What exercise during pregnancy helps with....and what it doesn't.

On this week's episode I talk about two things that I've been asked about this week.

One of my new client's asked whether exercise during pregnancy helps prevent things like diastasis recti and pelvic girdle pain.

So I talk a bit about what exercising during your pregnancy ACTUALLY helps with, and what it doesn't.

I was also asked about the "dangers" of plyometric exercise (jumpy exercises) postpartum.  A lot of trainers would tell you to avoid them postpartum whereas I make the case for including plyometric exercises, such as jump lunges and jump squats, into your postpartum exercise routine. Just make sure you do them at the right time.

Just a  reminder that HPNB still only has 5 billing cycles!

So this means that you not only get 3 months FREE access, no obligation!

BUT, if you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS! That's $50 max spend, in case you were wondering.

Though I'm not terribly active on  Instagram and Facebook you can follow us there. I am however active on Threads so find me there!

And, of course, you can always find us on our YouTube channel if you like your podcast in video form :)

Visit healthypostnatalbody.com and get 3 months completely FREE access. No sales, no commitment, no BS.

Email peter@healthypostnatalbody.com if you have any questions, comments or want to suggest a guest/topic

Playing us out this week "Moonshot" by Aaron Sprinkle

Transcript

Peter Lap: 0:00

Hey, welcome to the Healthy Post Natal Body Podcas. I' you Po, alex from Petal App, that, as always, will be me. Today. I'm answering some more questions about exercise during pregnancy. What are the benefits for your postpartum recovery and what are not the benefits, as in, what can you actually achieve and what can't be done? And I'm also talking a little bit about plyometrics. You know box jumps and all that sort of fun stuff. Are they beneficial, are they to be avoided, postpartum? You know just some of that actually useful stuff. So here we go. Hey, welcome to the Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast. A little old me again. This is the podcast for the 14th of January 2023. And I 2074, I apologize. Yeah, you see, you thought I had gone into a time machine. I am here with just my three dogs, just my three puppies. Lola, kitty and her body are all just settled nicely. The door is closed so there shouldn't be too much noise, but you know, we can only hope. We can only hope. So this week I'm talking about exercise during pregnancy and the benefits for your postpartum recovery.

Peter Lap: 1:36

I had many questions this weekend from various people about various things, to be honest, but one that stood out was a conversation had with a new client, actually a returning client of mine, who trained with me for her first, after her the birth of her first child, and she's pregnant again and she's back into action with me again now because she wants to stay active, stay safe and active and be. She wants to prepare for her postpartum period as effectively as possible, right. So one of the questions, for instance she was asking about a long conversation first one of the questions she was asking as was to do with diastasis recti. This comes up a tremendous amount with women who have had diastasis before or still have it, even, and the full pregnant again they think they ask is another pregnancy going to make my diastasis worse? Is it going to make the gap worse? Because that's fundamentally what they are then talking about.

Peter Lap: 2:48

And you know I've gone over the definition of diastasis recti before. You know it's the width of the gap and the depth of the gap that is a narrow, what I call the narrow definition. But I think muscle functionality is significantly more important than that, right, where everything still works and everything is in its right place and all that sort of stuff. I think that's much more important. But for now we're just talking about the gap and, as I always point out, the gap isn't the problem. The gap isn't going to be bigger when you have diastasis recti and you fall pregnant again. The baby will need extra amount of space anyways. And true, you could potentially argue that your core can hold out a little bit longer if everything is tight and that fascia sheet isn't stretched and already and all that sort of thing. But that is going to be so ridiculously marginal that it really really doesn't matter, because, in turn, the baby needs room and you know all that fluid needs room. So you're going to get the size you're going to get.

Peter Lap: 4:02

That is just the way it is, I'm afraid, and also means that any exercise you do during your pregnancy is not going to prevent diastasis recti. It's not going to prevent the separation of the muscles. What it will do is make sure that those muscles stay active and stay moving and therefore help your postpartum recovery when it comes to your core muscles, because those muscles still remember what they used to do, and I'm oversimplifying this. I don't mean muscles actually forget, I just mean the muscles will still be good at doing what they're supposed to be doing. They will still be used to it. And that is where the benefit of exercising during your pregnancy really really sits, other than to do with labor and all that sort of stuff. As everybody who has ever been particularly active and then has gone into labor will know, If you're used to doing a lot of squats, that makes your labor period a heck of a lot easier simply because you can squat your way through it a little bit. So what you find is that the exercise you do during pregnancy is all to help speak your postpartum recovery up a little bit. That is fundamentally what it boils down to. Now you can say, okay, it also improves your cardiovascular output and it keeps you fit in health and all that sort of stuff. Of course that is part of it. My main point is that exercise during the pregnancy will not prevent anything that is going to happen anyways. So it's not going to prevent diastasis right now. If you're going to have pelvic girdle pain, there is nothing to suggest that I have seen in any of the studies that there is any exercise that helps prevent it. So don't believe people, don't necessarily be skeptical towards people that say that if you do this class and I've seen this sort of stuff advertised if you do this antenatal class, then this helps with prevention of pelvic girdle pain. There's no evidence of that whatsoever, and I've said this before about any sort of postpartum program as well.

Peter Lap: 6:20

A lot of the time these conditions, such as diastasis rectum and pelvic girdle pain, they kind of go and leakage in all sorts of pelvic floor weakness. A lot of the times they resort themselves. In the case of diastasis rectum, 80% of all cases when we're again, we're just talking about the gap here 80% of all cases resolve themselves within the first year, right, and gap closes to within the 25mm, that's 2.5cm, which is about 3 quarters of an inch, depending on. No, it's about an inch. Well, there's an inch these days, 2.54, so it's about an inch. So, depending on what your measurements are that's why I'm throwing them out so that gap goes back to within those normal parameters in 80% of cases.

Peter Lap: 7:23

So it's going to be very difficult to say that your diastasis healed purely on the basis of a postpartum exoscience program and that includes the healthy postnatal body program, right, but we can't say that this is the. There's a causal link between doing a program and healing your diastasis rectum, other than once you've passed that year stage. If you start any sort of diastasis recovery program a year later and then it helps. Then you can say, yeah, this program really works, which is why I know the HPMB program is so effective, simply because I've worked with people that have had it for 25 years. I've worked with a lot of women in their 50s and 60s and you know, if we can help them, we can help anyone right? It's that simple. But it doesn't mean that the gap wouldn't close. In the majority of cases, the gap would close by themselves.

Peter Lap: 8:18

In the majority of cases, pelvic girdle pain isn't a permanent condition. And yet I would still say to anyone with pelvic girdle pain see somebody about this, because you don't want to walk around with that in the hope that it fixes itself. Right, you get a bit of help, you get a bit of physio. Same with pelvic floor weaknesses and leakage and all that sort of stuff. You work with somebody, you get a bit of help, and that is. Everybody should do that anyway, especially with regards to the pelvic floor as far as I'm concerned. But you see a women's health physio and you just get some tips, rather than waiting for these things to magically heal by themselves. Apologies, have to do a little yon-nep. So that's why I moved away from the mic for a bit. So that is the main. That's the main thing.

Peter Lap: 9:26

Exercises you do during your pregnancy are there to help speed up your postpartum recovery. If you're familiar with the healthypostnatalbodycom. com program then you know and I've written about this before as well on one of the posts about how long does it take Diast recover Diastasis nasus, recti and stuff. The first four to six weeks of any postpartum program are always about muscle activation and I know physios lose their mind over this stuff but Because they say muscles are always active. But that's nobody mean just teaching the muscles to function at the right time, doing the right thing at the right time and all that sort of stuff. That's the first four to six weeks of a program. If you already have excellent muscle activation, then you don't. don't. That period is significantly shorter, if there is one at all.

Peter Lap: 10:16

Another thing that comes up a lot during with people who start exercising or want to continue exercise during pregnancy is how intense can the exercise actually be? And I always say and I said this to my new clients as well I said, listen, it's for the duration of your pregnancy. You can do anything you already used to do, except for the last semester. We don't do exercises on our back anymore, right, but that is not because you're not strong enough to do it or anything like that. I also always tell people that on a intensity scale of 1 to 10, 1 being very, very low and 10 being, you know, borderline dying, having to collapse onto a couch I keep most of my clients at the highest.

Peter Lap: 11:14

I push them to a 7. We don't when they're pregnant. I don't go above that. I don't need your heart rate to be that ridiculously high. There is no benefit to having your heart rate that high during exercise, because most of the exercise we do with people who are pregnant are with an eye on making their postpartum recovery faster. It's very rare that I get anybody who is pregnant that has a specific goal that is, within the timeframe of their pregnancy. So just if you're, either, if you work with athletes or tennis players or something like that, it's very rare that someone would come to me and say I've got a tournament next month, right, that is just not really. That doesn't come up. It's all about postpartum recovery. So there's no benefit. Sorry, as a bang my chair, there is no benefit to pushing it beyond the seven, from what I can tell and again correct me if I'm wrong. I doubt that I am, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Peter Lap: 12:20

Peter, healthy postnatal bodycom right, so we don't have to go that intense and that intensity scale is all completely personalized. So someone's a top-level athlete, for them, a seven is significantly more Well, the effort levels are the same, but it's significantly more. They usually lift a heavier weight or they move a little bit quicker and all that sort of stuff than someone who's new to exercise. So that's completely personal. But that's the whole point of you know, personal training and then, and and any sort of exercise program in an ideal world is as personalized as possible. Right, that is always important to remember. That is, in an ideal world. You get a personalized program put together by someone who really knows what they're doing. That's not affordable for everybody. So you know you have done that scale one to one.

Peter Lap: 13:16

Personal training is always more effective than, say, a generic online program. Personalized program is also more effective than a generic online program, even such as healthy postnatal body that I spent a lot of time in Africa. But if that Generic program such as healthy postnatal bodycom is significantly better and this is so far ahead of like YouTube stuff that you know that is. You should still choose something like that over the YouTube stuff. You just have to ask yourself how much am I willing to pay For a generic program if the next level up is a specific program and the next level up from that is personal training? If someone sells you a program of 700 pounds or like a thousand bucks, it's a generic program. You're much better off taking your personal training sessions. It's not even close, right. This is why I always say that these generic programs, postpartum programs, should be cheaper ships and why, you know, I always give three months completely free, because it's a generic program, doesn't? Once it's done, it's done. I don't have to put any more effort into it.

Peter Lap: 14:32

Anyways, I digress, I digress, but it does kind of bring me onto the idea of plyometrics. Now, for those people who don't know, plyometrics is basically any sort of movement, kind of when you jump around the law, things like box jumps and star jumps, jump lunges, jump squats, all that sort of stuff, press ups into leaving the ground. You know, hand clap, press ups and all that sort of stuff, anything that requires explosive power. But in this case what I'm talking about is the power of the system. But in this case, what I'm talking about with impact, so with you coming off the ground and going back onto the ground and all that sort of stuff like I said, box jumps, that type of stuff that is fundamentally what what plyometrics are it's about.

Peter Lap: 15:31

Plyometrics is about explosive power. Right, the there is a huge benefit to do on plyometrics, especially for athletes. Right, explosiveness is half the battle If you're looking to gain a yard on your opponent. Being first off the block, being faster off the block, is huge. But I do hear a lot from people that say I like that sort of stuff but I can't do them anymore post-Python because it's dangerous post-Python. And that is not really true. And when I say not really true, I mean it's really not true. The issue with plyometrics and any sort of impact exercise especially because I would argue that things like a kettlebell swing is is fundamentally an explosive move and therefore, you know, towards that range of things kettlebell cleaner, press, nice and quick, and all that sort of stuff maybe less so, but still it's about explosiveness more than anything else.

Peter Lap: 16:37

The reason a lot of people can't do them postpartum is because their pelvic floor isn't strong enough and their core isn't strong enough, because during that type of impact exercise. Running is a part of this, by the way. Right Running is impact exercise. The pelvic floor and the core is under more pressure than it is when there's no impact and quite often early postpartum, the core and the pelvic floor are just not strong enough to sustain this and this is why I always say running with diastasis recti isn't the best idea in the world because your body simply isn't ready for it yet. That doesn't mean overall it's a bad thing to do.

Peter Lap: 17:20

I think in the healthy postnatal body program I think it's month 5 onwards, because the program runs for like 9 or 10 months or a year or something like that, and I keep adding to it. You know you don't pay after having paid for 5 months, right, so I can keep adding to it and you don't pay for it, you just get more stuff. But I think it's roughly month 5, or week 20, something like that, where I start adding plyometrics because too many women have pelvic floor weaknesses which means they can't go to a comedy club. I remember reading an article by Shappie Korshandi, the comedian who was in the Guardian, and she had something along the line of my belly is the shape it is. That's the price for having kids. I can't laugh too hard. That's the price for having kids and all that sort of stuff, and it makes me want to scream, because that is not at all a stage you need to find yourself in permanently once you have kids, right, it's a common problem, but it doesn't mean it's not fixable, it doesn't mean it's right.

Peter Lap: 18:36

So plyometrics are an important part of your recovery program, I would argue, simply because we need to get your body used to being able to jump up and down, right. If you can't do that comfortably, and learn how to take the First of all, it's good for your muscles. But just from a pelvic floor perspective and just from a diastasis perspective, it is being able to absorb the pressure and all that sort of stuff. Having your pelvic floor be strong enough to deal with that type of thing is just essential for a normal day to their life. I mean, you can't imagine. I can't imagine how much it would suck to not be able to run for the bus because you'll have a bit of leakage once you get onto the bus because your pelvic floor is completely ruined Right.

Peter Lap: 19:37

That is the sort of thing we need to be training for when you I know, when your kid wants to kick a ball or something like that, you can't kick a ball because the impact is so much that you wee yourself a little bit. Go to a comedy club and you can't laugh. Or you can't go to a party and you can't laugh because you'll wee yourself a little bit. That is common but it's not normal, it is not right and it's fixable. But we have to train for that. This stuff doesn't just fall out of the sky for everybody. In some cases it goes completely back to normal. You do your K-Gun exercises and all that sort of stuff and you're completely fine. But in a lot of cases you need a little bit more than that. So these plyometric exercises, rather than being dangerous, doing them at the right time is incredibly useful. I think we do on top of my head, because I haven't checked this, because I never check things Three months into the HPMB program we start doing step ups.

Peter Lap: 20:48

That sounds about right. We start doing things like step ups and all that sort of stuff. You step onto a bench, exhale you way through it and all that sort of stuff. Four or five months in that time frame is about right. We start doing plyometric step ups, we start doing one or two and not there's not that a whole session consists of that type of stuff, but it's in there. We start doing some jump squats, we start doing static jump lunges and all that sort of stuff.

Peter Lap: 21:19

If these things are not part of your post-partum recovery, or you can't do these things after you finish your post-partum program, I would argue you've not recovered. This is essential stuff. The point of any full-on post-partum recovery program is to have you fully recover. So you have the rehab element of that making sure you have your range of motion, that all the muscles are where they should be, and all that sort of stuff. And then you have the strengthening up element of that, something that physios tend to ignore a little bit Making sure you're strong and making sure you can do all exercises and function well throughout your daily life. That's usually the state where physios hand off to a personal trainer if they're part of a network, to be fair. So it's not that all physios are terrible at it. I just see a lot of people that have never been referred to a personal trainer after they completed their physio for whatever injury they have. So that is essential, and only when you can do all those things, can you say I am fully recovered? That really is one of those things that you want to incorporate into your post-partum exercise program at the right time. So not within the first six to eight weeks, I would argue, probably not even within the first 12 to 14. You start doing some jumps after that, when you feel your pelvic floor is all right and that is then also the stage where you can go comfortably go back to running.

Peter Lap: 22:54

I have very few clients that have been working with me post-partum that can never go back running again. Actually, I don't have any, unless you have some sort of really traumatic event, and by traumatic I mean just during birth there was a lot of damage and all that sort of stuff, and there's some permanent nerve damage and you need to see a specialist. And then can you have any sort of permanent issues? I have never come across anyone, and I did this interview with Dr Iris Pla. Was that Iris Pla? Yeah, it was Iris, about urinary incontinence and all that sort of stuff. And again, she's absolutely lovely and she's absolutely wonderful and she basically said the same thing there is no reason why you would permanently have urinary incontinence issues. Yeah, dr Iris Pla, august 20, by the way, august 20, 2023. A phenomenal interview, like I said, and, like she said, even more important. It is very common, but it's not right and that's the sort of thing that we really want to fix and we really want to stay on top of.

Peter Lap: 24:20

And a good postpartum program makes sure that you're fully recovered before you move on To just go about with your life, before they say you're in your merry way. This is also why postpartum programs should be a lot longer than three months. Three months is your booster. That's your initial boost, that's your lift up over the wall, so to speak. That's the initial little boost. That doesn't mean you're actually over the wall and completely fine, yet there's a little bit more work to do after that. Anyways, I think that's about it for this week.

Peter Lap: 24:57

Peter at HealthyPostNatalBodycom. By the way, I do have interviews. I have a lot of interviews coming up. Unfortunately, I'm also a very busy, busy boy and I don't have time to edit them, and that's why I'm reverting back to answering listener emails. So send me your questions and hopefully in the next few weeks, I will start editing the email, the interviews I've already done, and then my life will be a bit more relaxing. You can listen to some other voices other than my own. But in the meantime, peter at HealthyPostNatalBodycom, for all your questions and all your comments, I always get back. You always get a personal answer. A personal answer, anyways. I always respond via email and you know that's me done waffling. You have a tremendous week. I'll be back in touch next week and, yeah, here's a new bit of music. Bye now,

Speaker 2: 25:57

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Speaker 2: 27:58

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