Meet Cork’s ‘Booby Physio’

A CORK physiotherapist is helping women of all ages to defy gravity – and has gained the title The Booby Physio as a result!

Siobhán O’Donovan is the founder of PostureFitting, a physio-led service that educates, empowers and enlightens women and girls in how to optimally support their breast weight, through a unique combination of posture and bra-fit.

Her pioneering service uplifts females throughout all their life stages and changes – from puberty right through to the menopause, when women’s breast size can often increase.

Siobhán, along with her PostureFitting partners in Ireland and England, has worked with hundreds of women through PostureFitting and not a single one, she said, was wearing the correct size bra when they came to see her.

Around 80% of support comes from the band of the bra, and when the band is too big, as it has been for most people that we have seen, breasts are covered but not supported – usually in what I like to call the Dipped Headlights position - you can fit a small child under there.

Originally from Ballinlough and now living near Timoleague, Siobhán started her professional life as a PE teacher, where she noticed first-hand the poor postural and movement habits of children and teenagers.

After doing a Masters in Spinal Sports Injury Prevention and Management in the U.S in the late 1980s, she opened her own practice in the UK, specialising in postural work.

“I was helping people learn how to be comfortable and supported at the same time when sitting at home, at the desk, in the car, etc,” she said.

It was while visiting London while she was living in the UK in 2011, that she had a ‘personal epiphany’, when she went for a private bra fitting.

“I had read an interview in the Sunday papers with Trinny (Woodall) and Susannah (Constantine) where they were talking about a lingerie brand, Rigby & Pellar, and I thought I’d visit them if I was in London.

“My mother-in-law and I were going to the Proms so I figured I’d go for it and, honestly, I walked out of there two inches taller, just from wearing an optimally fitted bra.

I couldn’t believe the psychological difference it made to my confidence, as well as my posture!

“I had never been professionally fitted before this and I’d always thought I was a stereotypical 36B or 34C. I left the Rigby & Pellar store that day with two different brand bras, one was a 32DD and one was a 32E.”

Siobhán said she hadn’t been uncomfortable before the bespoke fitting.

“But I wasn’t at all aware that I wasn’t supported properly, or the impact being poorly or optimally supported can have, physically, psychologically and socially – I’d have thought that a DD was something you’d see on page three!

“It was a real revelation! I was gobsmacked, and I thought if something so simple could have such an effect on me, and boost my confidence so much, it could do the same for my patients.”

That was the beginning of PostureFitting, where dipped headlights become full beam with the postural intervention, and then high beam with the optimal bra-fit! This ground-breaking combination of posture and bra-fit gives a more sustainable and sustained solution, and has been, in the words of patients,“transformative” and “life-changing”.

Since she launched PostureFitting, Siobhán has yet to meet a client who came to her wearing the right bra size.

And all the women I must have seen almost 1,000 women from all walks of life at this stage, who are telling me that no-one ever taught them how to fit themselves properly – they literally didn’t know what they didn’t know.

Siobhán stresses her service is all about teaching, and not about selling bras.

“We empower women, we’re all about the DIY,” she says.

She points out that women have three weights potentially pulling them forward: the head, and two breasts.

“To resist that gravity, and the discomfort it can cause, you have to have enough capacity and resilience and build up the muscles in the back,” she says.

That work, typically ideally, needs to be done while girls are growing up, so they reach puberty with good back strength.

“But all the studies show that a large number of girls quit sport in their teens at a crucial time for developing this ability to resist gravity.

“Our breasts stop growing in our 20s, so ideally, the work needs to be done before this,” she says.

Gravity will exert force on parts that are not aligned within a structure, and this includes bodies and breasts. Withstanding gravity for women and girls includes the requirement to resist this gravitational pull on their breasts.

“This requires upper and mid back strength that can be lacking by the time girls first need it during puberty, which then begins the slippery slope of poor breast support resulting in poor posture, and so the circle negative cycle continues.

“But if we maximise our resistance to gravity, both internally, (through postural cues and muscular resilience), and externally, (through an optimal bra-fit), the daily battle against gravity can be won.”

The PostureFitting service involves an individual assessment, and Siobhán works with clients to give them cues on how to get body segments into a ‘stacked’ position: that’s when you’re most supported, and when the likes of respiratory function and pelvic floor function also improve as a result.

As a former Irish international scrum-half, Siobhán is passionate about supporting women to participate in physical activity, which is essential for both physical and brain health. Ensuring they are supported by being able to manage their breast weight is key.

We know breast size is a reason, that we can change for the better, for about one in five women not being as physically active as they should be for their optimal health.

“This is true of women of all breast sizes. Although larger-breasted, I’ve worked with women who wear a HH cup and can find their breast weight to be very challenging and difficult for them in many ways, including terms of back and neck pain. In many cases, they feel they have few options outside of reduction surgery, but this is because they, and often their GPs, just don’t know that there is an alternative,” she said.

Meanwhile, an increase in breast size is one of the many things that can happen to a woman during the menopause transition.

“This is not something most women know about, and it can have a really negative effect on how a woman feels about herself, at a time when she is changing both physically and psychologically,” explained Siobhán.

The menopause can have many effects on a woman’s body and mind. One of the biggest impacts is on the way it makes us feel about ourselves.

“Our self-confidence can take a hit and it can be hard to get on top of that. At a time when we may be already feeling low in ourselves, having to contend with heavier, bigger breasts without optimal support can add to our already low self-confidence.”

Keen to continue to promote this and other menopause symptoms beyond simply Menopause Awareness Month, Siobhán offers PostureFitting, the only service of its kind, in Cork, and has trained other therapists in Ireland and in England who are known as PostureFitting Partners.

She also offers virtual consultations to clients as far away as the U.S and Australia, and Siobhan hosts an online workshop titled ‘Gals Against Gravity’ for healthcare and activity professionals internationally.

The goal of this is to raise awareness and, very importantly, prompt action, to help women and girls understand and manage their own breast weight.

Her vision is to grow her community of partners around the world so that her service, created from her home in Cork, can go on to help thousands of women and girls globally.

See www:posturefittingphysio.com to find out more.