Your 50 year old self will thank you for waiting to heal before starting Running Postpartum.
You grew a baby for 9 months and dealt with nagging aches and pains, body changes, morning sickness, and peeing what seemed like every 5 minutes. You’re now a new mama of the cutest baby in town and you want to feel like YOU again!
Your doctor gives you the “green light” at your 6 weeks postpartum checkup. In addition, you get the greenlight to go back to whatever activities you want to do! Wooohooo!
You’re so excited to start hitting the pavement again or go back to your bootcamp classes as you’re desperate to feel some sense of normalcy. And let’s be honest, you’re probably also thinking it will help you shave some of that baby weight, right?
So many moms go back to high intensity exercise like bootcamp classes, Crossfit, running etc., as soon as they get the green light at 6 weeks postpartum. I want to bring more awareness to this problem because it is most likely not the best choice for your lifelong core and pelvic health.
Here’s the reality: your pelvic floor and core muscles have been stretched to the max and are not fully healed at 6 weeks postpartum. This means that you must allow your tissues and muscles to heal and spend some time rehabbing and retraining your body in order to go back to higher impact exercise without risking injury or setbacks.
Going back too quickly to higher impact exercise without proper strengthening could lead to pelvic floor issues like leaking urine, pelvic organ prolapse, diastasis recti, core weakness, or aches and pains.
Here are a couple questions to ask yourself when returning to running postpartum:
- “Can I do this activity?”
- “Should I be doing this activity right now?”
- “What are the risks vs rewards of this activity?”
- “Why do I want to do this activity?”
- “Do I know what to listen for or watch for in my body to know if an exercise is safe for me to do?”
The 3 Postnatal Healing Stages
To understand a little bit more why it’s important to rehab after birth, let’s dive a bit into the 3 different tissue healing stages that happen after you give birth.
1. Acute Inflammatory Phase: From birth to up to 7 days
This is the immediate response that your body will go through after giving birth (no matter how baby comes out). This is very similar to what happens after an acute injury (broken arm for example). In this phase, inflammation is high and you might be swollen, bleed, or feel pain. Rest is the most important thing to do in this phase.
2. Sub Acute Phase: ~day 4 to 6+ weeks
In this phase, your body will start repairing the damaged tissues by laying down new tissue. This new tissue however is not as flexible or as strong as the original one. Because of this, you are more likely to reinjure the area if you return to high intensity exercise too quickly and/or you might experience symptoms like leaking urine or pelvic organ prolapse. This phase is a good time to introduce core and pelvic floor rehab exercises to start healing your body from the inside out. My 6 weeks online postpartum program, Fourth Trimester Restore, teaches you everything you need to know to safely and effectively restore your core and pelvic floor after birth. You can find more information about this program here.
3. Remodeling Phase-~4 weeks to months sometimes years!
It might take months or even years for your tissues to remodel, regain strength and flexibility. This is the phase where progressive overload should start to be applied. In order for the pelvic floor muscles, the abdominal muscles or the linea alba (connective tissue responsible for diastasis recti) to heal and get stronger, you must load your tissues progressively. This phase is all about loading the body appropriately to create change but not too much that you are causing damage.
Can you see now how 6 weeks is just NOT ENOUGH time for your tissues to be completely ready to handle higher impact exercise?
As a Pre/Postnatal Corrective Exercise Specialist and an Exercise Physiologist, here is what I recommend to my running postpartum mamas:
1. Rest as much as you can for the first 1-3 weeks. Prioritize sleep, good nutrition, and bonding with baby.
2. Start a program like my online Fourth Trimester Restore at around 3-4 weeks postpartum. This helps strengthen your body from the inside out.
3. Give yourself love and grace in the fourth trimester. This allows your brain to reconnect with your breath, pelvic floor, and deep abdominals.
4. After spending 6-8 weeks in the rehab phase, slowly and gradually increase the load placed on your body. Strengthen the muscles that will be required for your high impact exercise of choice. This is what we call sport specificity. For example, if you want to run, you should strengthen muscles you will use while running (think glutes, core, hip flexors etc.).
5. If you feel lost or are having symptoms, seek help from a Pelvic Floor Therapist and a qualified Health & Fitness Professional. These professionals will guide you in your postpartum recovery.
To learn more about ways to reconnect with your pelvic floor in postpartum before you start running again, read my blog post 4 Ways to Reconnect With Your Pelvic Floor in Postpartum. You should also check out my FREE Ready to Run Postpartum Checklist before returning to running postpartum. Sign Up for immediate access!
