Post Pregnancy Sports

Some tips how to start and to know if you are ready for more after your postpartum recovery.

Post-natal Courses

In Germany, many women are lucky enough to be able to participate in a recovery program after giving birth .
BUT there are hardly enough spots and therefore you can also look for private specialists.
A postnatal course led by midwives or specialised trainers helps slowly to reactivate and rehabilitate the core.
It starts after week 6 the earliest and lasts between 8 and 10 weeks – but what comes next?
Are you ready to go all in after that?

After this course the birth is already some months ago and maybe you feel fit again. Maybe you already did a lot of sports before and during your pregnancy and can’t wait to go jogging again or to see your friends in the CrossFit Box. Maybe it is also sport that helps you to find a mental balance to your mum’s everyday life. 

7 Tips for starting sports after pregnancy

My tips to decide if you are ready for more intensive sports:

• The first 12 weeks after birth are NOT there to think about your own figure. During this time you should rest as much as possible, do some light pelvic floor exercises, carry as little as possible and start some expert led postnatal training - one-on-one or start with your postpartum recovery course.
• If you had a pelvic floor injury at birth (tear, incision) you should wait at least 6 months time before you go jogging or do other high impact sports. The tissue needs at least that long to regenerate.
• Did you have a c-section? Also here give yourself at least 6 months  and in that time you can start rebuilding your core strength with a targeted build-up training before you return to high impact fitness.
• Do you sometimes lose urine while laughing, coughing, sneezing or when you exert yourself more? This is common but not normal. For this you can ask help from specialised physiotherapists and postnatal (personal) trainers.
• How much sleep are you getting? How exhausted are you? It is important that your sports program does not exhaust you. It may challenge you and make you sweat, but if you are totally exhausted, after you have been doing too much.
• Do you have a diastasis recti (abdominal gap)? This is not mainly about how wide your gap is, but whether you have problems with it. If you cannot use your abdominal wall functionally, it will also have an effect on your pelvic floor. Again you can look for a physio or postnatal (personal) trainer or join a special diastasis recti recovery programme, which will help you to strengthen your core and activate it properly.
• How to you feel during your fitness session? Do you ever have the feeling that there is a pressure on your vagina or do you constantly have a tampon feeling inside though you are not using one? If yes, then you should not run or jump from now until you have been examined by a specially trained physiotherapist (internal examination) or your OBGYN. Just to be on the safe side. IT might be that a special pelvic floor training is needed.

From experience no many women are not yet ready to get back into high impact fitness right after their midwife / specialist led training. Often they feel fit or have even been told by the doctor that they can start again now. But the body simply needs a certain period of time to heal. After a knee operation nobody would think about running a marathon after 3-6 months. 
Depending on the woman & the circumstances it can take up to 24 months to fully recover.

Specialist help

If you need specialised help recovering from a c-section, hysterectomy or struggle with diastasis recti - we have experts and offer special programs. Plus we offer Yoga, Pelvic Floor Recovery, Postpartum Recovery courses & other postnatal fitness programs plus personal training
If you are interested in starting up slowly and regaining your strength - just  please contact us and we will discuss the options most suitable for you. 

April 2020 - Gravidamiga
This blog post has been prepared with the greatest possible care and does not claim to be correct, complete or up-to-date.“

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