Alyssa Herrera-Set
Hey Nadia, I'm loving your headphones and hoodie look. You're looking kind of hip hop.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Hello.
Nadia Herrera-Set
It's really, really cold here.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
I know we're sure in the video we're going to be showing the difference between California and Massachusetts. It's pretty warm here right now, not hot, but warm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
I'm going to go to bed.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Yeah, it's winter. It is. Okay. Well, it's 52 degrees, but it's like windy out. And yesterday was like, I had a class at nine 15 and it was 30 degrees. It was winter. Um, so I had to.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
What's the temperature over there?
Alyssa Herrera-Set
I just looked at a map this morning that talked about how it's going to be an El Nino winter, and it showed where there's going to be more snow than usual and less snow than usual. And in Tahoe, where I go for snow, there's going to be more snow than usual, and in Boston, there's going to be less snow than usual.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Uh huh.
Mm-hmm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Oh, perfect.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
I guess that doesn't mean it's not gonna be cold.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Well, it's gonna be cold, but like the snow makes it worse sometimes. And I'm slipping and sliding everywhere and it's just really annoying.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
All right. So I love how we're kind of like pushing into this next episode. I'm excited to ask my questions, but I know that you're not that excited about it. So I just turned on recording me to start going. But let's start with a soft entry. How's gymnastics going? You didn't do gymnastics for basically 18 months.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Ha ha
Alyssa Herrera-Set
So you did it your whole life and then took a break. Actually want to hear about that a little bit. Like what made you decide to after 18 months start gymnastics again? And like, did you ever during that 18 months think that you were going to go back to gymnastics?
Nadia Herrera-Set
Um, no. Well, I obviously I missed gymnastics a lot during those 18 months, but it, um, I've been doing it my whole life, so I really needed that break. And I really enjoyed having that break. It was like, it made me realize just how much anxiety, like, just how it really, like, how gymnastics affected me mentally and emotionally. I mean, and physically, obviously, but.
It was good to have that break and then as you know like over the summer before this semester I was really against like joining the club gymnastics team not because like I Thought it was gonna be bad, but just because I know I really didn't want to like do gymnastics like that ever again
But then as I said, I think I said another episode that I just like ended up going to the interest meeting for the gymnastics club and everyone was super nice and it was super low commitment in comparison to my other, like my previous gymnastics experience. So that really incentivized me to just go to the tryouts and...
It's like really funny when I talk to like my teammates about it because they're like, Oh, did you like train over the summer for this or did you do any? I was like, no, I literally didn't know gymnastics. I did gymnastics once and I barely did anything. And I just showed up to these tryouts. It wasn't like what you would normally expect to try out to be like. But obviously, I was there doing my skills and I just kind of went for it, which is kind of crazy. But.
I don't know. It was, and then I got on the team. I got on the competitive team. And then after the, and also like after the tryouts, it was like, although I was so against joining before, like now, like if I didn't get on the team, I knew I was going to be upset. So like, yeah, my head was like, now I really need to like get on. But then, and then I did. And then it kind of hit me like I'm, now I'm like back in it again. Like I'm going to have to compete next semester and like for the next four years. But it's a lot of fun. And I feel like I tell like all my like teammates, like I feel like it's healing my like gymnastics trauma from before just because like this is literally all on my terms. Like I am doing whatever I want, which is a lot of fun.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
So, you know, in case your old coaches are listening to this episode, maybe we need to clarify like, you know, what you mean by old traumas so that, you know, they don't feel like they've been thrown under the bus.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Clarify.
Nadia Herrera-Set
No, I mean, like, just like, I don't know. I a lot of the times, like throughout the years in like middle school, high school, I like nothing to do with like it didn't always have to do with like coaches or like anything that I did at practice in general. But like the anxiety before entering the gym was a lot. And like that was all I was thinking about was competitions or what I was going to be doing next practice or like.
what went wrong in different practice. And it was, it's tiring mentally. And also like to be a competitive J.O. gymnast, there's like disciplines that go with that. And you can't like, it's not always gonna be a lot, like all fun and games because you just, like you have to prepare for these competitions. Whereas like for the club gymnastics, you still have to prepare but.
There's lower stakes and I don't know. There's like just a different feel to it and it's fun to kind of be my own coach but then also like go back to what I was so comfortable with before. I don't know. It's a weird feeling but.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
I'm going to have to interview again right before your first competition or after your first competition and see how you feel. But it sounds to me like a lot of what you're talking about is trauma when you were younger in gymnastics was some of the feeling that you put on yourself. It was your environment and the situation.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Oh yeah.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Thank you.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
and the intensity of the coaching and the intensity of just a sport, the vibe of the sport in general. But it was like also how you interpreted the situation and the things that were going on in your head. So how are you dealing with that now? Is it just a change of environment and vibe that makes the stories in your head change? Or are you...
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Yeah.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Are you consciously changing the stories? Why isn't it as anxiety provoking when you go into practice now?
Nadia Herrera-Set
Probably both. I don't know. I get to choose. It's only two days a week. Two hours per practice. That's four hours a week. In comparison to like 20 hours a week I did before. I get to choose when I get to go. I don't know. There's just like...
new idea of like I get to choose. I have a choice. It's not. I mean I did have a choice before. But I was always in my head about missing practice and like I don't know doing you want to be perfect for your coaches too. So but this time I'm just do like I'm doing well for me. I don't know. It's like it's like I think it's mostly me.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
hehe
Nadia Herrera-Set
I was talking about it out loud. No, he does, but like, it's a different dynamic. That's another thing. The dynamic is a lot different. Like, the coach is there obviously to coach and to like be there to help us out, but he's like, he's not coaching the same way that like a JO coach is coaching you.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Does your coach, you have a coach now, does he not care how well you do?
Nadia Herrera-Set
Like he's on the on the in the background basically obviously watching like a consultant. Yeah, and the president of the club like in the whole like eward of the club are girls on the team and those are technically the people who are also consulting so it's like You get to be like friends with you know, like it's a whole different dynamic, which is super interesting Yeah
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm. Like a consultant.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Yeah, there's like an age dynamic to right like when you were doing gymnastics, you keep seeing J. O. which for the listeners out there that means Junior Olympic and that was the way that it used to be called when Nadia was in gymnastics, the people that are like progressing through the kind of more competitive levels in gymnastics. It's now called developmental. So anyway,
Nadia Herrera-Set
Yeah.
Nadia Herrera-Set
development.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
So when you started what you call J.O., you were little, like nine years old, your first competition season. And you started gymnastics when you were like zero, basically. And then your first competitive season was when you were nine years old, then your coach is like in his or her 30s or older. And there's a
Nadia Herrera-Set
Uh-huh.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Right.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
definite like feeling there of like, okay, you're older than me, you're like, I'm supposed to respect you because you're my coach, and because you're older than me. And, you know, you're me. Yeah. And now
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Right.
Yeah, it was like a power thing. And then growing up with the same coaches, although like I'm getting older, like the power dynamic is still there from when I was little. And like now there's like, there's a power dynamic, but it's almost, I don't know. There's like, I don't know. It's different being like, bossed around by your friends.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Yeah, I think also four hours makes a big difference. When you're little and your 20 hours of your week is gymnastics, that makes up like your entire identity. And now you're an adult with like lots of things going on, lots of things like, you know, that you would associate with as shaping your identity, defining your identity. You are only doing it for four hours. So it's not like your everything, whereas before it was basically your everything. So that's kind of nerve wracking too.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Right. Exactly.
Hmm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Right.
Right.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. And there's like a team dynamic too. And like when you're growing up, like there's a lot of competitiveness between you and your teammates and you obviously you want to win. And I mean, gymnastics never really came easily for me. So it was never really like the best on the team. But when I like, there's a very competitive nature of being on a gymnastics team and in a different way than it is in other sports. And here in the club team, I feel like I can, like there's less of that. Like everyone just wants to have fun and to do well. So we're gonna like all support each other, which I guess also is an age thing since we're all in college, but yeah.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Right. And I thought also before you are competing for lots of different reasons, but I guess one of them is like your thoughts are you're trying to get to this certain level, like level 10 or elite by a certain age so that you can go to college gymnastics. And now where you're at, it's not like you're doing the gymnastics to get to something else. You're already there.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Right, right.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Right. And also the level that we're competing at, well the thing is I need to work up to my skills, but the level we're competing at is lower than the level that I ended up at. However, I still don't have those skills. So it's a whole, I think it's also kind of a fun game for me to be like, wow, all these things that I thought were easy before are actually very difficult and I like...
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
It's fun to be challenged in that way.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Yeah. So I guess in case anybody is wondering, you know, you think about college gymnastics as most people think of NCAA gymnastics, like the UCLA gymnasts or the, I don't know, who else, what the normal person that doesn't think much about gymnastics thinks about, but maybe probably UCLA gymnastics is what they think about when they see it. So that's NCAA. And then
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm. Right.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Michigan Yeah
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Nadi is not doing NCAA division one, two or three. She's doing club college club gymnastics, which they still compete against.
Nadia Herrera-Set
I think it's like NAIGC or something like that.
Alyssa Herrera-Set Right, NAIGC. So it's and it's a club team. And so I don't know how many people are familiar that with club sports in college, but I remember from college there being intramurals, which is like basically, you're competing against other people at your school. But club, club sports is somewhere in between in that you're competing against other schools.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Right.
Nadia Herrera-Set
You're right.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
representing your school, but it's not NCAA Division I, II, or III.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm. Right. And like another thing is like it's not like necessarily funded that much by the school. You get like kind of a little bit. I'm actually not really sure how it works, but we had to do like a lot of fundraising for things like nationals was like we don't get that money from the school like an actual like recognized team would do you want to?
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Right. Your school's not paying for your uniform or providing you gym... Well, I guess maybe they do provide you gym space.
Nadia Herrera-Set
I actually don't know what our history is, but...
Nadia Herrera-Set
Right, right.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Well, it's the coaches gym. So I don't know how that works, but we get to use like a northeastern van to go to the gym. So I don't know.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Yeah, so okay, but this is like a long intro to the main reason why we got on this phone call, which was the topic that I wanted to bring up, which is leaking in sports. And this is like, you know, you don't want to like, I don't know, expose yourself. But I just want to say out there that like, before this podcast became Nadia and I, it was my really good friend, who's a physical
Nadia Herrera-Set
Hehehehe...
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Tanya is a pelvic floor specialist. So she's a kind of physical therapist that works with people that have problems that they want to address in their pelvic area. It can be a lot of different things that we've talked about in the past, but one of which is leaking. And sometimes people leak because they have what's called like an urgency incontinence. And they like, you guys might be familiar with this, but someone who needs to run to the bathroom because they like all of a sudden have to pee really badly.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Um, and then they might leak a little bit on the way to the bathroom or like as they're unlocking the door or unzipping their pants. So that's like an urgency incontinence. There's also a stress incontinence, stress urinary incontinence, which, um, is basically when the pressure of like, um, the pressure around your bladder, uh, takes, is too much for the muscles to control the urine from leaking out. And so you
Nadia Herrera-Set
Thank you.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
leak when you, for example, run and jump. I bet a bunch of women out there can relate to this, but in general terms, you've heard people say, oh my God, I laughed so hard, I was going to almost peed my pants. Or like, oh my gosh, I peed a little bit when I sneezed. Or I can't jump on the trampoline because I feel like I'm going to leak my pants when I jump on the trampoline. These are common things that are like...
Nadia Herrera-Set
Thank you.
Uh-huh.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
I want to say previously embarrassing to talk about, but I guess it probably still is embarrassing to talk about. And so I wanted to talk about what the culture is around leaking in gymnastics. And maybe you have not much to say, but how much do, in your experience with your old teammates and then your current teammates, how much are people talking about leaking?
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Amen.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Um, I think as you got older, it was, I feel like when I was younger and it happened, like, it's-
was it's like recognized as like that's only a you thing like nobody this is not happening to anyone but as you got older and I feel like as I grew up with my teammates from home like we talked about it more and like I don't know it became a really normalized thing not necessarily to talk about but just like a known thing and almost to the point where like Like my coach would just laugh at like us if we ran to the bathroom
after being on floor. Like it was just like, which I feel like made it more, I made it normalized and it made it like less of like a weird thing that's happening. But definitely, I think even in, I mean, like now too, I think it just has to do with age and just like knowing what's happening with your body and be more comfortable with your body.
The conversation's there, but nobody really does anything about it. Like that's like, we can talk about it, but we don't know why it's happening or how to fix it. We're just gonna like let it happen and like laugh about it. Like, oh, I'm not gonna do this because I know I like, I feel like I know I'm gonna like pee my pants. Like, hey, not like that, but like, oh, I know after I do this, like I'm gonna have to go to the bathroom. Or I should probably go to the bathroom before four because like I don't want.
I don't want to like, you know, I've answered my full routine. Like stuff like that. Like we can talk, I could talk about that with my teammates and my teammates could talk about that with me, but we're not like necessarily gonna find anything, any solutions for it. We just like let it happen.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
It is so interesting because I think like, I'm like, I'm straddling here between being like mom talking to daughter and then like someone that like, you know, healthcare practitioner that kind of deals with this sometimes with other athletes. But I guess I'm going into the healthcare practitioner mode. It is pretty common. There are studies that show that up to
Nadia Herrera-Set
Uh huh.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
There have been whole teams, whole elite teams that have been polled to see how many of them have incontinence, and the answer was 100%. But the ranges of the different studies of how much people are having urinary incontinence during gymnastics is somewhere between 30% and 80%. So that's a wide range, but you can guess somewhere in between there. And this is important because
Nadia Herrera-Set
Yeah.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
First of all, you can imagine if someone's leaking all the time and it's embarrassing or whatever, they might not do gymnastics anymore if they feel like they're leaking too much, or they might feel like they'll hold back on skills. So it's important that way. It's also important because your pelvic floor muscles, the ones that help you prevent leaking, are part of your core. So it's important to work on those muscles for performance also, like ability to have a strong core. And that doesn't mean just like contracting and strengthening by contracting, but also relaxing. And then it's also important because there are things, like it should be talked about because there are things that can be done about it. If you're still leaking, like the stories that I've heard from gymnasts when they do leak all the time, but they wanna do gymnastics still is they'll do things that like use, like period underwear when they're doing gymnastics so that it doesn't like leak through to their leotard. They'll use pads. They will, they'll actually, this is kind of interesting. They'll use a tampon. So that doesn't really make sense to you, right? It's like, shrunch your eyebrows. Like how does a tampon help with keying? Isn't that a different hole?
Nadia Herrera-Set Like, how does that make it like, feel like you're like, is it like a mental thing? Like you feel more like control of your muscles. Cause I don't know. Or like a physical thing, but like.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
It's not a mental thing. It's a physical thing. It's like pushing against the muscles. It's helping support the area by kind of helping create full up space so that the muscles don't have to work so hard because they're getting like kind of supported.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting. I think... I...
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Yeah.
Nadia Herrera-Set
personally would use panty liners. I don't like wearing pads when I'm doing gymnastics. I don't like wearing pads in general because they're just really uncomfortable. But especially in gymnastics, it's like the worst. Imagine like doing gymnastics in a diaper anyways. But I also think that that, because of like, like you know what I'm saying, but also because of periods, like I feel like it kind of like.
goes hand in hand a little bit is when like girls start wearing shorts, spandex to practice and all that kind of thing. So which?
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Right. So it'll show less. Like if you're wearing black shorts, for example, then you won't be able to see the leaking if it happens for both period and...
Nadia Herrera-Set
Right. And you feel less exposed in general, but I don't know.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Right. I guess we can talk about hair removal in a future episode. Anyway, I do want to bring in someone who is actually not your mom, but someone who is a pelvic floor specialist that works with a lot of athletes. So we should do that in the future. Has anybody ever like fully leaked you or someone you know, like so that they have to wear a new leotard? Like you're in competition and you have like this wet spot in your leotard.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Ah.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Yeah.
Nadia Herrera-Set
It's actually like... Well for me I wear underwear. That's another thing. Like-
Alyssa Herrera-Set
But still, I mean, like, what if they leak so much that it's, like, dripping?
Nadia Herrera-Set
It's never, well, okay. In personal experience during a competition it hasn't happened like that. Like you will leak during a competition, but you go, like I personally would go to the bathroom before things, you know, before I go to floor, just like, like it's a just in case type thing. But like during practice, like.
Alyssa Herrera-Set (
Mm-hmm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
if you really have to go pee and then something like it, if you're doing four and you also really have to go to the bathroom, sometimes it's bad and you just have to run to the bathroom. But I've never had to like change my leotard. It's just kind of something that you're going to have to deal with. And also it's not necessarily easy to be seen. It depends on the leotard you're wearing. I feel like
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Right. I mean, I feel bad for the people who have, like, I don't know, light-colored leotards, you know, or, yeah.
Nadia Herrera-Set
It's not like light colored. It's like if it's one color, if there's a pattern on it, it's less noticeable And if like you have like which is like with younger girls, they're not gonna they're not usually wearing the ones that I mean When I was younger, they're not usually wearing the ones with patterns. It's like the ones with They're just plain color, which I guess maybe not that's not everyone But for me personally, I wore the one color ones when I was younger, which makes it like way more noticeable
Alyssa Herrera-Set
hehe
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm. Couldn't you have a dark spot in the middle?
Nadia Herrera-Set
Yeah, and like, I don't know. I guess it's an embarrassing thing throughout.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Um, okay. So... Oh, as you were talking, I was like, I had a question. Have you ever been in a competition, like competing on floor or on beam, because those routines are longer? Were you thought in the middle of your routine, as you're performing, oh my gosh, I have to go to the bathroom? Has it ever like...
Nadia Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nadia Herrera-Set
No, I mean, if I'm going to be honest, like I kind of black out during those routines because I'm so nervous. But I think that things like sneezing, having to cough, like having a runny nose, like all those things, like honestly, I don't know what happens, but just stops like I can't like I don't think about anything unless something hurts, then I can think about that. But like I never had to like
Like you're not gonna stop your team to sneeze. That's like a fear, but like you've never, I've never had to do that because you're not thinking about that. And I don't know. I've never like, I mean.
Not that I really had to go pee, but like, oh, like I just like, I don't know. It, it, it like, you're not thinking about those things. I mean, I'm not, I'm so focused on like what I'm doing there, which I guess you have to be that like, I'm not thinking like, oh my goodness, I really, really have to go pee right now. I might have to run to the bathroom after. So you realize after I salute, but like, not like during, which I guess.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Mm-hmm.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
That's so interesting. Actually don't know, I should know probably, but I don't know the physiology behind. Why does nobody sneeze in the middle of their performance? Like...
Nadia Herrera-Set
Thank you.
Nadia Herrera-Set
I honestly am just like so focused on what I'm doing and like, I don't know.
It's very interesting. Um, but yeah. Never had to go pee during a routine.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Yeah, that's interesting.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
You might not be, I mean, this is just your experience. I'm thinking that if you asked other people, maybe who aren't as nervous as you or as focused as you or have more of an issue with incontinence, it might run through their mind right before they tumble or something like that. Yeah. Well.
Nadia Herrera-Set Mm-hmm. They might.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Yeah. Not me. Too nervous.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
I just want to say while we're publicly speaking, I asked you when you got on the team to send me your competition schedule so I could watch.
Nadia Herrera-Set
I don't have a weight I kind of do.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
I mean, gosh, I have frat flu from you. Anyway, I asked you for your competition schedule so I could watch. And you're like, you're not coming to watch. But while we're here, when people are listening, can I come watch?
Nadia Herrera-Set
No.
Nadia Herrera-Set
I mean you can't. No? Well, yes you can watch, but it's gonna be here. I mean you might be here. You might be here. For one of them. I have no clue. I haven't.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Okay, maybe I'll come to your...
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Well, maybe I can go to your nationals.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Albuquerque.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Yeah, I've never been to New Mexico. I wanna go to New Mexico.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Me too.
Alyssa Herrera-Set
Um, all right. Well, nice talking to you, Nadia. Thanks for sharing your story. I know that you were like bracing yourself for what kind of things you're going to expose about yourself, but was that okay? All right. All right. Have a good weekend. Bye-bye.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Yeah. Hehehehe.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Yeah, it was fine. It's okay. I'm open.
Nadia Herrera-Set
Bye.
