For friends and clients interested in losing baby weight,
I am usually their first call for guidance on postnatal exercise.
a fully loaded Bugaboo
A number of women I know all seem to have had babies at the same time – including my sister, who’s recently given birth to the next generation of our family.
Considering the number of celebrity-mums losing baby weight in the time it takes to get home from hospital, I’m not surprised that new mums can feel they’re in a race, to get back in shape quickly.
But a client of mine, who had a baby in the early 1970′s, reminded me that this was not always the case. When we were training together recently, she told me that back then:
“There were no postnatal exercise classes … so I decided to stick with swimming and when my daughter came along, I had a huge pram and walked everywhere. The only advice I was given after birth was not to lift anything heavy for 6 weeks and make sure you had your husband’s dinner on the table when he got home from work!”
Although now, 30 years later, we know more about the benefits of postnatal exercise, there’s something to be said for my client’s commonsense approach. Rather than trying to find a gym with a crèche, most new mums I know would prefer to spend time with their newborn and master the adjustment settings of their fully-loaded Bugaboos.
That’s why my approach to home personal training with new mums begins with
exercises designed for core strength, joint stability and pelvic floor control. We do this at home, so that mums may stay close to their babies. Then we increase the intensity when necessary, to include more cardiovascular work.
If the goal to lose pregnancy weight is approached as a project, not a race, we can achieve pretty impressive results, whether you’re a celebrity-mum or not!
