Get Your Shit Together
Get Your Shit Together
Postpartum Fitness: How to Train for the Sport of Motherhood
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In this episode of Get Your Shit Together we chat about:
🧡 Myths about postpartum fitness: 6wk rule, exercise after prolapse or diastasis
🧡 Low down on low impact workouts
🧡 Adina’s approach to postpartum fitness: from weeks 0 to 4+
🧡 Breathwork and gentle progressions for total beginners & athletes alike
🧡 Listener questions: leaking, when to run, baby wearing
Episode Show Notes: www.getyourshittogetherpod.com/podcast/episode84
Follow us on Instagram @getyourshittogetherpod
Get Your Shit Together Mini Course
Grab a taste of nutritional therapy and functional fitness inside our 4-part GYST Mini Course. You’ll also get access to the GYST cookbook with some of our fave recipes we’ve mentioned on the show!
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Connect with Adina:
Instagram: @adinarubin_
Website: www.adinarubincoaching.com
Connect with Diane:
Instagram: @dianeteall
Website: www.diteawellness.com
Enroll in Root Cause Reset (self-study): www.rcrprogram.com
Follow us on Instagram @getyourshittogetherpod
Watch GYST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@getyourshittogetherpodcast
Connect with Diane:
Instagram: @dianeteall
Website: www.diteawellness.com
Enroll in Root Cause Reset (self-study): www.rcrprogram.com
Connect with Adina:
Instagram: @adinarubin_
Website: www.adinarubincoaching.com
STHH Prenatal Waitlist https://adina.myflodesk.com/prenatalwaitlist
STHH Postpartum https://sthh.circle.so/checkout/sthh-postpartum
Hey baby bees and welcome back to G Y S T. Ooh, we got a juicy one for you this week. I know that y'all have been in a Dina's box or question box for this one, a long awaited episode, so we're super excited. But first, how are you over there? She's showered. Fresh face.
Adinawell this was the first shower I got to take this week without actively hearing RI scream on the other side of the door.
DianeSomeone asking for you.
Adinayeah, I mentioned last episode, but the jet lag has hit us hard and Ri is a sensitive boy and he is letting us know loud and clear that he hated America and he hated that we brought him
DianeHe hates America. Does he believe in one China as well?
AdinaI don't know, dude, but is so mad at me. He is waking up in the middle of the night screaming on the top of his lungs, which is so not his personality. And he won't sleep longer than a half hour without being fully in my womb.
DianeJust put 'em back up in there.
AdinaSo it's going great. I am thriving.
DianeSo maybe you haven't had a chance to get into beef yet, as we discussed last week. Beef the show you did. What
AdinaWe watched one episode. We watched one episode, um,
Dianeyour takes so far? Cuz I re the first one by
Adinait so far.
Dianethe running at the end. Yeah.
AdinaI love it. So far I think it's so, it's like quirky and you're just like, who thought to make this a show?
DianeMm-hmm.
AdinaAnd the performances are great and I love the very different. Socioeconomic status, but both losing their minds, like, I think it's great.
DianeYes. Both losing their minds. And I feel like, was it a Korean director who did this? I dunno. I was reminded of, I was talking with my brother about some themes from the show and we were talking about parasite from a few years ago.
AdinaIt seems to be a very popular theme in Korean media.
DianeYeah, it does. And the first episode, I was like, all right, Ali Wong. Like, I went into it not knowing too much about it, thinking, is this going to be a dark comedy? What's, what's gonna happen? Well, I'm curious to
Adinaspoil these.
DianeYeah, yeah, yeah. I won't, oh, I can't spoil it. But I'm so excited for you to get into it.
AdinaYeah. No spoilers, please.
DianeOkay. What are you eating? What are you, what are you smashing?
Adinatruly nothing interesting. I, it's been such a survival state over here.
DianeYeah.
AdinaI don't even like know. I can't even think of anything. I did just bake a whole bunch of stuff because we're going away for the weekend hopefully if everyone's feeling okay. Um, not like a way away. My nephew's bar mitzvah is this weekend, so we're going up north a bunch of Donnie's families in from America and
DianeI think I saw his sisters visiting, or no, she lives there.
Adinawell there's two sisters here and one sister in America that's visiting another brother that's visiting, so it's the whole gang and yeah, so I baked some sourdough sugar cookies and sour dopa banana muffins just cuz whenever we're around a lot of the cousins and you know, there's gonna be a whole bunch of sheet guba on the menu. I always like to bring just like some snacks and special foods for my kids so they don't feel like
DianeYeah. Left out.
AdinaYeah.
DianeYour sugar cookies are just so yummy. That sounds good. I, um, I have ice cream plan now that it's somewhat heating back up because one of my clients is on vacation and when I was in Israel, I think she picked up, she picked up our milk at least, or when we were out of town recently. So she asked me if I wanted hers. So I went to go pick up yesterday and going to make some ice cream. And I also got my little thingies on some eggs that are from one of my clients, well her chickens. Her chickens. And
Adinaclient's eggs.
Dianeyeah, my client laid some eggs. Hi Kate.
AdinaSo cute.
Dianethey're the most beautiful eggs, the most perfect eggs because she feeds them special food. They are spoiled, they're super cute. All the eggs are different colors, so that's just a cute little moment when you open the carton. But the shells are so thick. In this morning I made.
Adinabest.
DianeI made, oh my gosh. Some, some scrambles, soft scrambles. But they were so like almost orange, just yellow. And when I bought eggs the other day, cause I also got some from the store, I realized this is gonna last us a few days. I think we're going through about five curtains a week. And then I know like 10 of 10 eggs are going into ice cream straight away. So I need some egg
Adinaof eggs happening here too.
DianeA lot like a lot. And one of my friends was like, I'm like a two a day maybe person. I was like, oh, I'm like four or five for breakfast. And then I might have some in something I'm cooking later, like Neil's about five or six
AdinaYeah, we like when we were at Donnie's parents for the beginning of Passover, we like stressed his mom out because they ran outta eggs and they were unaware of how much eggs we would be eating.
DianeThey're just so easy.
AdinaI know, and again, You heard it here first, folks, two eggs is not enough for a growing gal for breakfast.
Diane12 grams of protein. What am I supposed to do with that? Be hungry in 30 minutes. And if you're
Adinaam I gonna make that into mussels?
Dianelike, I can't stomach that yet. We need to talk, we need to talk, uh, we can work on that. But other things that we're making over here, a little something different. I've been really into shopping our freezer. I've accumulated some fish, so I made cod,
Adinathat from fishing or that's from purchasing?
Dianenot fishing, although May is upon us. So I need to text one of my friends about if we are going to go try for some trout and some cohost salmon, which I'll see. But this is just cod from the Costco as you do. And I did this,
Adinaget a fish box.
Dianeno. no. Maybe we should.
Adinagood ones out there.
DianeOh, I'm sure. I'm sure. But. Neil went to Costco and came back with, um, a rotis chicken. No, he didn't have a rotis chicken. This time. He brought me flowers and fish and some of my other treats that I like so much. But we got some cod and I did this Herby oil. I had just a bunch of fresh herbs. I need to get rid of some basil. I think there was thyme in there, and parsley chopped that up with some lemons ass too. And then on the side, I've been craving spring veggies of all kinds. Like I can't get enough of asparagus and lemon, but I did roasted carrots and roasted fennel, which I know can be a polarizing veg. But then I did lots of red pepper flakes on them when I roasted it. Or you could use some Aleppo pepper. That would be lovely too. And then topped it with some Herby goat cheese and some crunchy toasted almonds. Because I really want, I want all the textures when I'm doing like roasted ve not just a, a soft, ve, you know?
Adinayeah, I'm about that texture.
DianeGood
Adinayeah, I used to hate fennel
DianeSame.
Adinaand I like it roasted, and I also like it shaved really thin. My mom makes almost like a coleslaw with fennel and carrots and like that is yummy and nice for digestion,
DianeYes it is. What about fennel in like orange? Like I feel like that's such a good pairing too. Or
AdinaYeah. Citrus goes nice in there too. But yeah, I think I find that if you shave it really thin and if you soak it in the acid, like if you do it overnight and eat it the next day, then it is nice.
DianeYeah. It's one of those veggies that's like intimidating with all the Frans, you know, on top Therons. Um, and I feel like they're just never big enough. I could, I can never find a big one, but
AdinaThat bulb itself isn't too much food.
DianeYeah. And then also on the bitter front, uh, I mean in the last couple years I've really come around to bitter things in general, but I've been working on um, making just some fun mocktails and I sent a picture in our group chat yesterday and made this like name to be determined, but this like green monster drink. It had lemon
AdinaDid you send this to me?
Dianein the group chat. It's in there. You might have been going through
Adinaam really going through it. I, yeah, I need to rewind.
DianeSo all green things, right? So I'm, to back it up a little bit, I did my H T M A retest and I have some things I'm working on because there's no perfect test on there. So I'm trying to work on some things and have fun with some of the supplements or some of the food-based support I'm putting in. So I had some chlorophyll in there, so that's green. Green as hail. Yeah. My teeth were green for a little bit, so I had that and then I had like coconut.
Adinamore like Phil.
DianeI'm a plant. Um, I added some coconut water, a lemon lime lollipop, sliced jalapenos. I had leftover from something else cause I wanted it a little spicy mint and then some more lime juice.
AdinaYum.
Dianeit was kind of like this fizzy, just mocktail. It was super fun. So you could do that without chlorophyl chlorophyl for sure. Um, but it was super yummy.
AdinaYeah. I love a smoy spicy cocktail or cocktail if I'm doing a drink,
DianeMm-hmm.
Adinathat's rare.
DianeYeah. Same. Same. But doesn't mean that we can't have fun with mocktails too. I'm glad more places are like trying like beyond. Here's your Cranberry juice
AdinaA lot of the, big beer companies are doing like zero proof beers now, which is so funny to me because I love the effort. Like I think it's really nice for people to be able to get a zero proof beer if they're out with people that are drinking. But beer is so gross. Like I feel like the thing you drink beer for is alcohol.
DianeAnd then even then you're just like feel so full with the bubbles and it smells like soap to me. I just
Adinait's like a loaf of bread in your belly,
DianeYeah. Yeah. Neil actually bought this thing called Hop Water. Some company, like you were just saying, they make beer hard seltzers, but they also have this like NA version. It just wasn't good. It just wasn't good.
AdinaYeah. I don't really get it. Like I, I, can appreciate a nice craft beer, like some of them are interesting in flavor, but I can never have more than a few sips. Like I literally feel like there's a loaf of bread in my belly.
DianeI'd rather have, I'd rather have the bread
AdinaYeah, it's same. Give me the loaf of bread for my belly instead.
DianeMm-hmm. Yeah. Well, not really watching anything else over here. I'm just reading. And planning trips. But reading, if y'all are in good reads, I know some of you have added me on there and their platform looks like a really outdated kind of Facebook, but I like it because I can see what friends are reading, add things to my list, and then get competitive with myself with the 30 books I'm trying to read this year. So I'd be on there. I've had a quite a variety, different genres going on. So finish a couple books and I'm actually probably gonna finish one this afternoon. We shall see
AdinaWhat are books?
Dianewhat our books,
AdinaI would love to read a book. That sounds so nice.
Dianehave a group thread going and two of us like to read me and our, our friend Kim. And I've just started a sidebar cause I'm like, Adinas probably like skip over these 30 book texts.
AdinaI like to read. I just don't have any time to read right now and it's really frustrating. And when I do read, I generally. Choose stuff for like bettering my training knowledge or business knowledge. I don't know. There's like, yeah, it's really hard. I am trying to carve out some more space to read, even just like a page a day, because I have a few books that I really wanna get
Dianethose feet books that you were telling us and telling Donnie about. I think it was like a year ago on the show. You were like, Donny, did you
Adinato read feed books.
DianeI don't think that would translate to audiobook that well, like
AdinaNo, it's visual. There's visual components. Um, but yeah, I have a, a few in the queue that I really wanna get through and I tried over Passover and there was not even a moment for me. It was sad. We're getting back to it. I'm really not. Okay.
DianeWell, sometimes that's how it be. And I've, I wish I could help you out.
AdinaI know, man. If only anyone could, it's, uh, Oof. Okay. I'm sure there's, there's a mom out there who feels me. I think I was in contact with RI for like 20 hours yesterday.
DianeLike full body contact
AdinaYeah. It's going good. But I did say to Donnie, like, thank God I am nourished in the way that I am right now, and my mental health is in the place that it is. Because if this had been postpartum with Abe or postpartum with mini, like I would not be okay
Dianebe on the floor.
Adinasobbing, sobbing, nightly. Like it would not be well, but we're doing okay. I feel supported. I'm just, I know this is a season and we are just getting through it, but it is challenging.
DianeRough stuff. Well, I think that makes it all. Even better time to talk about or talking about today, because I know people follow you on Instagram. They've seen you training so they know you're postpartum like what, six months or more now? Um, and so they might think, wait, you're exhausted. So why are you training? Why is that a non-negotiable for you? So in this episode, we're going to focus obviously from the title you may already know on training, on postpartum movement. And when we talk about exercise postpartum, this is never about getting your body back, it's about getting your capabilities back. And I see that you put this in here about, it's not about getting your body back. Oh my gosh. I worked in a plastic surgery office before where we had an event called Get Your Body Back. And I didn't realize at the time, like, you know, 20, 21 years old, just how like offensive that is this. And not just there, but just in the broader, like society as a whole is like getting your body back, how to bounce back after baby. And it's heavily focused on losing that baby weight. Which is just so fucked.
AdinaYeah. And it's so crazy because I think that what ends up happening is. It's the same thing in the diet culture space where we see like people who are so anti-D culture and then they end up having no structure to their eating and no awareness around their eating. And it becomes unhealthy in a different direction. You know, we've talked about that on our diet culture episode before. But I think the same thing happens in fitness and specifically postpartum fitness, where we have this whole culture of people who are saying like, oh, I, I'm not trying to get my body back. And then training becomes this vilified thing that's not looked to as so supportive of your health.
DianeMm-hmm.
AdinaAnd so I think that we need to understand that we can prioritize training and we can take our workouts very seriously without it being disordered. And in fact, it being this whole thing that like unlocks your capabilities as a mom and supports you in this amazing way you didn't even know possible, you
DianeYeah. Yeah. And I am so happy that we're talking about this and that you are always actively working on changing that narrative and showing people how strength training fitness is a way to help make you better at your life. I mean, women just in general and especially postpartum, are made to feel so fragile, so broken, and just rest, do nothing. But that doesn't exactly help you meet the demands of carrying around an infant and or maybe others that you may have already had to going about your life. And so we want you to come more towards the middle and clear up some of those, um, things that you may have heard about what it's like. To be postpartum and move your body, and there's just so much little, such little information out there about postpartum recovery in general, but especially about fitness. So I'm So excited for us to bring you this episode this week and clear up some myths.
AdinaYeah, and I think what information there is out there is like, in my opinion, Babying women and not helping them to get back to a place where their life actually happens. Like there is some great info now circulating the internet about the pelvic floor. And it happens more in the Pilates sphere or in the rehab exercise sphere. And those exercises are great and they're where, you know, that's a starting point. But the problem is that life does not happen on a mat. And so if we only ever teach postpartum women how to do mat rehab exercises, like how is any of this gonna translate to. Sprinting after your kid that's running into the middle of the street, or you know, jumping off the ledge to ca Like there's so much that happens when you're a mom. That is a god dang Olympic sport.
DianeYeah. Extreme
Adinaonly, yeah. If we've only ever taught you how to connect to your pelvic floor when you're lying on your back on a mat breathing, like is that gonna serve you in the real world?
DianeI'm just picturing someone going, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like gets into like a, a dead bugg, ba dead bug. Whoa. Dead bug position. Happy baby position, not dead.
AdinaDead book baby.
Dianebaby position. That sounds terrible. You know what I'm talking about. Or you grab your old toes on your back and you're like breathing like, wait, I gotta connect my pelvic floor. And they're like, wait, ma'am, you are in a grocery store.
AdinaYeah. Seriously. Or like toddler, stop running into the street so I can get into a bird dog position.
DianeYes. Yeah. Uh, maybe you're listening to this intro and you're postpartum, but you're feeling some type of way about how, wait, I haven't started training postpartum. And that can be for a few reasons. Maybe you were told not to train, especially not to strength train.
AdinaHmm. Okay. I need to take a second because we'll talk about this more in the myths.
Dianewearing sleeves, you'd be rolling 'em up.
AdinaYeah. Right. My sleeves are, have fallen off from
Dianetank top,
Adinajust me flexing in the zoom room.
Dianebigger.
AdinaWe're big girls. Um, we are quoting a reel from Meg squats from like three years ago.
DianeShe's like, don't flex like this. Big, bigger,
AdinaWe're big girls. Um, yeah, so this makes me angry because there are so many quote unquote professionals
Dianedumb
Adinaare just spending their whole career navigating women away from load. What are we doing? This isn't helping anyone. It's not, it's just so stupid. You know?
DianeDon't train. Okay, well how do you carry in a car seat and how do you carry in groceries? And then also pick up a toddler. If you also have like other littles like
AdinaIt's so dumb. It's the equivalent of, and many people do this also, but like, say someone was running, they were jogging their little heart out and they experienced pain with that, and then their doctor said to them, you know what? You need to rest. You need to take. However many months off you need to rest. And then when they were done following the resting orders, they just tried to go right back to exactly what they were doing and then,
Dianeprobably didn't feel so good.
Adinaright, like we need to talk about how we can gradually build to the demands and the tasks. Cuz if you're just told like, okay, don't strength train, stop strength training. If you have diastasis prolab, you know, whatever the thing is that you're dealing with postpartum, and then you try to pick up something that's heavier than the weights that you were lifting in the gym, a k a, your child or your car seat, or your groceries, how do we think that that's gonna go?
DianeProbably not. Well, and maybe you're listening to this and you're like, well, wait, I didn't strength train before I got pregnant, or maybe ever, and you're feeling some way about that, and that's okay too. Everyone starts somewhere. So this episode is still going to be for you. Or maybe you didn't move because you told yourself. That you're not athletic, you don't like it because maybe what you've seen as far as strength training goes is CrossFit or things that are really intense. So you especially don't want to do that now. And I don't blame you, but we would also hazard a guess that if you're here, you don't wanna feel like boooooo. You don't wanna feel tired and weak, especially postpartum when I mean you, you would could use some more energy. Right. And if you're waiting to train until you're not tired, you'll probably be waiting forever. It sounds counterintuitive too, like, wait, I'm going to train in order to feel better, but I can't even find the energy to start training. We're gonna talk about that and how we can make that approachable. And we also know that there's someone listening to this who's like, I'm not training because I don't have time to do a two hour strength training workout.
AdinaYeah. And this is funny actually, I, it's interesting how things come across on Instagram, but someone in the S T H H chat once asked, oh, like I know that this workout is only designed for three days a week, but I see a Dina training every day. Like, is that something we work up towards? And it just made me laugh because like when you open your Instagram app and you see me on my stories training, like to the consumer of the content, it can feel like I'm training every day.
DianeAll day.
AdinaBut in reality, I train for 40 minutes max, two to three days a week, and we can get so much done in that time. And it's funny how, to the outside eye, it must look like I have all this time to just be like raining when like in reality, I don't have time to sit on the toilet. You know?
DianeYeah, maybe you could like poop and train at the same time
AdinaThat sounds terrible.
Dianein this
AdinaWhat that pelvic floor do
Dianeloose bottle, not tight bottle.
Adinaanyways, if you are a person who is sitting here feeling like I have no time to train, the approach that we are going to present to you here is far more approachable and sustainable than any fitness you have en encountered
Dianeit's not two hours. It's not two hours. It could be 40 minutes. You can be splitting that up to, I've
AdinaYeah, it can be 20 minutes if you're postpartum.
DianeYeah, so let's, I mean, with that in mind, let's get into our, our myths about postpartum fitness and what
AdinaBoy, are there a
Dianethere are a lot. The first one you've probably heard before, I think we mentioned it in the last postpartum episode, and that is you need to wait until six weeks to start. You need to wait until six weeks to start. Maybe you're like, well, wait, shouldn't I be resting? Didn't Adina say I should stay in my damn bed for two weeks? Yes. And yeah. Yeah, that is a myth, and we're going to lay out for you in the next section of this episode how Adina would approach postpartum fitness gently. We're not going like back to CrossFit. Okay? So cross that off your CrossFit list. The next myth walking is a good idea to get back into it. So starting with walking and staying with walking. Maybe
AdinaIt just seems so easy, right? You just put on your little shoes and you just walk out the front door, and then you just walk. And you just walk
DianeAnd then keep walking.
Adinakeep walking.
DianeAnd then you do dead bug. Lay on your back for your pelvic floor. Another myth is that you can return to whatever you are doing pre-pregnancy at that six weeks. Like maybe you even had that six week appointment and they were like, you're good to go. You can go have sex, you can go exercise, get back to running those miles.
AdinaYeah, imagine. Here's the crazy thing that advice gets given to people who have had C-sections too.
Dianemy God.
AdinaImagine. I mean, usually they'll say six to 10 weeks, they'll tell you like it base it on your bleeding and how your scar is feeling. But imagine that someone like had surgery on their a C L and then the doctor was like, just do nothing for six weeks and then just start going back to your CrossFit classes.
DianeWell, I wonder with that, they're like, well, they wouldn't tell you that cuz that's part of your life. But what does your c-section scar have to do with running Adina? Like, it's not, you're not running with your, with your tummy. So,
Adinathat so crazy though? Like any other major surgery, there are guidelines in place and granted, like they're not always great and you do really need to find a good strength focused physical therapist to rehab any other surgery or injury. But in the case of birth, however your baby was born, there is simply zero information given to you and it's horrifying.
DianeThey're just like, okay, bye-bye
Adinabye-bye now.
Dianebye. Good luck. You're like, wait, I have a question. They're like, bye. Uh,
AdinaSee you at your next pregnancy.
DianeThe next myth is that you need to avoid impact. Avoid it. Avoid it at all costs. So what do they mean by that?
AdinaYeah. This is interesting. Like I, I, see so many people in the fitness space, marketing programs to postpartum moms, but honestly women in general, cuz. A lot of women have had babies and then have pelvic floor issues later on, and their major like marketing tactic is, it's a great program for you, mom, because it's low impact
Dianehave heard that a lot.
AdinaYeah. And people sell kettlebell programs like that too, where they're saying that it's such a great thing cuz it's no impact. And it's true. You can get strong with no impact or low impact, but just like we mentioned in the beginning about how life doesn't happen on a mat, like life is pretty high impact. So the ultimate goal of a postpartum program should be returning you to tolerating impact and to having your pelvic floor respond to jumping, sprinting,
DianeInstead of being fragile forever.
AdinaAmen.
DianeHmm. Okay. Okay. Another myth you may have heard about postpartum fitness is that you can't lift with prolapse. You can't lift with prolapse.
AdinaYeah, I do feel like this one's getting a little bit better, at least in the pelvic health space. But still doctors, surgeons, they're gonna continue to tell people this. And in general, anyone who's dealing with prolapse probably has a lot of fear around it. There's so much fear that comes up with that, and so it's a tricky one. But yeah, I mean, like we always say, you still have to lift your kid if you have prolapse. You still have to pick up the car seat if you have prolapse. So like we need to figure out a way to train and support your body and keep you symptom free, not make things worse. Learn how to manage pressure like you have to do all that stuff no matter what the outcomes of your birth are or the outcomes of your postpartum season.
DianeOoh, love it. Similarly, a myth is that you need to wait to close the gap with diastasis before you can start lifting.
AdinaYeah, man. There's a lot of misinformation about diastasis out there too, but I think it's important to recognize that it's not just about the gap. Like how the w first of all, if you're hearing this for the first
Dianeyou're like, who
Adinawho, who da what that? Um, yeah, diastasis recy is that separation of the abs. Yes. It's extinct. Um, yeah. It's a normal separation that happens to your abs during pregnancy. Very normal. And the question is, at what stage in the postpartum journey do we regain function of our abs? So some people will kind of have a little gap there forever, and in my mind, that's not an issue. As long as we can recruit the core properly for demanding exercises and. That we can manage pressure in the system cuz pressure goes to the weakest link. So oftentimes there's just dysfunction that comes with a weak link not
Dianethe weakest link. Do you remember that show
Adinagoodbye. Of course,
DianeOne of the first, along with like, who wants to be a Millionaire? I think those were like the two.
Adinayeah. Back in the day.
DianeYeah. The originals. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Final one here. Final myth about postpartum fitness and just in general, honestly, I'm sure you've heard this one, is that leaking, peeing your pants is just part of being a mom. Lol.
AdinaLol.
DianeJust part of being a mom. You pee your pants.
Adinait's just crazy because like again, we live in our bubble, you know, I live in a little bit of a pelvic health bubble where people are talking about this so much and then sometimes when I like see the reels tab or see some ticky talkies and I come across like. What most people are saying on the internet and it's just like jokes about peeing in your pants because you're a mom like I am alarmed.
DianeI used to hear this a lot when I worked in an office with, with moms. Yeah. Like, oh, pee my pants. Damn. Let's not do that. We have an episode about this too, if you want to see it. I think it's, you're not cool if you pee your pants. No, that's, that's Billy Madison.
AdinaNo, but we did use the Billy Madison meme. It's um,
DianeHold on to your pelvic floor. Just kidding. Don't do that either. Yeah. We'll link it for you. I'm amazed that we can remember names of what we have done so far. And that was my water bottle. Take a little
Adinathink it's your, I think it's, you're not cool if you pee in your pants cuz the Billy Madison line is you are
DianeMm. Mm-hmm.
Adinapeeing in your pants is cool.
DianeThere it is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, shall we talk about how you would approach postpartum fitness?
AdinaYes, and how I am very going to approach postpartum fitness in my upcoming postpartum program, which we are very excited for. I am very excited for I, as you can see, this is a topic that I am extremely passionate about because there's so much sheet gage out there, and I just wanna support moms. I wanna help moms. Moms are cool,
DianeI have a few clients who are recently postpartum, and they're, one of 'em last week was like, I need, I wanna get back into fitness, thinking of having another baby sometime later this year. And I'm like, oh, I know a program come in for you. It's all about it. So if they are, if they are thinking about it, how can they get information and first dibs about. This upcoming program,
AdinaWell, first of all, listen through to this episode so you can just get a real taste of. The approach here and what this program is gonna be like and see if it's even for you. Which I feel like it is cuz it's amazing. But
Dianeif I do say sound myself,
Adinayeah, this is like the culmination of 10 years of working with women, working with moms, continuing education surrounding pelvic health, the whole body, the whole deal, rehab, all of it. Having three babies, being postpartum three times,
Dianedone this a little bit,
AdinaYeah. So there's a lot of real. And then working with hundreds of moms over the last couple of years and just seeing what works and what doesn't.
Dianethere's another flex.
Adinayeah. Flex 'em on. We need video. Huh?
DianeWe need
Adinasee the guns. Um,
Dianewhile you flexed your experience.
Adinayeah, it's, it's just, yeah. And it's fun now too, cuz my assistant coach Veronica is currently postpartum, so I've been running things by her and just. Like, is, is this what you need? Is this what you know? Um, so we're really excited about it. But anyways, if you want to get it on the presale, get all the deeds, get first dibs, make sure you don't miss anything. We will link the wait list in the show notes
DianeMm-hmm.
Adinaand it's gonna be a big old party. My goal right now is to get the doors open for Mother's Day. Cause I just think that'll be really fun. So it all depends on RI and his stupid sleep schedule, but
Dianecommunist orrie. Who hates America
Adinawe are gunning for it. Okay, with that? let's talk ab, let's talk about the approach to postpartum fitness, my approach to postpartum fitness, what things are gonna look like inside this program as well. Um, and basically we wanna break it down into, Weeks we're gonna talk about like the really early weeks, the a little bit less early weeks, and then the later weeks. Keep in mind, we are calling them weeks here, but I want you to think about them as phases, because I'm gonna say zero to two weeks. But if two weeks rolls around and you don't feel ready to move on to two to four weeks, you're gonna hang out in that first phase for a little bit longer.
Dianehang out.
AdinaYeah. So
Dianepostpartum, so day zero, day zero to two weeks, what should that look like? Maybe they've already seen your reel, but if not, let's reiterate it for 'em.
Adinaget in, yo damn bed.
DianeMm-hmm.
AdinaThat is the most important thing. We need to just take the impact off of the pelvic floor because it just did the most. It did so much for nine months with that giant increased demand of the shift in your body holding a new human in your body and whatever compensations you came up with in that time, your pelvic floor was tremendously overworked throughout your pregnancy, and then it was stretched like crazy up to like 10 times. Its normal
DianeWe love stretching.
AdinaYeah, but that's crazy. Imagine any muscle in your body stretching like 10 times. Its resting length and then being expected to just function and hold down the fort for you to walk around all day, zero to two weeks postpartum. Don't, don't do that. Don't be on your feet like just don't.
DianeLay down.
AdinaLay down. We just want to take gravity out of the equation for a little bit to let your pelvic floor here heal no matter what. Whether you had a C-section, if you had stitches or not, like whatever that birth experience was like, we want to give your pelvic floor a frigging break.
DianeYes. So, okay. So to recap, for phase one or zero to two weeks, lay down. No matter if your birth was a C-section out your out your front pocket, you know either of those, you're gonna lay down. So you have here mobility and gentle breathing and bed. So what does mobility look like if you're laying down?
AdinaYeah. So we wanna think about really supported positions, and I think it's important to note that you can start reconnecting to your core, to your pelvic floor with some breath work. But from my perspective, the breath work. In those first two weeks is more for your nervous system than anything like we're gonna talk about inside the program. I'll talk about, I'll give specific breathing drills that we can focus on,
Dianenot breath work. Like I'm sure someone's listened to this and maybe hasn't heard us talk about breath work before, but it's not the um,
Adinalike whim huff.
Dianeyeah,
AdinaYeah.
Dianethat.
Adinayeah, it's, it's very gentle and it's really just about starting to get your diaphragm moving again, starting to get your pelvic floor lengthening. Because also something that happens is when your pelvic floor is really stretched out and everything just feels loosey loosey, many of us start clenching our pelvic floor because we're trying to just create some stability in our body. Our abs, were really stretched out and once again, I'll set it before, I'll say it again. You feel like just a disconnected sack of potatoes and. One strategy that many people use is to try to just like clench a little bit. They don't even realize they're doing it because they think it's like giving them stability. Because our pelvic floor is so important in providing stability in our body and maybe we think that it'll make our low back not hurt, or it'll serve the role of our abs. Like we don't know why we're doing it, but we're just clenching for some support. And so that breath work is a great way to say like, okay, relax, everybody, relax, get that diaphragm moving again. Get that rib cage moving again. Cuz we sometimes get really sticky in the back of the ribs from just like hunching over and all the postural compensation. So anyways, we are lying in our bed. We are finding supported positions. Maybe we're hugging a pillow and sending some breath into the back of the body and just getting the ribs moving a little bit. Or we have our baby on our chest and it's giving us some feedback and we're breathing into that to try to get those chest muscles moving again. But. The goal is just gentle, gentle mobility supported positions. Maybe we're doing some, you know, sitting on the side of the bed and rolling our feet on a lacrosse ball just to send some sensation down there, because many of my postpartum athletes tell me that their feet really hurt early
Dianeor their feet have changed a lot through pregnancy too. Does that
Adinayeah. Mm-hmm. So the goal with those first two weeks is just nervous system. Calm it down, unc unclench your bee hole, get your diaphragm moving, get your ribs moving, just gentle breath work and mobility in your bed.
Dianein your bed. Love it. So that's a good gentle starting point. Now what about the next phase? And this one you're considering weeks two to weeks four. So they'll the end of that first month
AdinaMm-hmm. So in this case, you might be sitting up in your bed a little bit more, or like I mentioned in the postpartum. Recovery episode. Like you're near your bed, you're on your bed, you are maybe getting out of your bed a little bit, but we're still not
Dianeto go potty.
Adinayeah, we're still not like training in a gym or in our training space or in our living room. Like this is still really gentle. Maybe we're sitting up, maybe we're on the floor in on all fours, or we're doing a little seated or half kneeling, but throughout the two to four weeks, we wanna think about low level, low level ab exercises. So still a lot of supports, a lot of props.
DianeLike body weight and supported stuff, so blocks
AdinaYeah.
Dianeyour furniture around you.
AdinaMm-hmm. And maybe we're thinking about more connection to the abs with the breath work. So now we're starting to be a little more intentional with the exhales and. Starting to bring the pelvic floor on board a little more intentionally. Cause we're not as worried about clenching right now. And so it's basically, you're thinking about that zero to two weeks, but just progressing a little bit. Like we're just getting into a little bit more demanding positions where our abs actually have to do a little bit of work, or our hands and feet have to do a little bit of work. So we're starting to think about being on our back on the floor, being on all fours again, being in seated or like half kneeling. Um, and progressing those throughout those next two weeks.
DianeYes. Yes. okay, so low level ab exercises, still keeping it pretty gentle and simple here.
AdinaMm-hmm. But if you are a person who, when you hear ab exercises, all you think of is like Crunches
Dianesit ups.
AdinaPlanks. Not that we're not there yet. So when we think of low level ab exercises, we're talking more about, honestly breathing in slightly more demanding positions. So maybe we're on our back and we're introducing some low level versions of a dead bug, like hand supported, feet supported Pilates ball, like more supported dead bug positions, or on all fours, like more supported bird dog positions. Not full plank, not crunches, sit-ups, stuff like that.
Dianeglad that we glad that we covered that because someone taking notes or taking mental notes was like, okay, got it. Got it. Ab exercises,
AdinaTwo to four weeks crunches. Got it.
DianeNo, ma'am. No ma'am. Glad we clear, glad that we cleared that up. Okay, so how about the, the next phase here, weeks four and kind of onward, it looks like we're thinking about from here. Kind of just progressing. Through to more movement. Yeah.
AdinaSo again, we call it weeks, but think about it as phases because you might not be ready at four weeks. You might want to wait till six weeks, or eight weeks or 10 weeks. You know, whether the birth was vaginal, cesarean, like, depending on how that went. But from four weeks onward, and again, we're gonna consider things like, have you stopped bleeding? Has pain stopped? Like, what does it feel like for you to be standing or on all fours or, you know, and, and in the program, I'm gonna give guidance. On how to know if you're ready to progress to the next phase and how things should be feeling and all that kind of stuff. Um, but from four weeks on in my mind is when we can start to think about more of a structured training. Like with those first four weeks, we're gonna be thinking about these breathing exercises, but it, we're not really following like a program. You know, it's like, here are some options to kind of work in throughout your day while you're holding baby, sitting on the couch, sitting on the floor doing tummy time. Like
DianeSo are those things that they're doing daily, the things that you're just covering from week zero from zero days postpartum to end of the first month? Or is it something that they should focus on a few days per week?
Adinayeah, kind of depends on the person, I think when it comes to connecting to the nervous system and just retraining patterns. Daily can be great because of that repetition and just the way it sort of reintegrates these things into your day. But the idea of doing something daily can feel like way too much for some people postpartum. And again, it's not like a 40 minute training session, but even remembering to do your breath work daily can feel like too much. So
DianeAnd I'm sure you're gonna go over all that frequency and nuance in your program too.
AdinaYeah. But just starting to think about the opportunities to do these things like sitting on the toilet, lying on the floor with your baby while they're doing some tummy time laying back in the couch with your baby on your chest. Supported, like thinking about, oh, I'm in this position and Adina talked about this position in the video. Maybe I can take a few breaths here and try to feel what she's describing or you know.
Dianeyeah, yeah. So here, you're still taking things slow around four weeks. No. Maybe someone's listening and they're like, well wait, my doctor doesn't give me the clearance until week six. So what are you talking about? Four weeks?
AdinaMm-hmm. So, obviously listen to hear a doctor, but, um, I mean, four weeks in my mind is when we are starting to think about leaving the bed. Leaving the house. And the more we can do in our training to reconnect, the better that will feel. So if you're a person who doesn't start training at four weeks, but you start running errands at four weeks and you're lugging
DianeI heard running in for a second. I was like,
Adinano, no, no, no, no. You are. How else do you say
Dianeerr. No, this is right. But I heard running and it's like that just sends me and you know,
AdinaYeah, no, you are going to do errands or you are starting to do school pickup for your toddler and you are getting groceries and you're doing all these things that require strength and coordination, but you're not making any effort to build strength and coordination outside of those things. I can guarantee you it's gonna go better for you if you commit to start training reconnected to the pelvic floor, letting your pelvic floor know what kind of demands are coming gradually
Dianenice heads up to your body that, hey, we're, we're gonna start thinking about switching gears here.
AdinaMm-hmm. If you're baby wearing now, like there's another load that you're introducing on the front of the
DianeYour weighted vest, AK your baby.
AdinaExactly. Demand on the pelvic floor, like we need to prepare for that and I hope that that theme. Comes through in all of my content and everything we are saying always here on the podcast, but life and being a mom and being postpartum has demands, has strength demands, and so we need to use our opportunity in the gym to train those patterns safely and to teach our body how to tolerate load, how to manage pressure well so that when we're doing it in unpredictable situations with babies, toddlers, car seats, traffic, like the other stuff that comes up, we have a much better shot of not getting hurt and not causing injury and dysfunction
DianeRight Or not abandoning things because you feel so sore or in pain, or just afraid to get moving again. So at this point, people should be starting or thinking about a structured program, structured training. Imagine progressions are things that you're going to cover in your program. So I guess at a high level, can you share with us what you would see as an approachable and meaningful postpartum strength training program?
AdinaYeah. In the, in the early stages, and I am structuring my program this way so that it feels really good is those early sessions can be two days a week and they can be 20 minutes long and we can get so much done. Like you have no idea how much better you can feel with that little bit of time. It's funny, I was texting with Veronica the other day because I was finalizing the first training block and I asked her like, Should I make the first training block two days a week or three days a week? Because I kind of wanna make it three days a week. But I feel like the most important thing in this stage is the moms feeling
DianeMm-hmm.
AdinaAnd even if I say like, okay, the third session is optional, it's still gonna feel like an unmarked off thing.
DianeYeah. Especially for those of us that like to cross things off the list. So is it like a bonus?
Adinadon't, Yeah, they don't need any more unmarked off things, you know? So
Dianeloops?
Adinathe, yes, I'm making it a two day a week training block, and so it's going to be very approachable in that way. 20 minutes could be even less two days a
DianeThat's the episode. An episode of, of the office, like 20 minutes. Got it. Got it.
Adinaexactly. We're gonna have a squat and pull day, we're gonna have a hinge and push day, and we're just going to start retraining our patterns. We're gonna start very low level because I think that's the most important thing. I think people skip way too many steps
DianeLike they get bored and think that, you know, okay, okay, I got it. I'm gonna go back to something harder.
AdinaYeah, it's not as, yeah, they get bored and their body is like, oh wait, we know how to squat. This is how we used to do it, and this is the weight we used to use for it. And especially if you're an athlete and you have that memory, or you have a training history and you have that memory, your legs may be ready for that load. Your glutes may be ready for that load, but your pelvic floor
DianeShe's not ready. Yeah.
Adinaand you might not realize until three months later when you have all this pelvic floor dysfunction showing up and you're not quite sure
DianeBingo. Bingo.
AdinaYeah. So if you've ever done any of my programs, you know, we start with even less than your body weight. We start with supported squats because we really need to retrain the patterns. Before we can introduce even the load of our own body weight, we wanna really nail down the pattern and the breath work and what needs to happen with the pelvic floor before we ask our body to lift its whole self. You know?
DianeYeah. So if you're feeling impatient, I mean, and like Idino was saying, if you're an athlete who before carried a lot of load, you did a lot of things and you just are eager to getting to get back to movement, just slow it down. And remember Adina saying things like, don't be a hero. Don't be a hero. Take it slow. Even if you think that you could skip some steps, you can't or you
AdinaDon't skip the steps. You will regret skipping the steps. I know. I know what it feels like to be postpartum and to feel like, how do I go on like this? And I used to be so strong. I literally like texted all of our friends this time around when I was postpartum and I was just like, Is this what weak people feel like every day? Like this is crazy. Yeah, but you need to be patient. It will pay off so much in the long run. It is not a race. Postpartum fitness and postpartum recovery is not a race. It doesn't matter how long it takes you to get back to pre-pregnancy loads that you were lifting, or if you never get back there, if you feel really strong in your body and you feel like you're capable of doing everything in your daily life easily, that's the most important thing. And we need to be patient so we can get there and not encounter setbacks with pelvic floor issues and all these things that might come up as your training starts to build an intensity if you skipped those steps. So we need it to be. Full body pushing, pulling of the upper and lower body. I really like using a lot of props in the postpartum season. So things like wedges, yoga blocks, bands, like things that can just help us
Dianeand masks.
Adinaall those You remember the game props from? Whose line is it?
DianeYes.
Adinathat's what I think of. Um,
Dianeof the few improv things that I have enjoyed.
AdinaYeah, so silly. Um, but yeah, like stuff like that can really get us into, and, you know, suspension trainers like using a TRX or a doorknob if you don't have access to one of those. But Things that we can do to. Help our body get into better positions while we're trying to figure out how to organize the sack of potatoes and things that can help us bring our pelvic floor on board and find internal rotation and just all this stuff we're trying to do postpartum. I think it could be really lovely to utilize props to help us get there.
DianeHmm, props. Love it. So some little bonuses, some little, some little helpers. Um, you also mentioned something about, um, variations. So variations, progressions. Is that going to vary based on someone's birth experience, their ability?
AdinaYeah. I think also, like we were just saying like if there's a version of a squat that you were used to doing before, don't be a hero. Find the variation that helps you find stability. So like, Maybe you feel some pain or discomfort or instability in your SI joint at the bottom of a squat. And then you start to think like, oh, I guess I can't squat. Or maybe a doctor or a pelvic floor physical therapist who's not good at their job tells you that, you know, like, oh, you can't squat. Oh you can't lunge cuz you feel this pain or this instability. But maybe it just, we chose a variation that was too far along in the progressions and we need to dial it back and squat to a box to create that stability at the bottom. Or like we said, like an assisted squat so that we're not holding our whole body weight down there before we find that stability and organization in our pelvis, in our core. So there's a lot that we can do to regress these lifts and meet all of our postpartum athletes. At an appropriate starting point for them so they can start to organize the sack of potatoes. They can start to communicate properly with their pelvic floor and build in progressions really gently so that stuff doesn't hurt and you don't feel unstable like we need to. It. It's a lot to find stability in your body in the postpartum season.
DianeYeah. Ooh. All good things. All right. So you mentioned earlier in the episode that you want for your athletes, your postpartum athletes included to return to impact. Can you break that down a little bit more?
Adinaoh yeah, there she goes. I'm like, this is a whole episode for me. But yeah, like we were talking about in those myths, I just feel like so many people are navigating, women alo away from load, but even people who are like, okay with the idea of women training with load, still don't want women doing high impact stuff and. I think it's also because like high impact gets so bastardized in the conventional fitness space, you know, like bootcamp classes and just so much impact with no idea of how to program that stuff. And we've definitely talked about this on training episodes before, but a major key for all postpartum athletes is that we need to progress and return to impact. So my approach is that we lay a really solid foundation first. Like we're not gonna run to high impact stuff if we haven't built the strength and stability first. I just made a reel about this, but with my postpartum clients, I am making sure that throughout all of the training blocks and the original progressions, we are thinking about learning how to load the pelvic floor eccentrically. So while it's lengthening under load, With some speed. So things like drop hinges, like the backswing of a kettlebell swing is gonna do that for us. But then we're gonna do like very specific landing prep. Like before I teach anyone how to jump or how to sprint, I wanna teach them how to absorb their own body in
DianeI remember doing this in S D H H and thinking, I've never done this before, and seems so counterintuitive to what you learn like every other class is. Were starting with jumps, but never landing properly.
Adinaexactly. Like we really need to learn how to land, like we need to learn how to absorb the force of our whole body in space. And that's true at the feet and it's true at the pelvic floor. And the two obviously impact each other, which like you've definitely heard me talk about on Instagram before, but. We need to learn how to absorb the force of our body because everyone can produce force. Nobody gets hurt like starting a sprint. People get hurt when they're trying to slow down or they're trying to catch their body in space. Yeah. So that's when we rip the hamstrings, that's when we have the pelvic floor issues. So my goal with progressing my postpartum athletes to impact is to first teach 'em how to land and then teach 'em how to jump and jumping. First. We gotta learn how to jump one at a time, and then we can learn how to do things like continuous jumps or sprinting. But like I have said before, and I will continue to say, these are extremely important skills for human beings that on this earth. But like specifically moms, we need these skills. We need to be able to sprint, to catch a bus or sprint to stop our toddler from running into the middle of the street or sprint to stop the ball from rolling into the middle of street so that the toddler doesn't run after it. Like we have to be really, really fast to be moms. We have to change directions quickly. Like we need to be athletes And so we need to. train like athletes.
DianeI love how you refer to all of your clients as athletes, whether they might have thought of themselves as such before or not. I think it's so easy to think, well, I'm not athletic, that's not for me, but the demands of your life, especially if you are a parent like you, you're doing a sport also. Um, I'm just gonna dress this in case you may have heard, I don't know how Adina Adina does a wonderful job editing our sound, but we're recording and it's like almost 4:00 PM here. And so at three o'clock on the.is usually when our dogs eat. And Doug has been staring at me. First he sat in the hallway and now he was just under the desk huffing and sighing. It's like this, this passive aggressive thing he does and he is just staring at me. So if you hear him, that's what's happening.
AdinaYeah, sometimes it's hard to edit out. Doug,
DianeYeah. And then Huey's been going through it with his house, so that's kind of unavoidable. But he's mostly content over here right now. So back to athletes, you are an athlete whether you've thought of yourself as one or not. If you are postpartum, you are definitely involved in just a perpetual extreme sport of raising little humans. So
AdinaYeah, and that is one of the reasons why I love kettlebell so much. I've gotten this feedback from a lot of my S D H H clients that there's something about the kettlebell that makes you feel really athletic, even if you've never felt like an athlete before.
Dianethose iron balls
Adinayeah, there's just something so majestic about the way that kettlebell lifts, like click, you know when they click and you're just like, am I an athlete?
DianeWhen I perfe, when I, uh, improve my snatch, gosh, I can't say that without thinking about, that's just like a really gross, you know, word for your cte. But when I improved that I was like, Ooh. And didn't like throw my arm and shoulder back with it, like, felt so good. It felt so good. Or when you finally swing, like have a PR swing with your kettlebell, like, it. just feels so cool.
AdinaThe best.
DianeMm-hmm. We're athletes. Athletes and I, I mean that's one thing I love about kettle training. I'm sure you've had people ask you about like, well what about a barbell circuit? And I think you were thinking about it for a time, but I mean, that just takes such, takes up a much bigger footprint. Gotta mind your ceilings. You gotta have more space, more equipment, and kettle bells are just so versatile.
AdinaYeah. Especially for the mamas, like put 'em in the living room. When you get that little moment, do the first exercise, and we've talked about this on many of our approachable fitness episodes, but. For moms especially, being able to break those sets up throughout the day and just have your kettlebell right next to your couch and just rock to it when you have the space and time
Dianenot a mom. I'm not a mom. You remember that Broad city episode When happens at the dentist, like, how many kids do you have? I'm not a mom and she's super high rolling on the floor. But, um, I mean, I'm not a mom, but I'll split up my workout too, because if you're listening to this and you're like, it's hard for me to even get consistently one workout much else, three, like can't do three, split it up. I remember that was something that Adina offered to me like. Try this if you feel like you can't get that full workout in, because sometimes when you're first starting a program or even yours, as approachable as it is, maybe like getting familiar with the videos and then doing the workouts might take you a little bit longer in the beginning before you get the hang of it. But what I did was I'll split mine up and I have a small house, but I'll unroll my mat and just have a, you can start with just a couple bells and sounds like this program's going to consider a lot with body weight first. So really don't need much to get started and you can split it up. Yeah, yeah. So let's get into some listener questions, shall we?
AdinaYes.
DianeSo we're gonna try to do this rapid fire. Okay.
AdinaAs always,
DianeSo someone asked, so is running basically never in the cards during the postpartum season?
AdinaI'm glad this was asked and I think that the timeline is gonna be different for everyone and the volume of running that we'll be able to return to will be different for everyone. But you should be able to prep your body for running. Again, like we were talking about with his impact stuff, you should be able to get your body there. If that's something that you like to do, we wanna consider, you know, again, how much volume of running are you doing, and is this supporting your hormone health? How are we accounting for those miles? If it's miles that you plan on running, but you should be able to get there. The goal is we need to prep your single leg strength. We need to prep your pelvic and core stability. We need to do a lot of foot prep, rotation, prep, prep for impact like we were just talking about because running and landing on one leg, like there is so much impact. It's like five times your body weight for every
Dianeon concrete. On concrete, forget it.
AdinaSo yeah, we need to make sure that we can absorb that force at the foot and the pelvic floor. But we should be able to get you there. You just need a structured program to do it. It's not like six weeks cleared, start jogging, you know,
DianeSo what I'm hearing is that strength would be a lovely main or starting point prereq before they get to running. Or are you also thinking like if they have some, a coach or some kind of support that can help them progress to running? Like
Adinayeah, you should be able to get there. But again, you would always start with a strength block. Like the first 20 weeks at least of your postpartum training should be like straight up, just like strength returning to impact that kind of thing. Um, and then after that you could do something like prepping for returning to running, but it's always gonna start with strength.
DianeYes. Got it. What are best practices for baby wearing Ideal fit baby wearing with diastasis? I mean, it's basically a weighted vest, so do you have any product recs here?
Adinayeah. There is gonna be a bonus module video in the postpartum program about baby wearing tips. But the one thing I'll just say is pressure goes to the weakest link. So if you have a diastasis or like prolapse or dealing with leaking, if you cinch something really tight around your waist, it's going to send pressure somewhere. So like, imagine you have a toothpaste tube and you just take both your hands and like squeeze the middle of the toothpaste tube really hard. Toothpaste is gonna fly outta somewhere, you know? So if we think about our torso in that way, a lot of baby wearing tips will tell you high and tight that like the. The carrier is supposed to be at the midpoint, like highest point of your waist and tight around your waist. Personally, I do not think that that's a great approach for postpartum. I generally recommend wearing it a little bit lower and providing some support at the hip bones with the carrier, but you kind of have to play around with the carrier that works for you and you may have to adjust those other straps a bit till you find a comfortable place to sit with that. And it's not that you can't baby wear with diastasis, but again, we're gonna wanna think about how we're managing pressure in the system, all that kind of stuff that we're always talking about.
DianeGotta go somewhere. I'll think about toothpaste tubes differently now.
AdinaYep.
DianeHow long after giving birth should you wait to take walks? Train. Question mark.
AdinaOkay, so we addressed the training thing throughout this episode. Um, and as far as taking walks, like, like I said, first two weeks, like, please get in your bed after that point. You can play around with short walks, but again, short walks, it's not like, okay, I'm gonna start walking. Let me just get out there for a baby wearing two miles. Um, yeah, like I would stick to like five, 10 minutes at the beginning and I would focus on doing some breath work and core connection, pelvic floor connection before and after your walks, because if things are really loosey-goosey down there and you have some postural compensations that you've created, There's a really good chance you're gonna do some clenching on that walk, especially if you're baby wearing. So just get home, do the breath work. Tell everybody like, let's relax. I know we just went for a walk, but relax your bee hole.
DianeYeah, your butt hole, your pelvic floor. So bookend that short walk like you're taking a lap, five, 10 minutes, you're getting some sun on your skin, getting outside, which is lovely, but then you're gonna do your breath work homework.
AdinaYes, please do.
DianeThis one could be a whole episode in itself, so we'll just kind of maybe see what we can tackle high level here. But someone said Please address leaking.
AdinaYes. So again, it's always gonna come down to pressure management. Go back to RP in your pants episode please. We talked about this on there a lot, but just quickly, we need to address pelvic floor coordination. It might involve some scar mobilization or like other manual work to connect your brain to your pelvic floor. So maybe that's seeing a pelvic floor physical therapist or that's maybe that's doing your own scar release work. Just to start to, cuz scars just are so desensitized and your brain has such a hard time connecting to them. So whether that is a scar from like tearing and having stitches or a C-section scar like we need to be. Reintroducing movement to those scars just manually. And we will talk about this in the postpartum course as well, but you could totally see a pelvic floor physical therapist and they can help you get started with that. Um, and then it's gonna come down to the brush work, the breath work and pressure management stuff, retraining the patterns, coordinating them with the breath. So that goes for those low level mat exercises like we talked about. And then that progresses to your squats, your hinges, your presses jumping, lifting, you know, running eventually. So it's a whole picture, full body approach.
DianeYes. definitely. Go back to our Pee Your Pants episode or, we'll, we'll remember, remember the title and put it for you in the show notes. So to round things out for today, I know we covered a lot, but we
Adinalot by the way, like some coach might be listening and they're like, now I know how to work with postpartum women.
DianeYeah. Slow, slow, slow it down.
AdinaYeah.
DianeYeah. Adina brings, I mean, over 10 years experience as a coach, as a medical exercise specialist, as someone who has coached hundreds of women now through this process. So, I mean, there's just so much to cover and I know we're going to have other episodes about postpartum fitness. You're going to get all this in way more inside of her program. So get your little booty on that wait list if you want all the deets. But we wanna round things out today with some, some little audio hugs, some reminders for you. If you are postpartum, please, please, please remember that it is important to go slow and steady. You're not trying to be a hero, not trying to jump back into things you did pre-pregnancy. We need to go slow, and steady.
AdinaYeah, I think steady is a key word there too, because people can understand slow, but like the fact that it steadily progresses and that it is a steady presence in your entire mom life, like I think some people are like, oh, cleared for exercise. So like, I have some energy today, so I'm gonna go do that spin class and then like three months pass and they're like, oh, I should probably go to another
DianeRight? Or they crash because they went so hard and don't want to get back to movement like the next day. Of course. So
AdinaYeah. Find something that can steadily exist as a presence in your life for the rest of time.
DianeSo all the more reason to really take your time with each progression, even if you feel impatient or eager. Because you were listening to what Adina said about laying in your bed for two weeks and so you really wanna get back to it. no. no. So progressions are key here.
AdinaYeah, like as we continue to say in this postpartum season, don't be a hero, but with the caveat of you do need to progress. Like don't get so scared and stuck in your head about these things, that it's limiting your postpartum training and it's limiting your ability to progress. Like you do need to have grace with yourself. You need to be in it for the long game, especially if you were an athlete before and you're thinking like, oh, I should just get right back to it. But your pelvic floor needs time to catch up to those larger muscles that are going to remember your lifts much quicker. So eyes on your own page, eyes on your own journey, and do not let fear. Limit you from progressing in your postpartum training. So, so much of that stuff comes up like, am I doing this right? Should I be lifting? Am I making my prolapse or my diastasis worse? My doctor said X, Y, Z. So I think that in this season specifically, guidance and community can go such a long way, and this is why if you are in the postpartum season, I think you are just going to love my upcoming postpartum program because you can trust me and trust the protocol that I'm putting you through to progress these things to get you back to doing the things that you need to do and the things that you love to do. And there is going to be a community of moms in there who are doing it alongside you. So it's gonna be a grand all time.
Dianething too, to be going through it along with other people who are on the same page, who are like-minded with you because it's knowing what it's been like when I've been in your memberships is cool to see people cheering each other on, and especially when they're in this season of life too. Maybe you'll find some, some new friends. Some new friends in strength too, so, That's always really lovely. So all the details will be in the show notes for you. Let us know about the takeaways that you enjoyed from this episode. What else you wanna learn more about? We love to hear it. I mean, give us a little review. We would love to see that. That really helps us grow and helps us reach more women who this might help. So, apple Podcast, write a little line. We might even share it on the next episode.
AdinaYeah. Well, till next week, we love you Unclench that bee hole.
Dianeunclench it.
AdinaBye.
DianeBye.