The Barbell Mamas Podcast | Pregnancy, Postpartum, Pelvic Health
The times are changing and moms have athletic goals, want to exercise at high-intensity or lift heavy weights, and want to be able to continue with their exercise routines during pregnancy, after baby and with healthcare providers that support them along the way.
In this podcast, we are going to bring you up-to-date health and fitness information about all topics in women's health with a special lens of exercise. With standalone episodes and special guests, we hope to help you feel prepared and supported in your motherhood or pelvic health journey.
The Barbell Mamas Podcast | Pregnancy, Postpartum, Pelvic Health
Reclaiming Gymnastics Confidence Postpartum
Rediscover your gymnastics prowess postpartum with insights from Christina Prevett, a seasoned pelvic floor physical therapist and exercise researcher. Imagine confidently tackling handstands and kipping pull-ups after childbirth, without hesitation or fear. Christina combines her personal journey as a mother of two with her professional expertise to offer practical advice on maintaining and rebuilding core strength. She shares the secret to harnessing the power of your transverse abdominis, shoulders, lats, and grip, challenging the notion that pregnancy should limit your physical capabilities. Through her guidance, active moms are empowered to embrace their fitness journeys and reclaim their gymnastics skills with confidence.
Unpack the nuances of postpartum recovery, whether it's a natural delivery or C-section, and understand how factors like torso length can shape your fitness comeback. Christina sheds light on the common hurdles and offers early postpartum exercises like deep breathing and bird dogs to kickstart your recovery. With a rich library of resources available on barbellmamas.com and a dedicated YouTube channel, Christina equips listeners with the tools needed to maximize their gymnastics strength postpartum. Transform this period into an opportunity for unprecedented growth, and look forward to a wealth of knowledge that will be shared in the upcoming discussions.
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Hello everyone and welcome to the Barbell Mamas podcast. My name is Christina Previtt. I'm a pelvic floor physical therapist, researcher in exercise and pregnancy, and a mom of two who has competed in CrossFit, powerlifting or weightlifting, pregnant, postpartum or both. In this podcast, we want to talk about the realities of being a mom who loves to exercise, whether you're a recreational exerciser or an athlete. We want to talk about all of the things that we go through as females, going into this motherhood journey. We're going to talk about fertility, pregnancy and postpartum topics that are relevant to the active individual. While I am a pelvic floor physical therapist, I am not your pelvic floor physical therapist and know that this podcast does not substitute medical advice. All right, come along for this journey with us while we navigate motherhood together, and I can't wait to get started. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Barbell Mamas podcast, christina Previtt.
Speaker 1:Here and today we are going to be talking about all things returning to gymnastics and gymnastics-like movements after baby. What do I mean by gymnastics? In the CrossFit space, gymnastics is a staple movement or kind of this classification of gymnastics. Movements are staples within that training program. Within that umbrella we have things like handstands and kipping pull-ups, chest to bar bar muscle-ups, ring muscle-ups, getting upside down wall walks, strict handstand push-ups, kipping handstand push-ups All that are super fun, are really hard, but are essentially body weight movements. In our yoga and Pilates spaces, and bar as well, there is a lot of inversions. There is a lot of very core heavy movements that moms who were doing these exercise programs before pregnancy, those that are looking to get into a new exercise program postpartum, are trying to learn and trying to see if this is something that they enjoy. When we are thinking about core considerations postpartum, this is something where individuals can feel a little bit lost. We know that when we are pregnant, our abs will stretch. They go through a lot to make room for growing baby and if you're having one or multiples and so we need to do some rehab postpartum to get them back to the strength that we want in order for us to do the things that we want to do and that can be playing with kiddos, that can be trying to get back to ring muscle-ups and handstand walking.
Speaker 1:So in today's video we are going to talk about what the demands of these exercises are. We're going to focus on the core, but we don't want to forget about the other muscle groups that are super important and need to be really strong in order to be successful or proficient in these movements. What we should be doing during pregnancy with these movements to set us up for success postpartum. All right, here we go when we are thinking about these movements, and let's focus on those crossfit movements hanging from the bar pull-ups toes to bar muscle-ups and getting inverted. Yes, these are very, very core dominant exercises. We are going to be using those six-pack muscles, but not just those muscles on our six-pack. We want to think about all of the muscles in our ab wall, our obliques.
Speaker 1:If you are pregnant or postpartum, you've often heard about our deep core. This is our transverse abdominis or TA. A lot of pelvic PTs, if you follow them online, talk about this muscle group. But all of these muscles work together to create force and make you stronger, and you leverage them in these gymnastics movements in order for you to get your chin over the bar or your toes to the bar or to fling yourself over the rings. Therefore, we need them to be strong during that postpartum period. We need to get them stronger so that you can get back to these movements that you were doing before or to learn them for the first time. But outside of the core musculature we have a lot of other groups that need to be really strong too.
Speaker 1:For our gymnastics movements in Pilates, yoga and in CrossFit our shoulders need to be super strong, and not just for kind of pressing something or pressing a weight away from you, but to hold your body in the right position. For example, for a kipping pull-up, you are using the muscles in your lats, which also need to be strong to get your chin over around your shoulder blades to provide support, so that you don't kind of just dump down and drop immediately after your chin hits the top of the bar and hits the top of the rig. So our all of those muscles around our shoulder blades need to be super strong. In handstands, all of our shoulder muscles are going to be on fire if we are doing things like handstand holds or kipping handstand push-ups. All of those are very shoulder dominant. Our grip needs to be so strong because we are holding on to the rig the entirety of that set, and sometimes it's these little muscles in our forearms that are on fire and burning when we are doing these movements in CrossFit workouts. And then we also have to think about our lat strength. So I talked about in the pull-up how it's these big muscles on the sides of our shoulder blades that help us with bringing our elbows down towards the floor so that our chin can come over the bar. But all of those things need to be strong. They need to be strong especially when we're coming back, not especially in addition to before pregnancy.
Speaker 1:But what can happen during pregnancy is there's this kind of knee jerk reaction to ditch all of these exercises that include hanging from a bar, or we very quickly modify away from these movements. And why? Some of the thoughts are that when you are pregnant, because your body and because your abs are being stretched to make room for baby, this is normal. This is a beautiful process that your body goes through in order to make room for baby, that it's already under a lot of stress, so let's not put any other stress on it. We do not agree with that philosophy for several reasons, and I'll go through those in a second.
Speaker 1:When we start to see that stretching happen, what people will see is a dome or a cone across that six pack line, and so what that looks like is almost like this tenting up, this little pop-up that happens on your pregnant belly to see that basically, your muscles are trying to come together. That's what your six pack muscles do when they're contracting. But because they're so far apart, there's a little bit of like an air pocket that comes in there. That air pocket is doming or coning really in there. That air pocket is doming or coning really and the messaging can be really fear invoking, saying you should always avoid doming or coning. Do not ever do that, because it's going to make you have diastasis recti postpartum, it's going to make your abs split. It's going to do all these things. We don't really have any evidence that that is true. One. You're never going to be able to avoid it altogether because your abs are stretched, because that is how pregnancy progresses, and we have no research that shows that avoiding these exercises actually makes any difference postpartum, despite how confident people are in these recommendations In general.
Speaker 1:At the Barbell Mamas we talk a lot about how the amount of that doming or coning may be a signal of what your body is ready for right now, and it may be that we need to change the way that you're recruiting those muscles in your core or the way you are doing the exercise. Maybe we need to modify it back, but we don't need to be afraid of it because we don't have any evidence to support that. The other thing is that if we kick out all of these exercises that have you hanging from the rig well, yes, we're going to have to do some core rehab after baby. We also start to see that your lat strength, your grip strength and your shoulder strength have taken a huge step back, which, if that's you, that's fine. We also then need to focus on getting all of that strength back.
Speaker 1:And if you are pregnant listening to this, then what are ways for us to keep those muscles strong in order for us to feel confident or have kind of this step up in our postpartum return? You know, somebody who really kind of pushed the envelope on this was Tia Claire Toomey, who just had her baby several weeks months ago and her pregnancy. She pushed it right to the very end and there was a lot of people that were kind of hating on her and I was like I just my thought was I just can't wait to see what happens. And we're starting to see her come back to exercise and her body is is doing remarkably well and we are going to to see. Obviously this is only one person's anecdote, and she's got a ridiculous amount of fitness far above everybody in the sport of CrossFit for six years running, but it's showing that people are starting to challenge this narrative, and the very cool thing for you to know, if you are listening to this and you are pregnant, is that what our research does show about people who have a continued separation between their core muscles postpartum are that those with diastasis recti tend to be weaker than those that aren't, and so some of that separation is genetics.
Speaker 1:Some of it is the number of babies that you got, some of it is your anthropometrics Do you have a short torso or a long torso? If you have a shorter torso, baby's going to go out further. Your abs are going to have a bit more of a stretch than somebody who's taller or has a longer torso, and then strength seems to be that modifiable variable, that variable that is inside your control. And if you are in one of our pregnant programs, what you're going to notice is that we do not get rid of core training. We train your six pack muscles, we train your oblique muscles all the way until the final weeks of our program, until you are delivering, because it's important. What we have been seeing clinically myself and my colleagues when we are continuing to keep pregnant people exercising where core muscles is that they do a little bit better, it's a little bit easier for them to come back postpartum. If you avoided all core exercise or core exercises did not feel good for you, avoided all core exercise or core exercises did not feel good for you, that is okay. It just means that we may. It may take a little bit longer for you to feel like you're getting that strict pull up or you're getting all of those activities back. Just know that when you're kind of planning out your timelines, okay, so we get into this postpartum period.
Speaker 1:Now what I have to say? That in general, in general and everybody's going to have a different timeline it is slightly easier to return to gymnastics after a vaginal delivery than a C-section, and the reason for that is kind of obvious that individuals who have had a C-section have that additional incision on their belly, that scar on their belly, that they also need to heal from. That being said, for if you were a C-section mama listening to this, the flip is true with barbell training in general. In general, it's easier for individuals, especially if they didn't have a long trial of labor before having their C-section. It's a bit easier to come back to barbell training after a C-section than a vaginal delivery. So every type of delivery is going to have things that I'm going to be a little bit more or feel that I can be a bit more aggressive with, and others that I won't.
Speaker 1:If I'm working with you from a rehab perspective. But we have baby and then what do we do in order to get back to these movements? Many times pelvic rehab and postpartum rehab focuses too much on keeping you on your back and doing that deep core breathing and getting that deep contraction of your transverse abdominus and we don't do enough to get all of your other muscles stronger, get you back to the activities that you want to be doing. What I mean by that is that, of course, at the very early stages of your rehab, we're going to start working on getting connection again between your core, your pelvic floor, your mind, your body. And if you listen to our episode with Pamela Gagnon last week so I published I'm publishing this a week later than her interview she says that when she works with new moms, some of the hardest things for them is that mind-body connection because you gradually become pregnant and you kind of adjust the way you're walking and moving as baby grows.
Speaker 1:But that postpartum delivery happens relatively quickly. Your birth may not feel like it was quick, but the transition from being pregnant to being postpartum happens very quickly and so it takes time for you to kind of equilibrate and get your body used to it and then, as you start to gain strength, those motor patterns or that memory of what it feels like to do a kipping pull-up or what it feels like to do inversions in yoga or what it feels like doing these different Pilates movements, starts to return and starts coming back. In those early days, working on things like deep breathing and contracting of those muscles in your core to start just kind of reintegrating into those movements is helpful. Exercises like dead bugs and bird dogs and modified planks, like planks up onto a bench or on your knees, are really wonderful starting exercises to start getting you back to the movements that you are looking to get back to.
Speaker 1:If you have had a C-section, this is going to be your timeline is going to be based on how your scar feels and how it's been healing. But another one of the earlier things that even before six weeks postpartum if sometimes not after a C-section but after a vaginal delivery that we can start doing is hanging from a bar. Your weight is going to be heavier than it was pre-pregnancy that is normal and you are going to feel that additional weight when you are doing body weight or gymnastics focused movements. But you want to start getting your body onto the rig so that you are going to be able to start getting that grip strength back, that shoulder strength back and get your lat strength back. The reason why this is so important is because if you got rid of any hanging from the bar at four or five months pregnant and you are now six or eight weeks postpartum, that is a six or seven month window where you weren't doing any grip strength. Or maybe you were doing some farmer's carries or you were doing some things in the gym. That were modifications that gave you some of that grip strength. I hope you were, but it's still a different feeling sensation to be getting up onto the rings or getting up onto the rig and hanging.
Speaker 1:We incorporate this very early in the Barbell Mamas postpartum programming, especially our postpartum CrossFit programming, because we recognize that it is going to take time to get these movements back. So while we are focusing on our core rehab, we don't want to forget about the other muscles. So you could be doing a circuit of doing some deep belly breathing with dead bugs one minute and then the other minute you're hanging from the rig for 15 or 20 seconds and doing kind of scap pull downs, where you're working on the muscles around your shoulder blades and your grip muscles and you go back four or five times and that'll probably make you feel pretty toasty in order for you to start gaining that muscle back. A couple of things that we want to consider when we are thinking about timelines for gymnastics are one what is the weight difference between pre-pregnancy and post-pregnancy? This is to not cast shame on anybody, but know that when we're thinking about gymnastics movements, our weight has an influence on how effortful our activities feel, and we have to be strong enough to move our body weight, and so that's just something that we're going to take into consideration. The second thing is the method of delivery. As I mentioned, individuals, after having a C-section are going to need to feel comfortable with their body going into that C shape where their legs are behind them, belly is forward and not feeling that pain around that C-section scar or that pressure or pulling sensation. They'll have to work through that. Other things are how long have you been away from these gymnastics movements? Based on your history, your story, when did you remove them? Because the longer that you've been away from them, the more time it's going to take in order for you to be able to feel confident. And then, if you do have a diastasis recti, the more significant the distance between your two ab muscles. It's just going to take a little bit longer for you to feel stronger in your core in order for you to be returning to a lot of these movements.
Speaker 1:As a general framework, the way that we like to hold our clients to a standard is that we ideally want you to get one strict movement before you add in momentum. What do I mean by that? That means one strict toes to bar before you're doing toes to bar. One strict pull-up before you are doing pull-ups. One strict ring muscle-up before we do ring muscle-ups. And that was one that I was so bad about. I was doing false grip, kipping muscle-ups, but they were feeling so trashy. When I went and I did a strict muscle-up progression program through Performance Plus, through Pamelaess programming, and as soon as I started getting my strict ring muscle up, I knew where my body was in space. It was so much easier and now you know, I can string three or four together and it makes it feel a lot more supported. The only one I don't have that I will absolutely admit to you all is that I do not have a strict bar muscle up, but I do bar muscle ups, and the same is true for getting inverted.
Speaker 1:Having a strict handstand pushup, ideally before we start working on kipping movements, can be really helpful. Does that mean that we don't even bother starting kipping until we have those strict movements? Heck, no, because we need to get all those foundations back. What that might look like if you're trying to get your strict pull-up back, for example, is that on the first minute, if you're doing an interval timer, you'll do three or five negatives where you're going to jump where your chin is over the bar and slowly lower down to start working on your strength to get that stretch pull up. And then on the second minute we'll work on that beat swing which is going from a hollow position to a extended position. I kind of think about them like brackets, you know you're going from one side of the bracket to the other side. You're swinging back and forth, because that requires a lot of control and it's something that you're returning to after baby, and so you can go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth between those two and it can be really helpful.
Speaker 1:The final thing that I want to impress upon you all if you were listening to this episode, is that your core rehab, if you are trying to get back to gymnastics, should mimic or mirror the activities that you are trying to do. All of the gymnastics skills and drills are super important and double dip and count as your postpartum rehab. Our core training getting back to gymnastics or I should say our core training postpartum does not need to be different than our postpartum gymnastics skills and drills that we are using to feel confident and proficient with those movements after baby. I would actually argue that they should look the same. We focus a lot on flexing forward, kind of that sit up and going into extension in CrossFit, because that's what we do. But if your sport is volleyball or softball, where there's a lot of rotation, then your strength and your core rehab should be doing a lot of like weighted twists. It should be working in that rotation. There should be power training to it, like ball tosses, lateral ball tosses, because those are things that you are wanting to get back to and those are directions that your core needs to be strong in order for you to feel successful.
Speaker 1:Doing these movements, postpartum and so kind of all of this to say, when we are thinking about returning to gymnastics postpartum, outside of our early several, several weeks, when we may be doing a bit more of our core rehab on our back, we do not need to focus all of our time on a mat, and we can make bodyweight exercises on a mat really hard. I think that's awesome, but we also need you to be getting onto the rig, getting onto the rings, starting to work on getting upside down in order for you to be confident and successful, because that is ultimately what we want is to get you back to all of the activities that you enjoy. We're going to work on those stepping stones and in order to get to those stepping stones, we have to mirror our performance with our pelvic health, and when we can do both those things, it's just such a beautiful concept and we really get a lot of buy-in. And the last thing that I will leave you with. That I think is really cool is in this postpartum period, a lot of mamas feel like they have this window where they are okay, taking a step back and working on the fundamentals. I love this. I love this because it allows you to take the time to work on the skills.
Speaker 1:So I am a postpartum mom of two. I am now over 18 months postpartum and I can confidently tell you that my gymnastics are better than pre-pregnancy, with both my kiddos and when I was actively competing, trying to make regionals at that time and 10 years younger. And I really attribute that to, in those postpartum periods, working through my core rehab and how that mimicked our gymnastics drills. It really allowed me to have strength in my movements again. I didn't feel like, oh, I should just put them into a Metcon or oh, I should just do them in conditioning, but I allowed myself to take the time and it made me stronger than ever.
Speaker 1:I know it can feel like a bummer that you have to take all this time and you can't just jump back into it, but if we reframe that a little bit as this is an opportunity for you to be the strongest you've ever been in all of these gymnastics, movements, magic fireworks and we want to help you do that. So if you have any other questions about return to gymnastics, take a look at our YouTube channel. We're going to put a lot of resources there. We have our exercise library on the barbellmamascom that has different videos for you to go through and pregnant and postpartum considerations. We hope that you find them helpful and I can't wait to talk to you all next week.
