Ep. 23 Postpartum Fitness - Return to Running Part 2

Don’t call it a comeback!!  Part 2 of my solo episodes, and this one is all about returning to fitness during the postpartum.  Fitness/exercise/movement is a very important part of our overall health and wellness, and like I talk about in part 1, running is my go-to sport.  But we are forever changed after having children!  And this can totally impact how we approach fitness for the rest of our lives.  I try to stay on topic in this episode, but I’m so very passionate about working with postpartum mamas that I’m prone to tangents.  So grab a pen and paper, put some headphones on, and listen to this episode cause we talk about:

Our goals and setting intentions for our postpartum journey  

• Don’t call it a comeback!
• Being graceful with yourself
• Getting back to the basics
• Nursing and exercise (I get a little heated with this one!)
• Stroller running
• And so much more

Be sure to listen to part 1 as we talk about all things prenatal fitness.  

Please check-in with your care provider before beginning any new exercises and to go over your fitness goals.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

Pillars of Health

Birthfit

Recore Fitness

Mother Runners

Exercise and Breastfeeding: tips for athlete moms who breastfeed 

This podcast was created from a desire to share conversations and interviews about topics from pregnancy and birth to motherhood and the importance of a healthy body and mind through it all.  Our goal is to bring you fun, interesting, and helpful conversations that excite you and make you want to learn more.

We hope what we share will make an impact and help someone else along their journey.

We believe that when you are aligned in body, mind, and your intuition, you can conquer anything!

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Transcript

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Hello, align first podcast listeners, I'm Dr. Shannon and I am one of the hosts of the show and today it's just me because it is part two of my running and fitness for pregnancy series, but now we're hitting the postpartum side. So part one, though, listen to the first part of the series because that was everything pre natal fitness, I say fitness because I do talk about some other things to look at. And not just running but I am a runner, I love to run, and so I definitely hit some more of the running aspects of things, but we go through it all as far as what changes in your body. During Pregnancy How to run things to look for questions to ask how to keep your provider informed, some of the fun hormones that are released, cross training things, and then some people to reach out to so definitely Part One has a lot of good information in it but today. Today is postpartum running, and again, this is, this hits home for me because, and I've mentioned in several episodes. I wasn't adjusted during my first pregnancy, I was in my second but it wasn't until I was 36 weeks and so I really didn't experience, you know, I ran during both of those pregnancies, because, again, I've been running since I was sick, so I've been running for 33 years now. All throughout life and all stages, but I didn't really experience the effects of chiropractic care during pregnancy while I was running, I just didn't have, I didn't have that much time left, you know, right, you're just going in at 36 weeks and I was kind of like help. So, what I experienced, though, after I had my first child, I had that emergency C section. I had also pushed her to an F hour so not only did I feel like I had like birth the baby badly but like, then I had the C section, and that was a lot. That was a lot recovery wise not only emotionally but like physically recovery wise, it took me a very long time to get back to running it to get back to fitness to get back to doing a plank that felt normal. So, that was huge. And when I did get back to running. I had really intense hip pain and I'm talking in the hip joint, like that lateral part that outside part of the body like in the hip joint, and it would like click, and it just, it was so, so painful and it made running really difficult and I just kind of push through it right. And so fast forward to when I was pregnant with my second still running during pregnancy, which honestly I don't think my hip pain bothered me so bad but that was probably just because relaxin was in the body now. And we talked about that last time but we'll go into that again too and how that pertains to postpartum running but I stayed under care. After I had my second child. I stayed under chiropractic care, I got adjusted in the postpartum time. I'm gonna pause and let that sink in. I stayed under care, and got adjusted during my postpartum time. That was life changing for me because I no longer had that hip pain that I did, after my first that I could not get to go away no matter what I did. And that being able to return to running and not have that pain. I mean, when you lose that aspect of your life that's so important that's like your mental space and it's your fitness and it's do everything that you love to do. And when you get that back and you get to regain that level of fitness, I mean it was huge. So, again, I'm reiterating that taking care of postpartum moms, that's why I love it so much now. Um, I have an outline here, I'm trying to stick to it, and I'm trying to not have too long, But my postpartum running with both of my kids

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come up with a goal. And I'm going to tell you what the goal was, and then I'm going to go, I'm going to tell you what I think of it now, so I signed up and look at races to do, and I call them my comeback races, right, we talk a lot in the postpartum world, honestly, you know, in my pre baby jeans I want to get back to my pre baby size and I want to. It's a comeback and you know those type of things we talk about that a lot. Or maybe you just see it mentioned a lot. I hear it in the office there too, of like, wanting to regain that sense of normalcy or that sense of who you were before the baby, and so I, we're gonna come back to that but I, I signed up for a race so after my first, I signed up for a triathlon, which I had never done before, I'd actually done one but it was you had to kayak instead of swim because I am not the best swimmer, so I signed up for a triathlon and I was like, Okay, this is gonna be my comeback race is gonna be something new and different that I haven't done before and we're just going to train for it and have fun. And that's exactly what we did. And then with my second, I signed up for a marathon, and that one, so I did my triathlon I was six months postpartum. And my marathon I was 10 months postpartum. And that was a little bit different beast I was going for, like, I was going for a Boston qualifier, so I was really hitting home, that the speed work and that intensity so that's why that was 10 months out. I say all of that. I don't know where those really might come back races because I we're different. When we have a baby we're different from pregnancy I mean I have cells of my children in me that will stay with me forever. I am not the same as I was pre baby, so I don't know so much that it was my comeback race I mean I thought of that in my head but I feel like it was more of like my come into race like into who I am now as a mother, right and who I am and how I want to inspire myself and look for inspiration, how I want to inspire my kids. And I don't know I just looked at it a little bit differently, but I loved having that goal. And so I guess that's where I start with some of that postpartum work is really looking at the mindset right I talked about that in the first episode in this series, too, because I keep going back to my pillars of health and mindset is one of those. What is the point what is the reason what is the intention behind this, be specific, what specific goal, do you have now we got to be realistic as well too, because you pop the baby out as they say, and then we aren't necessarily getting back to running for months. Okay, so, again, just like last time and talking with running during pregnancy and how that changes, you got to be graceful with yourself to in that postpartum journey, and not pushing it too soon, I feel like that's what we do we try to push too soon to get back to something, and maybe I wasn't writing like looking at doing a race at six months you know postpartum after that C section that was a lot but I it was that, you know, coming into who I was as a mother and still wanting to embrace that. We're going to talk about breastfeeding and exercise too because I want to go back to both of those races that I did and talking about nursing because I get I get heated when we talk about nursing and exercise and some of the misinformation that's out there, let's just, let's just say that now. Okay, back to returning to running, you know, it's not really recommended until like eight to 10 weeks postpartum. So, and that's, you know, that's even early, you need to be cleared by your OB you need to have those postpartum visits with your midwife, you need to have those things we need to check and make sure we don't have any more spotting like all of that. And we need to check in, you need to check in, mentally internally intuition only with, how are you feeling, is there still a heaviness there. Does it still feel is there some tightness there like, go into those things and talk about those things with your providers. Okay. Make sure you go through those, and who those providers are. Find that pelvic floor PT I'm getting ahead of myself because that's listed on my note later on but you know find go see your chiropractor when you saw them when you were pregnant go during your postpartum time.

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Go. I don't know how else to say that it's so important to make sure that we have that proper pelvis and sacral alignment postpartum as well. But then we're also impacting the nervous system we're impacting that brain and body in that body and brain connection. It's so important. Continue, continue that now I want to mention two programs worth it. I've mentioned that before. They have prenatal and pregnancy programs but they also really hit hard the post partum time as well because that's where we're really starting to how do we start back to that, how do we find that motion. I go over something called dead bug in the office, and it's like connecting in with your breath and finding your breath and that's getting back to the basics. I feel like that's where we should start with the postpartum. It's not only my running shoes and I'm just going to go ahead and go for a run. Hey, let's back it up a bit and let's make sure we've got proper muscle and motor engagement, let's check in with the breath work and see what we're finding and feeling, and that's where also where birth fit comes in and record fitness so Celeste Goodson she. I'm like a fangirl of her because she has worked with some amazing runners, Allyson Felix Hello, most decorated Olympian woman ever. She's where it's definitely Bruce Neely Grace Alyssia muntanya I love, I love all of these women runners, and she's worked with all of them in their postpartum journey, and I just love watching and seeing how she's been able to work with them and the program that she has created as well so check her out. I'm gonna link everything in the show notes, she's got great stuff and so there's gonna be a progression to getting back to that postpartum fitness, you know again it's not necessarily like oh I'm going to go out for a run, it can be very very simple starting with that breath work she Celeste has a blog, she did on our guest interview she did with the mother runners blog mother runners is another great, great people that I follow on Instagram. And so let's talk about doing hillwalking repeats, and then Hill running repeats. Then going a walk, run interval and then running and realizing that that can be months in the process of regaining that fitness back, because we want to regain it back and we don't want to be injured right we don't want there to be issues. And so I love to that she talks about why the hills. The hills are easier on the pelvic floor. So, I know you might not think like, I don't want to go uphill but it's taking it easy it's those hill walking repeats and then going to the Hill running repeats. So there's ways to get back to this gracefully but in a logical manner but also one that's going to take into account. Back to the basis, right, so that's a good, good place to start now. One thing we talked about in first episode of this series two was the hormone relaxing. So that hormone is amazing and Barry needed, it relaxes the ligaments in the body helps the body prepare for birth, it doesn't just, it's not like a baby's born, oh all the relaxing is gone, no the relaxing is still there, and it varies and people but it can stay in the body for quite some time. So you've got to keep that in mind especially with trying to push it too hard, too soon. So, always something to think about diastasis recti oh goodness right, that's that separation in the abdominal muscles, not every woman is going to have it after birth, but it can play a huge part and that is where I love pelvic floor PT, there's taping that you can do on your car Proctor's that do some of that stuff. I do believe to that making sure we've got proper nervous system. Brain Body Body brain connection, especially for nerves that are going to all the abdominal muscles all the female reproductive organs, all the pelvic floor muscles, so that's where I come at and that's where my thinking is going with my postpartum care, but that pelvic floor PT and really checking in on those abdominals and helping, learning how to engage them again. That's huge. That's why we start with the breath work instead of just going straight to run it, and straight back to that fitness of what we, that level that we wanted to be at and we want to be at we think we're at, but sometimes we need to pause and get back to the basics. So that's, I love pelvic floor PT and checking in with moms, and also to any like pelvic heaviness you know all of those things can be discussed there. We talked about the chiropractic adjustment so now I want to get want to get to my hot topic for me, which is nursing breastfeeding and exercising. I'm so tired of the argument that

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you won't produce enough breast milk. If you exercise. That's just not true. Is not true. In some cases it can be, but it may not be the exercise that's the problem, there's so many other things that could be the problem. So, instead of just going oh, let's just not do the movement, let's not get that motion in the body like that is key for our well being. We could look at some other things too, so I have a blog written about nursing and exercise. So remember when I talked about my come into races, I'm going to start terming them that I kind of like that might come into races. I breastfed both of my kids two years each. So the first year was exclusively like on the breast and then I did a lot of pumping because I also worked full time in an office in a lab so I would pump every three to four hours for four years of my life. I love that pump, it was with me all the time but gosh, that is such a commitment, so I don't know you got to you got to give grace and praise to moms who are putting forth that work and doing it. I would pump or nurse before my race or event, and then pump our nurse afterwards, and I did that with the triathlon I did, I don't even remember how long I was out there. But it wasn't long enough to where I needed to actually pump or nurse during the race. I did make sure that I could get my event done without having to pump or nurse during it because that was just something that I didn't want to do. And then my marathon. I did the same thing. I nursed pumped beforehand and then same thing after I don't remember which one I did but that's, that's what I did my kid was with me at both of those events and so I was able, I was able to do that. And funny enough, that marathon that I ran 10 months postpartum was my PR marathon I ran a 319 at seven bridges in Chattanooga and still able to breastfeed still that postpartum felt great state under care, did all of those things kept my supply up. And yeah, that was my PR marathon for a while until last year when I ran another one was only two minutes faster but that was my Boston qualifying race, so then that next April, I was going to Boston, so don't let anyone tell you that exercise is going to definitely decrease your milk supply. That's not necessarily the case. So, here are some other things to your water intake has to be massive right we're supposed to drink half your body weight in ounces every day, but you've got to think to nursing mothers pregnant women like you've got to drink, even more than that to pregnant women, That's that amniotic fluid that's how that gets replenished. And then with my breastfeeding moms, that is also, I mean breast milk is supplies definitely related to that water intake and caloric intake, you have to eat this whole getting back to like pre baby size and stuff doesn't necessarily need to be thrown out the window but again it's that mindset, what do we want to get back to, is it really the size or can we really look at can we get back to that like, I don't know that that love of your body that appreciation for how miraculous it is that you created this human and you birthed this human and now you're you're raising this human, and you're maintaining his level of fitness like, I don't know, I just, I just, sometimes I think we need to flip the script on, on some of those things, especially in that postpartum time, so look at that mindset, what do you want to do what are those goals that you have and it's okay if it is, some of those things pertaining to, you know size but I guess it's just the health, you just want to be healthy, right So define what that means for you. So yes, I have my nursing blog, I'm going to link that in the show notes because I do talk about things, and no one talks about water and caloric intake. I got fitted for a nursing bra so I went to a local running store big peach running, and I went and that was amazing because my size definitely changed and I found bras that I really really loved, and allowed me to feel comfortable while running. And that I think is going to play a huge part tune in and making sure that the chest is not too compressed because sometimes the two that can lead to cloud milk ducks and all those type of things. Um, another thing with nursing and running like don't. Yes, stress can deplete your supply, but I don't know if you've listened to any other episodes you know how I feel a little bit about stress. There are good stressors right exercise can be a good stressor. Sometimes it's our perception of a stressor that is actually worse than the actual stress. So, what do I mean by that I'm looking at certain events since, you know, and how are you reacting to things, is it a stressful thing or not and is your body perceiving it as something that's super stressful so kind of check in is trying to fit in that exercise routine and do all the things, is it causing stress and your supply is tanking, Okay then take it down. Do some cross training try something different or take a rest day. Drink some more water. Try some of the mother's milk tea and some fennel like all of those fun little things to kind of increase the supply and see what we can get back to, and of course to starting your cycle back is going to flip the script on everything too so there's, Like I said, there's so many other factors, but don't let that fear of oh my supply is going to tank if I start doing extra to something. No, don't let that don't let that seep in, because that movement emotion in your body is so, so key. I also want to touch base on running with a stroller so I definitely ran with a stroller for so many years. I loved it and you know what I miss it I even took a picture of my stole the last day I had it, I took a picture of it like empty, and I cried, I'm not gonna lie, I cried because, Oh my gosh, like I talked to my kids on the runs, they would sing to me, they would complain they would fight, they would eat a lot of snacks. But we would hit the trails and we would go on the road, and I'd feel like, you know, Wonder Woman pushing that stroller and a 5k and winning, I would still win races like, it's just, it's just amazing, I loved, loved, loved running with my kids, I had a single stroller, I graduated to the double stroller. And I don't you know yes there's the big and great you know Bob strollers out there too I didn't have, you know, the super fancy when I got a used one at a place called Planning and sports, so it doesn't have to be anything crazy either but it's something to think about too if you're wanting to continue that because that was kind of some of my come into races as well as like, Oh, I did. I remember running a half marathon with my first and pushing the stroller. When you know what was really funny about that is I did that same race like 10 years later. Now, I don't even know when I did that again, and I ran that race faster pushing a stroller that I did, but like recently when I ran it, I was like, well, that, yeah, that was kind of fun. So it's fun to play around with that, but yes, the strollers look into that keeping the kids with you, and a lot of times too I would run a certain thing and then we let them get out and play they would run with me for a little bit like those were just, I don't know, fun, fun things to think about in that postpartum journey. So, again, trying to keep it short and sweet. And this is just giving you nuggets of information and things to look into again This by no means encompasses everything was postpartum running. I'm going to link everything in the show notes, and again my disclaimer, clear everything with your health care provider before doing any of the things that are mentioned in the episode today. But hopefully, hopefully something you've learned something you've thought about something that you could do trying something new, and really enjoying that postpartum time period looking at ways to incorporate your kids with the exercise, but not forgetting to take care of yourself. Mama, okay cuz I know new babies here and it's so amazing, more of we write checks on it, but check in with yourself and find those things that bring you that joy and that happiness, and maybe you can come up with your own common back into yourself, event, or race that you can.