What you Need to Know about Postpartum Recovery and your Return to Exercise

At Fitmama Strong Online, we pride ourselves on our postpartum protocol that gets women back to their more advanced workouts injury free.

But, before progressing to more advanced or higher impact exercises, we strongly encourage all new moms to meet the following benchmarks as they return to exercise:

• Work on proper core function. Complete a self-assessment for abdominal separation and learn how to engage your core properly, building a strong foundation before progressing into abdominal exercises that might not yet be appropriate for you.

• Complete a minimum of four weeks of Fitmama Strong Online, In-Person (or other:) focused strength training.

• Have a full assessment with a pelvic floor physiotherapist who will help get you to the point where you can safely resume higher impact activities, because you have the strength to do so.

• Be patient with your recovery and slowly progress to higher impact exercises over the course of around six months postpartum. One of the main reasons we recommend easing into high impact activity is that the pregnancy hormone relaxin, which is responsible for softening tendons and ligaments that make joints less stable, is still present for up to five months postpartum (and longer for breast/chestfeeding people). Resuming higher impact activities too soon can increase the risk of injury due to joint instability and can increase the pressure/stress on the pelvic floor and abdominal wall.

It might be very easy to write off these recommendations and go full steam ahead if you’re not experiencing any negative symptoms. Many people who follow this approach actually experience symptoms further down the road, that ultimately derail their recovery and reduce activity levels.

These guidelines are the minimum we recommend, but they don’t mean you can’t still have challenging workouts! Your workouts after having a baby should be tailored so that they take into consideration your well being and long term health. A postnatal fitness specialist is a great person to enlist to help you get back to exercising again after your baby is born. And our Babywearing Fitness, Stroller Strong Fitness or Express STRONG classes are a great place to begin!

We’d love to have you join us to connect with other people in your community and receive expert instruction for a fun, safe and effective workout during your child bearing years.

Until then, you can find our favourite suggestions for starting to move your body after birthing a baby, in our Free Guide to Moving your Body in the Fourth Trimester.

Interested in joining us? Our classes are a great way to meet other new parents. Fitmama Strong Online has been operating classes online from our virtual studio since 2020. Our community is a thriving and welcoming space for you and your littles.

We offer Prenatal Fitness classes, live from our virtual studio. Our series of Prenatal classes includes On-Demand Prenatal Yoga classes. Our 30 minute live, online Express classes our our On-Demand library of pre-recorded workouts are a favourite for busy mamas who enjoy consistency in their workout regime.

If you’re new to Fitmama Strong Online, try one of our 3 Class Passes! You can use them at our postnatal Express Flow, Express Strong, Express Elevate classes. It doesn’t matter if your baby was born 6 weeks ago or 6 years ago, we have something for all postnatal members! Already been to Fitmama Strong classes? Grab a monthly membership and keep moving:)

Finally, we offer in-person Stroller Fitness and Babywearing Fitness through our Durham Region and Ottawa locations. We can’t wait to have you join us!

We can’t wait for you to #startwithus and #growwithus.