Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1882: How to Safely Train After Having a Baby

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover ten things to consider when resuming training after giving birth. Exercise has a profound effect on recovery, strength, and well-being post-partum. But HOW you exercise before, during, and after pregnancy is extremely important! (2:26) Get clearance first. (4:22)   Ten Things to Consider When Resuming Training After Having a Baby.   #1 – Start SLOW. (6:47) #2 - Don’t try to cut for a while. (13:03) #3 - Use a physio ball. (15:24) #4 - Focus on core connection. (18:34) #5 - Work on mobility/connection. (20:37) #6 - Nothing fast or ballistic. (23:21) #7 – Walk. (25:46) #8 - Full body is best. (27:23) #9 – Higher reps. (29:36) #10 – Short, frequent workouts > long, infrequent. (32:09) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Seed for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code MINDPUMP at checkout for 20% off your first month’s supply of Seed's DS-01™ Daily Synbiotic** Special Promotion: Limited time Postpartum Bundle for $99.99 MAPS Starter, MAPS Resistance, MAPS Prime The (2) BEST Ab Exercises You’re NOT Doing Properly (STRONG CORE) | MIND PUMP The TVA and Your Hip Flexors: Smaller Waist and More Core Definition – Mind Pump Blog How Should You Approach Your Postpartum Fitness? - Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1822: Wim Hof On How To Control Your Immune System With Breathwork Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises & Techniques MAPS Prime Pro Webinar How To Do The Pelvic Clock Exercise – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Wim Hof (@iceman_hof) on Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? Today's episode we talk about how to work out after you have a baby. You know, working out and doing the right kind of exercise, post-partum makes a huge difference in recovery

and health and mood, but you gotta do it the right way. So in today's episode, we break it down until you what to do, what not to do. Also, because we're talking about this, we put together a bundle of our programs that is very appropriate for people who just had a baby. So so long as you get clearance,

a great way to train is to do what's called Maps Starter, then you move to Maps Resistance, and then within there use something called Maps Prime to help with mobility. That is our postpartum bundle, and all those programs, each one is over $100, but we've made that bundle right now only $9,999. So that price, $9,999 gets you,

Maps Starter, Maps resistance, and maps prime. You can find that bundle at mapsbaby.com. So MAPS, BABY.com. Also, this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Seed. This is the world's best probiotic. And one of the reasons why it's so amazing is they have a very unique delivery process. It's a capsule they actually test through an artificial digestive system. It makes

it all the way to where you want the probiotics to go. When you take seed, you notice way better digestion, less inflammation, better health in general. That's what I've noticed. I use probiotics all the time. Nothing comes close to seed. So if you want to check them out, go to seed.com, forward slash mind pump, and then use the code mind pump for a big discount. All right, here comes the show. Exercise has a profound effect on recovery, strength, and well-being postpartum. How you exercise is extremely important. So make sure you make this a priority. You know, this is an important topic,

but I wanna start with, cause I know this episode is about what to do after you have a baby, but I think it's important we talk about going into the pregnancy and train during the pregnancy. Well, that makes a big difference. Yeah, that completely dictates what you can do afterwards. Huge, cause it a mistake.

Well, actually, it's first of all the first mistake that I think that's common that I would see see with that somebody has just got pregnant is they know that they have, you know, weight gain coming. They know that they're probably not so then also they want to like start a program or like, go in a cut and then bleed out. Yeah, yes, right. And it's like, no, if there was ever a time that I want you to, you know, feed your body and take care of it and actually take things slow, it's at this point, right? So I think it's important that if you, so I think the advice that I try and give to any of my clients that are trying to have a baby is that, you know, while you're trying, that's when you're getting after the training, like building, laying a solid foundation, so that gives us a lot of room and flexibility on what do we do during pregnancy and post pregnancy,

it'll really set you up first, success. I've trained a lot of women who've come to me who didn't work out how to baby and then want to hire me. That's actually quite common. If you're a trainer, you'll get women that'll come to you and say, hey, I just had a baby, you know, three months ago, four months ago, whatever, I'd like to get in shape.

But then they also had clients that I trained and that got pregnant while they were my clients and then I trained them during pregnancy and after. And the difference in how quickly they recover, how their body responds, like the issues that we had, or challenges with or whatever, profound with the women who trained before during,

and then after versus the ones that just trained after. So that's a big deal. So if you're watching this, thinking about having a baby, start now and work out. who trained before during and then after versus the ones that just train after. So that's a big deal. So if you're watching this, thinking about having a baby, start now and work out. Now if you're watching this because you just had a baby, we're going to talk to that as well. Now, first things first, you do need to get clearance first to start an exercise program. So your doctor will tell you when it's safe to start exercising and moving in ways where

you're training your body. And this is important because I know some people get real antsy after having a baby. And because muscle recruitment patterns are so different and your body went through such a shrimat, it's just a really big change that you could cause a lot of problems. And I've gotten clients like this where because they went into it too fast, then they'd hire me a year or two later. And it's like we're having to go backwards to rehab and correct things that, you know,

problems that they call out. This is a very common one that I've had with clients that have come back. And it's, you know, the body needs adequate time to heal even to begin with. So, and I know the urgency is there, especially if, you know, you're fit and active going into it and it's something that you want to get back to.

I had a lot of clients in that situation and it's a tough thing to really kind of ride it out and wait till your body is good and healed and ready to go. Would you guys say that timeframe is even longer for someone who has not trained leading up? But that timeframe is even longer for someone who has not trained leading up. So let's see, see, have two different situations. Client one who is a consistent lifter, lifted through pregnancy, has the baby, obviously took some time off while she was having the baby, right? And then is ready to get back into training and is trying to evaluate the recovery time

versus the other client who did no training during pregnancy, but as now motivated after having a baby, say put on weight or doesn't feel good or wants to, wants to make an effort to really get in good shape. Now, the recovery time that person, in my experience, the first client has a much shorter time that they have to wait before they give up. 100%. 100%.

I'm glad you said this because the doctor won't differentiate you. That's what the doctor won't differentiate. Right. So the doctor is going to say, you know, a set time, but ultimately you have to listen to your body and you're 100% right Adam, if there's a big difference between going in condition versus deconditioned and what it's going to take. There's also a big, there's also can be a big difference between the kind of labor that you have.

Was it a natural kind of like no issues labor, was it a natural, kind of like no issues labor, or was it long and extended, traumatic, did something tear, or did you have a C-section? All these things play a role in how long it's gonna take before you get clearance. Now movement early on is okay, and your doctor will tell you this, I'll encourage you to move a little bit.

But even that, people overdo, like I've had clients and friends who, they're like, okay, I can't work out, but I'm gonna just, I'm gonna walk and do stuff around the house and stuff like that and it really hits them hard. It's like no, no, no, just light movement. Light movement meaning like, you know,

very slow, slow scroll. Getting up to do something very, very easy. You don't overburden your body. And this can take a few weeks, or sometimes longer in some people. So light movement is okay, but workouts are very different. And with workouts, you want that clearance.

I saw a really dramatic difference with Katrina. A lot of people don't know this, but we had lost a second baby, right? And right after the first trimester, and so she experienced like this recovery time afterwards, even though she didn't go through full pregnancy and deliver a baby, she actually needed more recovery time

from that than she did the first pregnancy because she was so conditioned in the first, she came, she went into max, having max, really good shape and training really consistent through it, like literally bounced right back relatively quick. She was getting back to her strength. I mean, I think I remember it being about four weeks before she was already kind of hitting the ground, ground running and getting her strength back to her. She kind of was, which was really remarkable. And then the next time she was not off training,

but inconsistent and then what didn't can train as hard going into the pregnancy. So she also, I kept her very moderate during pregnancy because she wasn't training very much going into it. And then so when she went after the miscarriage, she ended up having to really take time off and really go slow. Like remember, we put her on starter and I remember her having to constantly talk to her like, you know, because she had a setback of training. And I was like, that's because you're trying to do too much. You can do back it off.

And so it really makes a huge difference on your conditioning going into the pregnancy and what you were able to maintain is where I would start you coming out of it. Yeah, it's a similar experience with Courtney coming in the second time around too. It was just a more difficult pregnancy. And it was things we had to go through,

lean ups with a lot of activity levels were way lower, second time around, then also afterwards, hormones shifted quite a bit, and it changed her entire profile. And so like working back to find homeostasis again and balance took a bit longer to get there. So we had, and it's just one of those things, like the first one was misleading

because we just thought, oh, it was gonna be a great bounce back. It was like almost immediate with her, but this one was like months and months after that we really had to slowly progress her back. You actually hear people say this all the time, they'll say that no two pregnancies are like, and I think that's, and that's very true.

So, well, and it highlights the point that you made, so that I think it's important getting into this conversation is the doctor will normally give you a very generic. They have, they have the number that they tell you. Yeah, they have a generic say, oh, take six to eight weeks off of anything heavy or this way to, so they'll give you a very generic and put it, boy, it can be dramatically different. The same woman that went through two different pregnancies may have to approach this training routine right now, completely based off of what happened.

So your example and my example are basically the same situation, same woman, but two different pregnancies and the way they went into probably the pregnancy and then what came out of it made a difference on how they had to start. So it's very important that no matter what advice we give right now and we'll do our best to give the best advice is that you got to ultimately listen to your body and you're always better off taking it slower

and then building up to that versus the temptation of, I know I can do this or I've done this before. So rushing to get there, because the beauty is- The beauty of the setback. Yeah, the beauty is everybody ends up taking at least a few weeks off of training. And just taking those few weeks off,

it is not gonna hurt you. And this is what I try to explain to Katrina, because she's just like, starter seems so easy for me. And I'm like, yeah, but actually follow it. I promise you, you're gonna feel it. You'll get better results, because it's more personal. Yeah, and I remember her after a few of the workouts,

she's like, man, you know what, she goes, I was more sore than I thought I was gonna be from that thing, and I was like, yeah, it's because you haven't been training for a while. Well, so my experience, you're looking at four to eight weeks for natural childbirth, nothing really big or traumatic, but it can take much longer. And it's, you know, starting slow is so important

because it's not the same body that you had before. This is the thing that, and I don't mean this in a bad or good way, some of the most fit people I've ever trained in my entire life had multiple kids, it's not that it's a bad thing, it's just, things change and moved, and yes, the baby's out, but muscle recruitment patterns, and the way that your muscle, but muscle recruitment patterns and the way that your muscles fire and stabilize and the way that you move had to change

to make room for baby and to prepare you for childbirth. I mean, there's hormones and things that are released in the body that loosen up your joints. Your transverse abdominis has to stretch and become an atrophy essentially in order to make room. Your core learns how to stabilize differently, you walk and move differently. You have a different body.

So then you have a baby and you gotta go back to the gym and you remember how you worked out before maybe, or how you've moved in the past, forget that. You have a new body and so that's why starting slow is so important. You have to relearn essentially how to move, how to get your body to connect, how to make certain movements feel a particular way.

Otherwise, you'll start to, you'll over do it. It'll be inappropriate. And the point that I'm trying to make here with this is that the right training program, the fastest results, not the hardest one. It's the most appropriate one. Yes, and there's the difference between what you can do and what you should do.

Absolutely. And that's it. I can get away with a lot. I don't mean it's the best thing for me. That's right. And that's the thing I had get away with a lot. I don't mean it's the best thing for me. That's right. And that's the thing I had to keep reminding Katrina is when she was going through starter and she felt, I feel like I can do so much more.

And it's like, I bet you can, but it's not about what you get. This is the perfect dose for you. I mean, trust me, I know you, I know what you've been doing. This is more than what you've been doing for the past six weeks. So this is perfect for you right now. And you're going gonna get results from it just because you know that you can do more, doesn't mean it's what you should necessarily do.

Right, now before we get into workout stuff, I think it's important that we address nutrition a little bit. And this is real important because a lot of women will try to do this is they'll try to go on a cut after having a baby. Okay, time to lose weight. Now this is more common in women who don't breastfeed

because women who breastfeed will notice right away. Ooh, I can't cut my calories too much because I'm not making breast milk. But even then, sometimes I've seen them try to push it. You don't want to go on a cut. You want to nourish and feed your body because what we're gonna do with exercises rebuild your body and rebuilding your body

gets your metabolism where you want it and makes the fat loss easier and more sustainable. If we don't rebuild the body and we go straight into a cut, we're gonna head to slow metabolism land. And you're gonna get that, you know, that's stubborn 10 to 15 pounds, that sticks to my body after each kid and now I can't get it off type of deal.

So don't try to cut. You're not gonna cut for a long time. In fact, my clients that had babies, I wouldn't have them go on a cut, but they would still get leaner because of the building process. Yes. And it wasn't until like eight months, nine months, a year later, that we would maybe start to cut, and they went in such a good position to do so. Yeah, you're going to fight the urge to want to look really amazing, you know, again, as soon as possible and think more in alignment of like, I want a strong, stable, supported body

that I can build off of from here. So it's just fighting that natural urge to just throttle down from every angle of like, lower my calorie intake, do as much high intensity stuff as I can and just race my way there. So we need to build muscle, we need to build strength, and that's going to build your metabolism in order to build, build anything.

You need a calorie surplus. Yep, yep. You gotta give it a huge, yeah, it doesn't have to be a lot, but you gotta feed the body, those things that needs to build that muscle, and if you don't do that, then we're not going to, and like to your point, so we're only gonna be putting ourselves in a worse predicament, two, three months after.

I would get clients like this all the time. I had a baby a year ago, I don't know why I can't, it's not working and I'm eating so little and I'm doing all this activity, it's because they went into a cut right away, they went hardcore into workouts and it's just you're pushing a big boulder up hill and it's impossible.

So don't go into a cut, feed your body, of course, feed it appropriately, make sure you don't have protein, definitely enough fats and carbohydrates as well, but feed your body because we're gonna build. All right, the next point is to use a fisioball. This is one of the cases where I love fisioball training. Fisioball is a big ball, you know,

some people call it yoga ball or a stability ball. It's those big balls that people will sit on and do exercises. Now, I like these because you have to engage your body differently, just to maintain balance, to do an exercise like curls or overhead presses or lateral raises or anything else when you're using the ball. It forces you to engage your core and to stabilize. And this is a crucial time to relearn how to connect to the core muscle. So you're going to relearn how to, and here's the difference between working the core

and connecting to the core with other movements. You can sometimes people, after pregnancy, can try doing sit-ups and stuff like that, but the problem is, how do I engage my core, which no longer is so stretched out while I do all these other activities, because throughout your day, you're picking things up, you're putting things above in the cabinet, and you're moving, you're twisting, the core has to stabilize in order to support all that.

Physioball allows you to engage that and stabilize while you do all these other exercises. So it's a very, very important tool for women after having a baby. It's an incredible tool that's got a terrible rap in the fitness community in the last five to 10 years. I mean, it came out of nowhere, what, 20, 25 years ago, or whatever it was, when it first hit the scene. And then like anything in fitness, we take a little something good and then we abuse the shit out of it. And then it comes the end all be all. And

then now the natural curve of it coming back down again of people being like, oh, that's so stupid. Why would you ever do 90 pound dumbbells? You're just tricks. Or 90 pound dumbbell chest press on the ball, stability ball. You're trying to build strength, you're trying to lift heavy,

that's such a dumb way to do that. Wrong tool. Yeah, it is, exactly. Wrong tool for the wrong situation here, right? We're with a client that just had a baby and core stability, TVA activation, under working on that, now takes a precedence over. Now, now that we don't wanna get stronger,

that is the goal. And yes, we wanna lift more weight and get to that place, but we first wanna make sure that they have that ability to stabilize your core really, really well activate it and be able to do that. And so incorporating the stability ball in a lot of these basic movements that you would normally do on a flat bench or some sort of a machine, this is where this has, I think, tremendous value. And I think it's lost its love.

Yeah, it's also, it also slows you down. You know, when you're on a physio ball, you can't do fast choppy movements. You'll fall off the ball. It encourages slow control movement. Very important at this time of your life. Yeah, to build strength and to, you're going to need to add load inevitably, but you know, you need to first work on your bracing and bracing the core of the TVA. These are things that were just naturally stretched out through the process of pregnancy and to be able to reconnect and to be able to gain that ability to draw into, to be able to brace and support your spine while under load is essential for you and through the longevity of your fitness career.

Yeah, and that kind of brings us to the next point, which is to focus on core connection. How do you focus on that all the time? So you got your workout, you're using your physioball, that's great, but also you're standing online at the grocery store, drawing your belly button, and do a few reps, or tighten and brace your core at the kitchen sink or you're driving, right? Remember to try to connect because the connection is changed. And so for lack of a better term, you've lost connection to some muscles.

That's not really quite what's happening, but it's gonna feel that way. You're gonna notice when you go to draw in, you're like, I can't do that, or I can't squeeze those muscles like I used to. So work on core connection quite frequently because once that connection comes online and is enough to stabilize you

with when you're doing other exercises, then you can start to progressively overload some of this. I know you didn't put this on this list, but I think it falls right here and that's like breath work stuff. I think that's... That's part of core connection. Right, so I think that's...

And this is where like, you know, cold plunge stuff is really cool. I think Justin Adalk highlights a lot how much the Wim Hof breathing method was so powerful for him to work through that while also getting involved in the cold plunge. Cold plunge kind of forces you to work on your breath works. If you're somebody who's like, I don't understand. What do you mean, I breathe every day and I don't understand what you mean by breathing,

working on your pre-tested in the ice bath. Right. And that's one of the things that I love about the ice bath is it forces you to learn how to do that. So if you don't understand what you're trying to do with like box breathing or understand what we're trying to communicate right now, a tool that I think is excellent for that is like a cold plunge.

Yeah, I would go cold shower only because you think postpartum lack of sleep, tired, cold plunge might be a little too much stress out on the body, but a cold shower will do it. And also just belly breathing, just full diaphragmatic breathing. You know what happens when you have a baby is you lose that full diaphragmatic breath because you know, babies in the way.

And so what happens is that diaphragm starts to, it learns to move that way. You gotta retrain it to move the way that it's supposed to move when you don't have a baby. So breath work, very, very important for that core connection. Next would be to work on mobility, but we got to explain mobility really well here because people confuse mobility with range of motion. Yeah. Mobility is range of motion, but being able to connect to having access to that. Yeah, like you can connect to it, not just that you're flexible. And the reason why I'm saying that is Alastin, this is

something this is the name of actually a chemical or a hormone that's released in the body during pregnancy, that is preparing the body for childbirth and it loosens up the joints. And oftentimes, you'll see women who are pregnant, who hurt their tailbone, or they feel pelvic pain, or they feel hip pain, or even post after having the baby, it's because the muscles are their joints and everything's loose and they don't have the strength to support it. or they feel hit pain or even post after having the baby, it's because the muscles are, their joints and everything's loose and they don't have the strength to support it.

So it's not because they're, you know, they necessarily lifted something heavy, just they're moving these ranges of motion they don't own and they have new ranges of motion because they're a little more flexible than they might have been before. So mobility is moving through ranges of motion and connecting.

So this would be like, you know, I'm stretching, but I'm not just sitting there stretching, I'm getting into a stretch and then trying to connect to the muscle that I'm stretching. We have a program called, you know, Prime Pro that helps a little bit about that, but really, an easy way to do this is go full range of motion and slow with exercises. Mobility is range of motion with strength. Yes. At the end of the day, it's usable. So like, not only do you need to be able to have the ability to get into that degree of angle,

but you have to be able to, you know, connect, squeeze the muscle and be able to move in that, be able to lift your arm, be able to, you know, hold weight or just maintain tension within that range of motion. So it's more than just the ability to then get into that and relax in that position. It's also to be able to do work in that position. I mean, we obviously, we don't train clients when I want anymore, but if I was training a client

in this situation, I would actually just prescribe the Prime Pro webinar that I did because I take them through full body. Yeah, that's good. And it's free. Yeah, it's free. It's at home. They can literally do it in their living room. I would prescribe that as something like literally, I just want you to do this. PrimeProWebinar.com.

Yeah, do this a couple times a week and that will really help address everything we're talking about. And along these lines, when you're doing your exercises, you may want to do like this really deep, you know, squat or whatever, only go down as far as you have control over and then you can work from there. But always stay connected. That's the key here with the mobility, postpartum,

is to stay connected through full range of motion. So like I own this whole range of motion, not like, oh, this stuff far as I can stretch. Type of, that's the difference. Also, nothing faster ballistic. Now, I don't know if I necessarily need to communicate this a lot because I think you'll figure this out real quick because you're pelvic floor muscles.

You know, there's, you gotta strengthen them again, postpartum, and doing things faster ballistic, you know, things can happen happen and I've had clients You know tell me that you know that they they pee themselves a little bit if they jump or if they run But it's not just that like even if that doesn't happen to you Your pelvic floor muscles are supporting internal organs and stabilizing and if and because of childbirth and because of pregnancy They're weaker. They're not as connected. And fast-pilic movements can become quite dangerous.

Like the risk of injury goes through the roof because those muscles aren't so stable. Well, it's also the pinnacle of strength training. It's not even the proper order. If we're talking about this person, we're regressing them all the way back to map starter or trying to get them to understand they need to start to relay this foundation.

It's just the wrong order. Like you would never, any client, would never take any client that is deconditioned or just starting with me, and I would let them do anything ballistic or explosive. I mean, that is like at the pinnacle of weight training is that, oh, I've laid a solid foundation with this person after a year, two years,

plus of training with them. Now we can do some fun explosive ballistic type of movements. I would also include in this too, is the things like the Orange Theory classes and the circuit- That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, so high-intensity. So you may not think that's ballistic,

but the running, sprinting on the treadmills, sprinting on the rowers, and doing thing, they do plyometric exercises in there, like avoid that, and you would see that. they do plyometric jumps exercises in there like Avoid that and you would see that it's common that I would see women after pregnancy come to a class like this because they like Meeting up with their friends and they go do it all together and they enjoy it. It's fun and stuff like that

This is definitely not and it's not saying that you can't Eventually get to a classic that if you love doing that and it keeps you consistent, this is not the time to do that at all. Yeah, even slow running. I wouldn't put any I wouldn't even have people do slow running until stabilization is brought back. Yeah, because if you can't do something with good stability slow, all that's going to happen when you do the same thing fast is you're going to make it way worse, right? So if you can't stabilize in a lunge and feel really stable in the course,

stable the way it should and when you twist or whatever, like running, boy, you're asking for trouble. Well, I mean, that takes us to the next point, which is, I mean, I'm prescribing lots of walking, slash hiking, you know, that's what you can do. Like that, you wanna do some good cardiovascular work to be going forward. And walking is great.

It's something we do very naturally. It's something we still practice daily. We still don't live in like, Wally World, we're on these floating devices. So no, but seriously, we still have the skill of walking for the most part. So it's your vitamin D from the sun, be outside with it.

Yeah, there's just a lot of benefits to it. And walk the baby. And walk the baby. Just being active in general, it's just a good practice. And when we say walk, I wanna be careful. Don't treat it like a workout. I mean, you can if you want, but really the best results are gonna come from frequent

just enjoyable walking because frequency is gonna trump over hard and tense like power walking that you do less frequently. So every day you could do, you know, two, 15 to 20 to 30 minute nice strolls around the neighborhood. And those make a big difference when it comes to health and, you know, get to life. I mean, I wouldn't be afraid to go longer if you want.

I mean, because it's a walk, right? Sure. I mean, this is something Katrina and I did this a lot in Max's first six months. She was following like starter and we were doing like this to go out at least twice a day, if not three times a day. Two of them would be sure. One would be really long because we'd push from the straw until he fell asleep. Yeah, that's great. You know,

he fell asleep and we'd walk. It was a great time to connect with your partner. That's a time where her and I are communicating. He's sleeping in the stroller. I'm getting my steps in. It's nice. It's easy on our body to be able to do that. So yeah, multiple times a day, that to me, that's your form of cardiovascular training for now, before we start to push the body at all. Now, when you are going back to the gym and you are training, you're better off training

the full body in a workout than you are doing like one or two body parts for a few different reasons. One, and this is actually the most important, even though it might not sound like it, but the odds of missing a workout, first of all, are high for most people, but really high when you just have a baby, okay? So if you're scheduling three workouts a week

and they're all full body and you miss one, that's okay, you still hit the whole body twice that week. Now, if you're doing like a split where you're training somebody parts on this day, somebody parts on that day, somebody parts on that day, and you miss a workout, like those day, somebody parts on that day, somebody parts on that day, and you miss that workout. Like those areas never got touched for that week. So that's the most important.

Second is the body, especially postpartum. It really works best if you train the whole thing at the same time. So what we're trying to do besides building muscle and look good and speed up the metabolism is to get the body to move well together. And full body workouts, I mean, in a 45 minute workout, I mean, you train the whole body, that's partially what you're training, is you're getting the whole body to move together.

I mean, I think the best point you're making there is the one that is probably most realistic, which is the fact that you may not have three days every single week. Right. Because there's the other thing that we'll always communicate and talk about, is like listening to your body,

and we all know we've been through this with our wives is, you know, that it's unpredictable. What kind of kid you're going to have, you know, are you going to have the kid that keeps you up all night long and you get horrible sleep all time and maybe you get a little bit of relief once or twice a week on those days, you are those weeks, that might be just a lot of walking. And one day, you've got to train full body, and that's it. And you have to learn to work with your body, your schedule, your baby, what's going on. And having the flexibility of knowing that, hey, if I'm getting a full body workout every single week,

I'm at least doing something, still moving in the right direction as far as building my body back and strengthening it. And then on those good weeks, where he or she actually sleeps for you a little bit, you get two or three workouts in. And so I think that is probably the most important point to make with this and understanding that, even though you might have a goal of going three times a week, learning to be flexible with that base off of your sleep and your feeding and all those other things.

Yeah, totally. And then rep ranges, people always ask me about rep ranges. I like higher reps, postpartum, you know, 12 to 15, maybe even 20, because there's a little bit of strength stamina that we want to focus on that has to do with the stability. And also the type of force you need to generate and brace and how we tend to push when we're lifting low reps doesn't lend itself well to pelvic floor muscles that maybe need to generate and brace and how we tend to push when we're lifting low reps. Doesn't lend itself well to pelvic floor muscles that maybe need to strengthen again

or cores being unstable. Have your weight if your form is off. You're more likely to hurt yourself with heavier weight than you are with lightweight. So I always like to keep the reps around 12 to 15 on average with when I with my clients for at least six months postpartum. Yeah, it's just a better strategy in terms of like being able to have a better gauge on intensity

because you can still, you know, get all the benefits. It's just a different adaptation. You're seeking by going more of the high reps route and, you know, it's great because of the fact that you're not loading a ton of weight as you would with the lower reps and it would kind of expose a lot of instability that you're still working on. Well, it's a risk versus rewarding for me. I mean, it's another thing where I'm always going to lean on the, you know, moving slower and taking less risk right now with this client as we progress through.

And it's like, I know that lifting you in the 10 to 15 rep range, we're gonna get plenty of benefits and adaptation and strength just from doing that. Sure, you can make the case and argue that if we were lifting a five by five routine, we would build more strength faster, but at the potential of that person, not being able to brace their core properly

or their joints being all loose. And just why would I do that with that client when I know that I'm going to get Plenty of benefits by training them 10 to 15 rep range right now And then we can progress later on into a more heavy loaded type of yeah, and you know, you know This is interesting too. So I mean Jessica experienced this it's like when she would go to lift heavier in the and she's a trainer Right so in the workout good form everything feels good I think it was great and then the day after she's a trainer, right? So in the workout, good form, everything feels good. I think it was great. And then the day after, she's like, my hip hurts or my back hurts, my shoulder hurts, what's going on? It's like, it's like, listen, you know, your body isn't stabilizing the way it used to. So it's hard for you to gauge what feels

right with heavier weight. It's better to do it with lighter weight and learn how to reconnect, build some of that strength stamina, which happens at the higher reps. And as far as building muscle is concerned, there's no difference. You're going to build just as much muscle and speed of metabolism, just like you would with the other rep ranges. It's just a better rep range for this particular period right here. Now, this last one has more to do with lifestyle than anything. And I found this to be a very effective strategy for my clients when they first had a baby. And that is to aim for the short, frequent workouts. So when you just have a baby,

now we're talking lifestyle, okay? You just had a baby. Like, like I take naps, if you're breastfeeding, breastfeeding is a big deal. So every other couple of hours, they're on you. And it's not like they're on you every two hours. They're on you and they breastfeed for a certain period of time, it's two hours from when they started. So in reality, it's like an hour, every hour and a half or so,

you're breastfeeding. Maybe they don't sleep well, you got stuff going on. It's like taking a full hour to work out. I mean, a lot of people can make that happen, but that can be very challenging, but you can find 15 minutes at a time. And in 15 minutes, you could do two or three sets of an exercise. You stringed two or three of these together in a day.

You just did 30 to 45 minutes of working out. Yeah, it's just the more efficient use of your time because of all those interruptions. It'd be great if everything lines up and you could go for a longer type of a workout. But I have to be realistic at this point. Plus, the more frequently you do these smaller workout sessions, you know, it's one of those things that it solidifies the habit quite a bit more and it's, you build momentum with it, which is great.

This is what Katrina calls one of the greatest mom hacks that she has found from us. I don't remember what episode where we first talked about this, but it gave me permission to take the workouts. And it didn't matter. She says what routine I was following at that time, because she still follows these principles today, because obviously she's still a mother have with a three year old at home, right?

And what she does is she opens our garages right there as you enter into our kitchen, and then the dining and living rooms All right, all one big room, right? And so she keeps the door braced open with a dumbbell and she and Max can be playing with his cars and toys and she'll go do a set And then she comes back and she loves this idea and then if all said he needs a lot more attention Getting set up and she has to take a break for a half hour hour in her workout, that's okay. This idea that we've traditionally always taught people like, oh, you're our workout,

you know, because everything talks about it. It's like you can get the same benefits or more potentially from taking that same exact workout you do an hour and breaking up over these small micro workouts all day. And she never dawned on her that that was something she could do. She assumed that, oh, because I'm not sweating, it's not burning as much, it's not as difficult. Am I not getting the same benefits? And I'm like, no, you're getting as good a benefits,

maybe arguably better benefits, because you have these long breaks and feeds and everything in between, you might even have more strength as the workout continues to progress. And so she's been like, oh my God, it was just so awesome that I could go, oh, I'm just gonna go do three sets of squats real quick. And then I'm done with that.

And then I give it back to Max for an hour. Oh, then he goes down for a nap. Now you put 20 minutes together and like, so this is how she trains to this day is that this these micro workouts. And I think that that's such a great mom slash pregnancy type of. Oh, it's, it's massive and you said it. All things being equal, you don't get worse results. You get at least the same results you get when your whole workout is done

all together. In fact, some studies actually suggest and Adam said this, you might actually get better results. You know, Olympic weightlifters in the Soviet Union would use this strategy and would kick everybody's ass. I've experimented with this not because I had to but because I want to take my strength in the next level. And it's actually quite remarkable. It was more inconvenient for me. It was actually more convenient for me to take a full hour, which is why I don't do it all the time, but it works out just great. So what you could do literally is you could have a physical ball and a pair of dumbbells and you put them there in the corner. And if you have 10 minutes, boom, do three sets of an

exercise and then go back to what you were doing. Oh, I got another 15 minutes, boom, do it, maybe two exercises and do some sets. And then and throughout the day, you add up the time, you did a full workout. So these frequent workouts because of their, the how easy they are to inject into your day, you tend to work out more and more consistently when you do it this way. In fact, we have a program called Map Starter with the Physioball and dumbbells. That's all you use.

So you can literally set it aside and do some of it. Go back to your day and then, oh, do some more. Go back to your day and so on. It works phenomenally well. Look, if you like our information, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out some of our guides. We have free guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goals, all free. Go check them out. You can also find us on social media. Justin is on Instagram at MindPump. Justin, Adam is on Instagram at MindPump Adam and you can find me on Twitter at MindPump.com. Thank you for listening to MindPump.

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