This is Chelsey with the Slay Squad fitness and nutrition coaching and Phoenix Personal Training. And today, we’re gonna talk about how you should be working, moving, and training your body postpartum. So this is for the woman who has just had a baby. She doesn’t know exactly how to work out, how to train, what to do, when it’s safe to start working out again and what needs to be avoided? What needs to be focused on? So that’s when I want to talk about today. The Slay Squad fitness and nutrition coaching in Phoenix Personal Training is made up of a variety of different types of experts, but among us are pre and postnatal fitness specialists. So that means specialists to guide you and train you through pregnancy and postpartum phase of life. It is a time and a phase we are really passionate about as moms ourselves with young ones. It’s a time where it is a little more specialized, where a lot of people don’t have help. And so we would like to walk you through a few pointers, a few tips of how to begin your workout and your training journey after you have a baby. Okay, so number one, one of the 1st things that you’re gonna need to realize is that after you have a baby, it is some level of trauma to your body, and it’s gonna take time. And the world or the world of obstetrics tells you that you need to wait 6 weeks to begin any kind of activity working out. They do tell you walking is okay generally. But they say wait to work out. And it’s true and not true. You do need to wait to return to any kind of intense workouts or lifting. I would probably wait just depending on your situation, your delivery, how your body’s doing. There’s so many different factors. But there are things that you can safely do even before those 6 weeks are up – even immediately postpartum.
This is something that no one told me and I didn’t learn about until I became a pre and postnatal fitness specialist. And it was so helpful and it was information that I wish I knew earlier and that I want every new mom to have because it’s gonna help you with your recovery postpartum. One of the first things that you can begin to do is deep core breathing, and you can do this immediately postpartum. You could do this even when you’re still in the hospital, or your 1st day home, you can begin this, and I recommend beginning it because what this is going to do is help promote healing, help promote your core going back to normal, your pelvic floor returning to normal. I would not really consider this exercise as much as just like core pelvic floor restoration. It’s very gentle. It’s very important. Core breathing is something I encourage you to do all nine months if you’re pregnant, but also immediately postpartum. What this is gonna look like – I’m gonna walk you through it. I’m gonna take a massive inhale, breathe deep. You want this to take about five seconds. You’re gonna breathe in really deep. As you breathe in, your belly’s gonna expand, and your pelvic floor is gonna move down. I want you to visualize a balloon filling up with air in your stomach. And that air is in your belly, not your chest. So you breathe deep, the air is gonna go into your belly, your belly’s gonna expand and go out, your pelvic floor is going to move down. You’re going to hold it there. Hold that balloon full of air, and then you’re gonna very slowly deflate the balloon. So not all at once. You’re not going to pop it. You’re just going to slowly breathe out. And deflate the balloon. So as you blow out, and the air leaves, your balloon, your stomach is gonna come in, and your pelvic floor is going to move up, so imagine a balloon shriveling and shrinking in and up. And you’re gonna bring your pelvic floor as high as possible, and your stomach in as tight as possible. Imagine your belly button going to your spine. This is gentle. You are going to repeat this, maybe 10 times. Then work it up to 15 times, and the next time, maybe 20 times, and you’re going to keep doing that. And this is one of the things you can begin immediately postpartum to help with that pelvic floor healing. And that’s something we do with Phoenix personal training is guide you through.
Okay, so let’s chat more about week one to 2 postpartum. What are some things you can do that are safe? And the 1st thing you’re going to begin is that core breathing. You can also do this sitting on a bouncing ball, on a chair. You could do it standing up. Another move that’s very similar. It basically is a core breathing, but you just do it lying flat on your back. And you’re going to fill your abdomen there, breathe out, and really pay attention, close your eyes, pay attention to feeling that pelvic floor. If you don’t know how to target it, how to feel your pelvic floor, I recommend paying attention next time you go pee, when you go pee, the muscle that you use to stop, or start the stream of urine, that is your pelvic floor. When you do that, it’s called a Kegel when you flex that muscle. But what we want to do is a little bit more difficult and in depth than a kegel. Kegels won’t do as much as the exercise I just described to you. So, you’re gonna begin those immediately in the 1st one to 2 weeks postpartum.
Week two. You’re gonna then begin a little bit more gentle movements that you can do. Again, this is very, very gentle. This is things like sitting on the ball and very slowly raising your knee, a couple inches off the ground, as if you were doing a seated march. And pulling your stomach in, tightening those core muscles. Again, focusing on your breath, focusing on your core, just very lightly marching your feet up and down. Ever so slightly.
Another thing you can do is lay on your back, on the floor, pull your knees up in the air, kind of like a tuck, and then very gently. Tap your heels on the floor, one after the other. Another movement you can do is for your pelvic floor. You’re gonna get on all fours if you’re gonna crawl, like a baby, stick a pillow between your legs, and breathe in and out the core breathing I described. But squeezing the pillow and focusing primarily on the pelvic floor, and that position with a pillow between your legs is a great position to really fill your pelvic floor. You could begin doing all of those weeks 2 to 4 postpartum. This whole time, you should also be up moving around walking.
Now, immediately postpartum, you may not feel like you can go very far. Totally okay. This is not like a race. This is not trying to go super far. This is just helping your body heal, getting yourself moving. You’re a place where the weather’s, okay and you’re not going to overheat, you’re not going to freeze to death postpartum then get outside, go for a walk, start with 5 minutes, then do 10 minutes, then 15, then 20, then 30, you get the picture. Start working your walks up, get your own baby outside. So good for your physical and mental health. You can begin that immediately.
Now let’s discuss weeks 4 through six. Now, depending on when you go to your OB, they can clear you at this time. A lot of times they’re going to clear you closer to week five or six. Just usually that’s when they schedule that follow-up appointment. I know I was cleared at week five. But even before you’re cleared, you’re going to begin, similar exercise to what I just described. You can do all those, and then start adding in very gentle dead bugs, if you know that movement, but just do arms only.. That’s something you can safely incorporate if you’re filling up to it. Weeks 4 through 6 plus all the other exercises I just described to you.
This one thing we can help you do and navigate with the Slay Squad Phoenix Personal Training, we can get you on a plan. Our app has video demonstrations of all of these. You can do it from home postpartum. You can have the videos up in front of you, to know exactly what you need to be doing. And then, obviously, you go in, you get your follow-up appointment, your OB’s getting checked, that you’re okay, they’re gonna clear you. They don’t give you any advice. They don’t tell you what’s safe, what’s not safe. They simply clear you and they say, hey, you’re good to go. You can have sex, you can now work out. And really, you need to listen to your body. It’s not just on or off, yes or no. You don’t just want to jump back into everything. We’re gonna start light. You might need to start body weight workouts. You start very light weight, dumbbells, at that week five, six, and then work your way back up, listen to your body. Take it easy at first, your 1st couple weeks back to workouts. And you can go from there. One word of caution. I want to leave you, from being in personal training, is making sure that you don’t do traditional core work. That is one thing that you don’t want to do during pregnancy or postpartum, which traditional core work could be, like, crunches, V ups, leg lefts, sit ups, anything that really crunches those abs. If you have any kind of abs separation from pregnancy, diastisis recti, where you have that little gap. You’re gonna see some coning in your stomach when you go to sit up, if you have that. It’s very common. Many women get this. Doesn’t mean you did anything wrong, but you could make it worse by doing the wrong kind of core work, so you’re not going to do traditional ab workouts. Avoid that, avoid traditional planks, and all that for a little bit.
Instead, do the core breathing that I talked about, and anything that can target those transverse abs, those are the abs that wrap around your stomach like a corset versus the rectus abdominus or six pack muscles. So you need to think about your core differently. You need to think about tightening everything like a corset, and doing movements that are safe. Things that you can do are bare holds, dead bugs, standing marches, gentle heel taps with your legs bent. And obviously, the core rating. Those are a good place to start with your core restoration, and then go from there. Build on that. Slowly, as you get months into your postpartum journey, and you start to feel ready, if you have no abs separation, you’re gonna be able to slowly implement more traditional outwork. And this is something with a Slay Squad fitness and nutrition coaching and Phoenix personal training. that we help you do in a custom way, because we are looking at how your body’s responding. If you have, I ask this direct eye if you have any public floor dysfunction, and then we’re progressing you based on how your body is responding. I hope this helps give you an idea if you need help with a stage of life, which many people do, it is a great time to work with a Phoenix personal trainer. Then go ahead and fill out a form and we’ll be in touch today.