Castle Personal Training
Castle Personal Training is a Corstorphine, Edinburgh based company who specialise in weightloss/toning and Pre and Post Natal exercise.
3 mistakes new moms make in their workouts
Hi guys,
We’ve spoken about ante and post-natal exercise before and I thought I’d do another quick blog about some mistakes new moms tend to make when they start exercising again.
1; Disregarding the stress your body has undergone. I see this a lot; new mom has been cleared for exercise and immediately gets back into running, “to lose fat” and doing crunches, “to flatten my tummy”. I see Personal Trainers give their “new mommy clients” planks and crunches to do after a warm up on the treadmill. Diastasis recti (separation of the abdominal muscles) and urinary incontinence (leakage) are common after giving birth and that is something that should really be addressed first. First of all; get a professional to check for things like APT, diastasis recti etc. I have mentioned before that I always recommend my clients work with a pelvic floor specialist, and they would pick it up in a heart-beat whereas I’ve seen GPs miss it over several visits but a decently trained Personal Trainer should also be able to pick up on this during an assessment.
You really want to train up your glutes and focus on stabalising exercises for the core. 2 of the easiest exercises to do will be step ups and side planks. DO NOT do the front plank without building up to it!
An excellent exercise to start with.
2; Too much stretching and too little strength training. During your pregnancy your body has done nothing but stretch and prepared itsself for giving birth in the easiest way it can. It is now time to start tidying everything up a little bit again and stretching is really not the first thing you should do. Do your resistance exercises and strengthen everything up. Exercises to do include; Squats, split squats, core rotations etc.
Look at all the muscles worked by one simple exercise
3; Going all out too soon. One of the first questions clients ask me when they find out they’re pregnant is; “How long after giving birth can I go back to exercising properly?”
Obviously the answer really depends on the woman but a common mistake is the misinterpretation of the word “properly”. Most people mean “When can I go balls to the wall for an hour again?”. The answer to that is; Probably not for a while.
You’ll have scattered sleep, a higher level of stress and are likely to have less time than you used to. It becomes a case of being even more efficient in your workouts; make the most of the 10-20 minutes you get to train and then move on to the next thing you have to do. You can do this once or twice a day and build up quickly then. After about 2 months you can start looking at 30 minute sessions then. Get your Personal Trainer to design you a program that fits around these time-slots and you’ll be back to full fitness within a 4-5 month period.
You’ll have enough on your plate. Be wise with your time.
Stay fit, stay healthy and take care,
Peter
Castle Personal Training 