Postpartum Exercise Basic Guidelines

As a NYC personal trainer I’ve had the pleasure to work with many clients through their pregnancy and post-pregnancy to get them back to shape. In fact I vividly remember my first time training a client through her first pregnancy. I was very nervous and researched everything on the ACOG (American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) and was annoying the crap out of the OBGYN to ensure everything was within their guidelines :).

Looking back the difficulty for me was that there is no hard set guidelines, it’s all relative to the person, their prior physical fitness, how they individually recovery, and so on. Fast forward 7 years and I’m now very confident working with pre-natal and postpartum clients to get back into pre-pregnancy form and even better! With that said, here’s what I’ve learned over the years working as personal trainer in NYC:

Postpartum Exercise Basic Guidelines

*If you want to skip over the details goto the bottom and see the cliff notes 🙂

Medical Clearance

Photo by Hush Naidoo

Before you do ANYTHING, #1 on the check list is to make sure the client has been medical cleared before you do any type of exercise. Generally speaking, recovery takes about 4-6 weeks postpartum. However caesarean section (C-section) typically takes a bit more time to recover and once you get clearance from the doctor exercise should be very gradual. Which brings us to the next guideline.

Gradual Exercise

This is an extremely ambiguous term but *ACOG (American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) uses this term because there are many variables that come into play. For instance if a client consistently exercised through her pregnancy (with modifications) and had no complications more than likely she will progress quicker. This is where experience is really important for the personal trainer, they will be able to assess and make modifications based on how quickly you’re developing.

*ACOG is a nonprofit organization of women’s health care physicians advocating the highest standards of practice.

With that said, generally speaking you should start from ground zero and build a strong foundation based off of stability and static movements first before you move into more dynamic motions. For example, you more than likely should not go right back into running but you can do light resistance training such as a template like this:

Trunk Work

• Planks 3x20sec

Strength Work

• Squats 3×15
• Overhead Press 3×12
• Reverse Lunges 3×10
• Standing Rows 3×10

Cardio

• Brisk Walk 5-10min

For the strength series you may start exercises with your bodyweight and then progress into heavier resistance each week depending on  how you’re adapting. The point is that in each section, once you feel like you’ve adapted you should SLOWLY progress forward. The key is to be patient and slowly move forward. Keep in mind that you should not be pushing yourself to a point that you feel exhausted, during this period it should leave you feeling invigorated.

Abdominal Muscles

One of the common target areas for postpartum fitness enthusiast is their stomach. As a personal trainer the biggest concern is “diastasis”: this is a condition where there is a gap in the abdominal muscles. If you start to do heavy abdominal exercises too early or even sprinting exercises you increase the risk of injuring your abdominals. To check for “diastasis”:

• Lie flat on your back with knee bent and feet flat on the floor- as if you’re about to do a sit up.
• Raise your head slightly up, do not do a crunch. 
• Use your hand to palpate your abdominal down the center (in-line with the belly  button).

Here’s a great video explanation:

Before you start any abdominal exercises I would make sure that you have full clearance from the doctor. Once you have clearance, I would start with exercises that strengthen the trunk without direct work and then eventually built up to direct abdominal exercise.

For example a typical workout program may look like this:

Week 1-3: Basic strength movements such as squat, lunges, push ups, rows, overhead press, curls, tricep push downs, lateral raises, etc… things that will not pull on the abdominal or put too much stress on them like pull ups, pull downs, sit ups etc… The exercises given will build a strong foundation and still strengthen your trunk without direct work to the abdominals.

Week 4-6: Basic strength movements progress in resistance. Add in planks to put in direct trunk/core strength training exercises with out flexion and stressing the abdominals too much. The overall intensity at this level will start to pick up a bit more and become challenging but still manageable.

Week 7-9: Keep progressing the resistance and intensity for the strength movements. Add in variation of the plank to make the “core” exercises challenging and if it’s comfortable you may attempt to do more direct abdominal exercises such as curl ups, dead bugs, etc… But be VERY cautious and monitor movement in the abdominals. Depending on your fitness and skill level you may also want to start to add movement drills, such as lateral shuffles and light-medium paced running.

Cliff Notes

• Get medical clearance first! ACOG recommends waiting 4-6 weeks postpartum before exercising.
• Once you’re cleared, start off very gradually and be patient. “Slow and steady wins the race.”
• Check for diastasis.
• If you do choose to do abdominal exercises, I would start with indirect work first (squats, lunges, push ups etc..) then static work (planks), dynamic (dead bugs, curl ups)

Final thoughts

In the end everyone will adapt differently, the key thing is to listen to your body, have a structured fitness program that is progressive, and to be patient. I know this doesn’t sound very flashy but but in my experience as a NYC personal trainer, simple usually is the most effective way to obtain your goals.

Here’s some more information for exericese during pregnancy and postpartum period, CLICK HERE.

Train smart,

Team Fusion Trained