As fitness professionals, we have the amazing opportunity to empower our clients to reach their goals – whether their goals are to get stronger, to run a marathon, or simply to feel their best. After giving birth, many women are motivated to get their “body back” which oftentimes means they want to get back to feeling like themselves pre-pregnancy. They may have aches and pains or things may just feel different than they did before. They also may have a different body tone and visual appearance. After all, their body just spent nine months growing a human and it has changed. Postpartum women need a fitness program that will help them rehabilitate, realign and strengthen their bodies so they can get back to comfortably doing everyday activities and the things they love, as well as feel great about their physical appearance
Benefits of Postpartum Exercise
Postnatal exercise brings a host of positive benefits to your body, including boosting your mood and decreasing stress levels. Movement not only helps your body heal but also increases self-esteem, decreases your risk of postpartum depression, reduces aches and pains, strengthens your body for the tasks of everyday life and caring for a newborn, and gives new moms a chance for “me time.”
The reality is that foundational health is at the core of practically every goal that a postpartum mom commonly has, and – quite simply – physical exercise is a requirement (not an option) for foundational health.
Postpartum Exercise Considerations
HORMONES: After having a baby, there are some things to consider about what is going on in the body relative to starting a fitness program. Some hormones are dropping while others remain heightened, especially if your client is nursing. One of these hormones is relaxin, which is the hormone primarily traditionally acknowledged for causing the muscles and joints to “relax” in order to allow the woman’s pelvis to open up and let the baby pass through. This hormone stays in the body for several months after giving birth, causing instability in the joints and a somewhat false sense of flexibility.
CORE: The core is another area of consideration for a postpartum client. During pregnancy, the abdominal muscles lengthen and stretch to make room for the growing belly. The Rectus Abdominais, which runs vertically from the rib cage to the pubic bone, starts to pull apart down the midline, stretching the connective tissue holding them together known as the linea alba. This is called Diastasis Recti, a condition that naturally occurs in every pregnant woman, but can be problematic if the pregnant woman does not know how to properly engage her core. If the connective tissue is overstretched, it can have a difficult time coming back together on its own once the baby is born. This, can lead to back pain, pelvic floor dysfunction, and more if your postpartum client is not instructed how to properly re-activate her core.
PELVIS + PELVIC FLOOR: After bearing the weight of a growing baby and a shifting center of gravity for such a long while, the muscles that stabilize and connect with the pelvis may have been stretched out, shortened, weakened, overused or underused. Glutes are one of the major muscle groups in this area that often get weakened during pregnancy due to postural changes (in addition to prolonged periods of sitting), which can lead to muscle imbalances, resulting in postpartum aches and pains in and around the pelvis, lower back and down through the legs.
The pelvic floor is a layered set of interconnecting muscles that run from the coccyx to the pubic bone and sitz bone to sitz bone. They support the uterus, vagina, bladder and bowel. These muscles play a major role in pregnancy and childbirth, supporting the growing uterus and shifting organs. They then stretch to allow for the baby to pass through the pelvis. Many women feel disconnected from these muscles after having a baby and may experience pain or incontinence. Great care must be taken when rehabilitating these muscles and your client may benefit greatly from the expertise of a Women’s Physical Therapist, in addition to a fitness professional who knows how to integrate manual pelvic floor therapy into exercises of daily life.
As fitness professionals working with postpartum women, we have the important job of meeting our clients where they are, helping them to reach their goals, but doing it in a way that is safe, effective, and motivating. Now, we’ll show you just how you can do that.
When to Start Postpartum Exercise
Every pregnancy and birth experience is different and both will affect how a woman resumes exercise after having a baby. Some factors include whether or not they exercised during pregnancy, whether they had a vaginal birth or a C-Section, whether they had birth complications or even a traumatic birth experience. Doctors typically recommend waiting 6 weeks before resuming a fitness program, but this timeline is largely arbitrary for professionals who understand perinatal fitness. In fact, there are safe exercises you can encourage your clients to start doing before they even leave the hospital. These are gentle exercises that involve reconnecting to the core and pelvic floor in order to help with simple functions that they’ll need to do day one postpartum such as getting out of bed, picking up the baby and putting them down in the bassinet.
Ask yourself, “what is pregnancy safe”? Avoiding movements altogether? Or teaching your clients how to move with the correct muscles, since she’s going to be performing activities of daily life anyway?
Once the new mom is more officially “cleared” for exercise by the doctor at their postpartum visit, which usually occurs between 6-8 weeks after birth, you can simply continue to progress her into a fitness program tailored to her body’s needs, including gentle strength training and low impact cardio such as walking. However, your program must reflect the abilities of your client. A client who trained with you during her pregnancy, and is now postpartum and ready to train strong again should be treated differently than a client who didn’t train with you during pregnancy but is now coming to you postpartum – without a foundation – and asking for you to help get her back into shape. Radically different programs should be crafted.
And by the way, doctors are notorious for not providing inaccurate information regarding exercise and diastasis recti, but clients don’t always know that. Doctors generally have no education on exercise physiology, making a women’s physical therapist or pre & postnatal corrective exercise specialist a necessary consultation.
Assessments and Program Design
In the Fit For Birth Pregnancy Safe Coach program, we encourage our students to do a full assessment with their postpartum clients before designing a program. Every woman will naturally have different muscle imbalances that may have become more pronounced during pregnancy. It’s important to assess her foundation before having her jump into exercise.
The assessment includes exercises to evaluate six primary activations to identify any imbalances:
- Core
- Pelvic Tilting
- Glutes
- Obliques
- Shoulder Blades
- Chest
The core assessment in and of itself will tell you a lot of what you need to know when building the initial phases of a program for your postpartum client. The core muscles, specifically the Transverse Abdominal muscle, have been radically stretched out, while under the demand of supporting the pregnant belly. Likewise, the pelvic floor musculature has been bearing the brunt of the additional internal organ weight, managing shifting pelvic bones and has stretched to allow the baby to exit the birth canal. On top of this, your client may not be able to connect to their core and pelvic floor muscles right away, especially if they’ve had a C-Section, especially if they’ve not trained with a qualified pre & postnatal fitness professional. In our course we go into detail on how to build out a program that incorporates the following 3 phases:
Phase 1: Re-establish core connection with the Core Breathing Belly Pump (the first 6 weeks)
Phase 2: Introduce functional training to complete daily activities (6 weeks and beyond)
Phase 3: Build on strength and progress into cardio (once phase 2 is done comfortably)
Conclusion
As a fitness professional, you have the unique opportunity to help newly postpartum women navigate this sensitive, challenging, time in their lives. By empowering them to take control of their health, you are giving them the all-important gift of confidence, as well as strength and mobility. The Fit For Birth Pregnancy Safe Coach program helps you create individualized, safe (truly intelligent) and effective fitness programs so every new mom can properly rehabilitate after birth, reach her fitness goals, and feel her best. Check out a free preview of the program HERE!