Getting back to exercise: Mums the word
Congratulations! You’ve just had a baby and its time to drop that baby weight and get your body back. You hit the pavement and return to exercise. Then it happens… Your body lets you down.
You roll your ankle running, pull your quad doing a gym class or something leaks where it shouldn’t be leaking! But what happens? You have too many other things on your plate so you leave it. Surely the body will sort itself out, right? Nope. Chances are it will hang around and even get worse. Don’t let it happen to you!
Meet Jen. She loves running and had a goal of running the Sutho to Surf this year. Jen had a baby 3 months ago and was itching to return to exercise to get her body back. This wasn’t her first rodeo, she’s on baby number 3 and had managed to get back to the gym, running and even local sport after her previous pregnancies. However, this time around she had hit a little snag…she had started going to a running group without any gradual build up in activity and had strained her glute.
It was 4 weeks since her injury when she came to see Jess Stoll at Parkside Sports Physio and hadn’t been able to run more than 200m before the pain began. At 6 weeks out from the race she needed some treatment ASAP.
After several sessions of hands on physio, exercises and gradual return to running, she was able to complete the Sutho to Surf without issue. She already has plans to run again next year and beat her time.
How did she do it? She listened to the advice Jess gave her and stuck to her exercise program consistently. She didn’t try and cut corners or put all the emphasis on massage being the key to her recovery. Jen now has a solid understanding that after pregnancy, there is an increased risk of soft tissue injury as the body is recovering from essentially 9 months of structural and hormonal changes that don’t magically snap back to normal once the baby is born, despite what you might see on Instagram!
As an added bonus, she continues to be proactive with her physical health and continues to have physiotherapy on other post pregnancy issues such as pelvic floor strengthening. She’s aware that 1 in 3 women who have ever had a baby experience leakage. She doesn’t have this yet and wants to remain active. She knows prevention is better than cure!
Moral to the story is that this mother of 3 took a proactive approach to her fitness and well-being goals. She did the hard work and her results are the reward – back doing what she loves. What are you waiting for? Make some time for yourself and come and see our Women’s Health expert, Jess. Jess Stoll has a special interest in Women’s Health and Pelvic Floor retraining, check this blog post for more info.
