on social media at posture.fittingWatch here or listen wherever you get your podcastsLet me know how you’re going to start better supporting yourself today (and while a lot of the conversation is about boobs, much of it is beneficial for all genders).Le grá (with love),EveiFull transcriptIt wasn't as much of an impact for me because I wasn't in a space where I was aware of it, but psychologically, huge, absolutely huge. So then I kind of went, this is mad. If this is having this effect on me, what can I do to bring this to my patients? And then after several years, I then set up my own physiotherapy service offering to patients the option for me to help them to be to internally support their breast weight through their posture or alignment and externally through optimal bra fitting.Hi, you're listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and I'm here to help you create a life you don't need to retreat from by taking better care of yourself and your Self with an uppercase S, that highest, wisest, truest, most joyful, brilliant, and miraculous part of yourself.I love sharing these trauma-informed and VAST/ADHD friendly self-care ideas, and I hope you enjoy listening as much as I've enjoyed making them.Welcome, Siobhan O'Donovan! Thank you so, so much for joining me.You're very welcome. I'm very, very delighted to be here.I am so excited. I went to the Dive Ireland show a few weeks ago and Siobhan, known as the Booby Physio, was giving a talk on boobs and buoyancy and it was the only talk I went to.Thank you.It was basically about, like, I'm a member of Roscommon Sub Aqua Club, but when I come to the diving it's something I was aware of, like buoyancy, all the rest of it, different bodies. And what you were talking, it wasn't just about the diving, it's about daily life. And I just think what you're doing is phenomenal and I want as many people to hear about it as possible. I got home, I got rid of most of my bras because they were stabbing me and all the rest of it.And I'm on the way to replacing, I've replaced two of them so far, I'll be, like, gradually, but it's incredible work you do. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And what would you like to say about what you're working on at the moment, what you do?So I suppose if I give you a little bit of background as to how I've kind of ended up being surrounded by breasts.I started my life as a PE teacher because I wanted to work within an active profession, and this was a long time ago when I was doing my first degree. And there weren't many options, there weren't many options in the activity field and there were fewer options again for women. So lots of things that I now look back on and I can see gender gap situations and things like that now that I'm a little bit more aware of that situation.But from the point of view of a profession, I really never gave any thought to anything other than possibly becoming a sports journalist and then realise, no, that's not, that's not a thing. There is no, you know, because it was journalism and you then maybe reported on sports as opposed to now where it's a bit more specific. But it was either that or and then I was like, well, that's going to be sitting, you know, on a typewriter.And I wanted a more active thing. So PE teaching was the basically the only option, but also something that I was really happy to be doing. I was, I was happy to go on to be a PE teacher for the rest of my life, or so I thought, until I did my actual four-year degree.Within that four-year degree, we had a couple of modules on exercise physiology. So getting a little bit deeper into how the body works, deeper than we would have done in, you know, Leaving Cert biology. And then also there was a module on sports injuries.And I kind of sat there through that and I thought, we really as PE teachers need to know this stuff because we are encouraging kids to be active. And if we give them, for example, an exercise or a movement that is potentially inappropriate, then we're effectively possibly teaching them something that could ultimately be damaging for them.Now, having been in the field that I'm in for a lot of years, what we now know is that movement is absolutely a non-negotiable and it is far more important for somebody to be moving than for us to be focusing too much on, you need to be moving with your neck in this position or whatever.But I've also come a little bit full circle on that in that we need to be mindful of the way that we hold ourselves because that does affect how we function. Yeah. That's a bit that I'll come back to when we talk a little bit more about posture.I realised that there was the potential for me as a PE teacher to not be informed enough to be providing good quality movement advice. And so after I had finished my degree, I was teaching, I taught in London. And while I was there, I looked into how do I do more about this sports injuries bit? That's where I was focusing on.Basically, cut a long story short, physio degree, three years plus a two year postgrad in sports, which would have involved me doing a lot of stuff that I didn't have an interest in. And also five years on top of four years financially, that was never going to happen. And then I heard about a Masters in the States. And basically, that's what I did. I went over to the States, did a year of prerequisite courses to get on to the Masters, then did the Masters.And this was back in the early ‘90s when, you know, flying over to the States meant, ‘I'm gone for the year. You're not going to see me for a year.’ And I'd be lucky if I get back in the year. Very different to what it is now.So that was that was quite a big move. And I suppose I like one of the things that I'm very proud of the fact that I did, because if I hadn't done, I probably would have been a very happy PE teacher for the rest of my life. But I kind of feel like what I'm doing now is impacting people in ways that are different to what would have happened if I'd stayed in PE.While I was over there, the focus very much on what I was doing was on prevention of injuries. So it wasn't just wait for the fire to happen and try and put the fire out.It was let's not have the fire start in the first place. Let's look at people's bodies. Let's look at how they move. Let's look at their lives and how they function. And let's prevent problems.Then when I came back on this side of the water, I was pretty unique in that most people who would have gone on and done a physio degree, it would have been here are the problems. This is how we treat them.And originally now it has changed. But originally, the focus would have been more on treatment. And I think what has happened over the years is people have come to realise that in order to do effective treatment, we also need to prevent the problem from coming back.Therefore, that whole preventive aspect has come into play over here. It was more strong in the States because the degree that I did was based in schools and colleges. It was based on students having exposure to athletic injury every day because they were training every day like this.The school sports system over there is incredibly intense. Yeah, I'll do it voluntarily, but they're training literally every day and possibly two games a week. So if you've that much exposure to potential for injury, then there is more injury happening.The degree that I did was for a specific qualification that's school based. But when I then came back, I had quite a unique set. Well, I had a pretty completely unique set of qualifications and skills.One of the things that I did was I got on board with developing those degrees in the UK and we now have them in Ireland as well. Looking at that more specific athletic sports. And when I say athletic, I don't mean you have to be an athlete.I mean, being physically active and how that can, you know, the ramifications of that. So whether the person is going out for a walk or whether they are chasing an Olympic medal, that kind of a field. And so I was involved with that and with setting up the first professional body for that side of things.And that was very much where my focus was. I was dealing with the active population. And then life changed for me in London when I had a bra fitting and I had it done purely by chance, purely because I had an hour to kill before I went to The Proms.And with I was with my mother-in-law. I had read about this shop in London and that, you know, that I knew did bra fitting. And I was like, well, here I am, 45 years of age.Sure, I may as well go and have my first one. And it was you know, it literally changed my view on everything. I walked out that door an inch taller.Yeah. I don't know if I said this at the at the Scuba……I'm just I think I know the shop you mean. Yes. But also. Oh, no, no, there's...