Congratulation! If you are reading this blog post it means that you have at home a beautiful boy or girl and thinking to go  slowly back to your exercise routine. Unfortunatelly you can find on google lot’s of  information regarding ”safe postnatal workouts” and some of them might do more harm than good. You might also get some advice from your local personal trainer, and you might think that if your personal trainer said so it has to be truth. Well, not always. And lastly prenatal/postnatal  certification dosn’t always mean that you get the right information either. I am talking from my personal experience.

So here I gathered the #10 exercises  every women should avoid before going back to her training routine.

#1 No aerobic classes, running or plyometric activities (like jumping, skipping …) for the first three months – This is to allow your muscles and joints to recover fully from pregnancy and birth.

#2 Twisting & rotation – If you have to do that, use your thighs to twist not the waist – especially by punching, you have to rotate your hips, your whole body, not the waist.

#3 Plank position – means lot of pressure on the core, all this gravity is pulling to the central part of your body and you can’t control it. And what happens, your diastasis recti will be pushed thanks to gravity down, and that’s what we don’t want at this point. Every time you would like to do plank position go instead into box position and you can do push ups coming from your hips ( that’s the only exception, when is allowed to do push ups from your hips in order not to put too much pressure on your core) or you can do triceps push ups, or dog push up ( pulling butt upwards and do push ups – again my core is supported much more than by classic push ups). Another option are modified side planks, where you have to keep one of your leg bent and down resting on the floor to support your core.

#4 Mountain climbers – Again from dog position, pulling your butt upwards, again because every time you leave the ground it’s a core stability issue. Another way to do mountain climbers is to rest one of your leg on the floor and bring back. That way you release the pressure from your abdominal muscles.

#5 No crunches – You can lie on your back, bend knees, and just breathe in and out, do not push lower into a mat, keep the neutral alignment, its more mental work, but it help to strengthen your diastasis recti plus the deep layer of abdominal muscles. Then you can start using lifting legs, one leg at the time, not both ( that would be again too much pressure on your core).

#6 Not classis push ups
Not arms pull downs – Again it might open your diastasis recti. You can use dumbbells to do shoulder raises.

#7 No triceps dumbbell raises – It will again open the gap, if thye weight is too heavy. You can do chest press instead.
(not too heavy)

#8 Don’t go swimming – until a week after your lochia (postnatal bleeding) has stopped, as there’s a small risk of infection from the water.

#9 No heavy resistance training

#10 No high impact activities ( Insanity classes, running interval trainings, HIIT ) just few examples to give you some idea

And remeber: If you go to an exercise class that isn’t designed for new mums, make sure that the class teacher knows that you’ve had a baby. You’ll need to take good care of your back, joints, ligaments & abdominal muscles and avoid any inappropriate exercises.
All this recommendation is very important to follow for at least first three to six months, if you have abdominal separation ( diastasis recti ) bigger than 1cm, you feel lower back / hip pain, your pelvic floor muscles are weak, or you suffer from incontinence. If you feel fine without any pain or complications, and have abdominal separation less than 1cm you can slowly incorporate all above mentioned exercises. If you have any concerns please talk to your physio or send me an email olga@ohpt.co.uk

I am more than happy answer your questions.;)

lift weights.   be strong.   be proud.