Last weekend I completed a brilliant postnatal exercise course in London. I was really excited to further my knowledge in this area to help me work better with my postnatal personal training clients. As there’s constantly new research being conducted in this area, I was amazed at just how far things had come with regards to postnatal exercise – there really is a huge amount that can be done through exercise to enable postnatal women to function optimally and feel great both physically and mentally about their bodies after having a baby. 
I love working with postnatal women as it’s amazing to see the transformation after we’ve completed a programme that focuses on core restoration and are moving on to more advanced exercises. They feel brilliant – far more energised and definitely more positive about their new body!
With the postnatal lady just having undergone quite a trauma to her body, especially to her core and pelvic floor, it’s so important that before rushing back into doing the exercises that she may have previously done, that restorative work is completed. This kind of exercise focuses around stretching, posture correction, breathing techniques and learning to engage with your pelvic floor and core muscles so that we can work on restoring them back to a state in which the client is able to withstand intra-abdominal pressure. Only when the postnatal lady’s core and pelvic floor muscles are strong enough is it beneficial to move onto slightly more advanced exercises.
Giving birth, whether it be naturally or through caesarean section, can leave postnatal women with some problems that they haven’t encountered before which can have a huge impact on core stability. Common things that women experience are back pain, soft tissue trauma from an episiotomy or tear, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, rectus diastasis (where the muscles and connective tissue in the abdominal wall have separated), pelvic organ prolapse and incontinence. Postnatal exercise and personal training is therefore so important so that we can work on getting your core and pelvic muscles functioning optimally and regaining correct posture. Once that is completed, you have a great base from which to work from and to advance the exercise programme.
Although the course was focused on postnatal personal training and exercise, a lot of the principles can be hugely beneficial and applied to all of my personal training clients. As I described in my previous blog post, your core is working with any exercise that you perform and so by learning to breathe correctly and to visualise and engage with your core muscles means that you are working them twice as hard. After completing a full day of the postnatal course on Saturday (and not having done one single crunch or ‘typical’ ab exercise throughout the day) my core was burning on Sunday morning!
If you are based in the Surrey area and have recently had a baby and are looking to start or return to exercise with a Personal Trainer take a look at the pre/postnatal packages I offer and don’t hesitate to give me an email or call to schedule in a consultation.
