Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2790: How To Get in Shape After Having a Baby

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

How To Get in Shape After Having a Baby How To Get in Shape After Having a Baby. (1:36) 1. The best work happens before you get pregnant. (2:13) 2. Strength training is the key. (8:05) 3. Walk. (16:43) 5. Go SLOWER than you think. (17:38) 4. Eat to nourish, not to change body composition. (18:55) 6. Hire a good trainer. (20:51) 7. Be patient. (23:14) Related Links/Products Mentioned Postpartum Guide – Visit: https://www.mapspostpartum.com  February Promotion: Feb 1 - Feb 14th - The Couple's Bundle (Aesthetic, HIIT, Muscle Mommy, No BS 6-Pack Abs), $498 value, only $197!  Visit: https://www.mpvalentine.com  Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP Buy one, get one 50% off for new customers, and 20% cash back for returning customers! ** Mind Pump Store Mind Pump #1375: How to Train Before, During & After Pregnancy Mind Pump #1882: How to Safely Train After Having a Baby Mind Pump #1835: Why Resistance Training Is the Best Form of Exercise for Fat Loss and Overall Health Mind Pump #2402: The 5 Reasons Why Walking is King for Fat Loss (Burn More Fat than Running & How to Do it Correctly) Mind Pump #2385: Five Reasons Why You Should Hire a Trainer Pregnancy's impact on the body lasts far longer than we realised Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Mind Pump Fitness Coaching (@mindpumppersonaltraining) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we talk about how to get in shape after having a baby. Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Legion.

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We have a new workout program bundle. It's the couples bundle. It includes MAPS aesthetic, Maps Hit, Maps Muscle Mommy, and the no BS six-pack formula. Go check it out. Go to MP Valentine.com. All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at Mindpump's. Store.com. I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to Mind PumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. One of the most challenging times in your fitness journey is probably right after you had a baby. This is very difficult.

Now, luckily, we've trained people for decades and a significant percentage of our clients were women who had babies postpartum training. Now, you've got to do it right. There are specific ways to apply exercise, to approach nutrition. And there are specific things you should expect and not expect if you want to be successful. If you do this right, it's great. If you do it wrong, it could be a total disaster. So we're going to talk about this right now. How to get in shape after having a baby. The biggest key, in my opinion, to this is what we do before. Always. Always. Makes a big difference. Setting yourself up for pregnancy is far easier than trying to get into fitness or get into shape. while pregnant or after pregnancy.

You could do it. Oh, yeah, of course. And if you're really setting yourself up well, and if you're thinking about this because you're thinking about having a baby, what you do before you get pregnant makes such a big difference in your recovery, how fast you get in shape, your delivery,

the health of your body during and after makes a huge difference. I think a lot of this, muscle is so protective. once you build the muscle, it takes very minimal to keep the muscle. And so if you do that, it's pro metabolic for you. So calories and stuff like that. So there's so many things that going into pregnancy, if we do a really good job of building muscle, building your metabolism,

getting you strong, that you can really get away with or like, you know, you can reduce the volume and intensity and frequency throughout the pregnancy. significantly if you go in that way and still come out really, really in a good position versus not at all and then trying to figure it out or trying to get it going while you're pregnant. Yeah, definitely those, but also too, like I think there's a lot of information out there that really hipes up getting back into shape quickly after having a kid, which, you know, I always have to kind of calm down and slow down that momentum to really allow the body to heal properly. but then also work with your body.

So to do it the right way to set yourself up. So, you know, you have success, like, going into the future. You guys, both your wives have had multiple pregnancies. I only went through one with Katrina. And it's been a while, especially for Justin, you more recent. Was there a big difference between the two pregnancies as far as how your wives went in, how they came out? I can only speak to the one that Katrina had.

So I know what we did. But there was a difference because we, Jessica got pregnant two years after having Aurelius. So, and so that's right at the, and we'll talk about this later, but it takes longer than you think to get things back to quote unquote normal. It's a really bad way to describe it. But social media would have you believe otherwise. It actually takes a lot longer than they'll try to advertise. But if you have kids back to back to back to back within a year, especially a year or two years, each success of one gets a little bit more difficult because it's like you just got over recovering and starting to feel good and then you get have another one so that was the big difference that I noticed what about you Justin?

Yeah, so the preparation going in was pretty similar, but the actual pregnancy themselves were totally different. And so the second one was was definitely more challenging and there was complications. And so she wasn't really like as physically able to still kind of maintain, you know, muscle and do like exercises quite as intensively is the first time she was pregnant because, yeah, so Ever was basically like a twin. And so, you know, we went through that process. But, you know, the recovery of it took a lot longer the second time. Yeah, it's, I've trained a lot of women through this process. And if you do it right, it's actually quite smooth. I'm not going to say it's easy.

It's smooth. If you do it wrong, oh, man, it gets really difficult. And I've seen a lot of women that have done this the wrong way, where they hurt themselves. Injuries are really common postpartum. Your body changes radically during the pregnancy period. Radically, you have, everything gets looser. Your core muscle activation changes, dramatic. Obviously, growing baby changes how your muscle recruitment patterns work.

Your pelvic floor changes with its recruitment patterns. And just jumping into exercise, you're not like you were before. You have to train your body to get it where it was. Not to mention all the stuff that people don't talk about. Like, you just had a baby. You're not getting good sleep. Maybe you're nursing. That changes things quite a bit hormonally and on the demands on you.

And then just the responsibilities that happen afterwards. But again, if you do it right, it's a far smoother process. Now, of course, the best work happens before. And building muscle is the best way to set this up. So muscle is very protective. Okay, so fitness in general is great. But actually having physical muscle on your body is very protective. It's protective on your joints.

It helps with insulin sensitivity or blood sugar. So you avoid things, more likely to avoid things like gestational diabetes. you're also stronger, which makes childbirth a lot easier. Muscle sticks around relatively well in comparison to other adaptations from exercise, where you lose stamina very quickly, whereas muscle kind of sticks around a little bit, especially if you do a little bit to keep it there. So if you could set yourself up by building strength and muscle,

not getting lean, this is where people make a mistake, well, I'm going to have a baby and you get real fit and lean. No, no, no. The best way to set up for pregnancy is to get strong. And in fact, getting too lean will make it hard to get pregnant. So you want to go in there with like a healthy body fat percentage, but most women get pregnant well right in the mid-20s. So not even super, you're not even in the leaner area of 20s.

And then build some muscle and that sets you up. Strength training is still key postpartum. This is the best way to exercise postpartum for a couple reasons. One, strength training is highly, highly individualizable. or modifiable. It's so modifiable that physical therapists use strength training to rehab people from injury or surgery. And NFL coaches use strength training to make, you know, high-level professional athletes

stronger. It's just how you apply it and what you do. So you can individualize it to your body, regardless of your fitness level and strength and how your body feels and this workout, this exercise doesn't feel good or whatever. So it's very, very modifiable. also very impactful when you consider the time it takes for where you strength train to cause changes in your body in comparison to other forms of exercise. Other forms of exercise require more time to produce these kind of favorable changes. Strength training requires in comparison remarkably little time.

Yeah. Remarkably little. Well, it's the only one that really like helps to recalibrate a lot of the elasticity that the muscles and ligaments go through. So strength training itself will really help you to regain that connection to, you know, to movement again. I really wish that I could convince my wife to come on here and talk about this whole process. I think of all the years we've been together. This is one of the things that made me fall deeper in love with her. I knew for a very long time that she was this entrepreneur.

into business and into sports and a lot of similarities. This is why we got along so well. Complete transparency, I always kind of wondered in the back of my head. Like, oh, if I get this, like, chick that's really into business, all the things like this, will she also be this, like, motherly type, you know, and will she switch over that way? And to watch her switch and take all of her competitive athlete strengths and apply it in the direction of pregnancy and motherhood was, was, like,

absolutely like so cool to watch her do this. I mean, and the minute that we decided that we were going to try and get pregnant, like it was on. It was like everything from like up into that point, I'd never seen her care about like she's never care to get jacked and shredded like I did or like to die at that hard. But when it became time that we're fueling this baby and I'm prepping for this nine

month pregnancy and have this child like her, discipline around how she fueled, how she trained, how she prioritized sleep, like all those things. It was like so cool to watch. And then when I watch it all unfold, and I've trained a lot of people, right? So I've seen that never experienced living with somebody who's going through that. So it was a different perspective for me. But I've had it. We've all had lots of clients that we've trained through pregnancy. And I'm sure we can all talk about ones that we saw do a really good job. from that view to get a front row seat of somebody like literally checking all the boxes. It was so cool to see.

And again, I wish she could come on and express what it was like for her. Because I know it wasn't easy. Like I know that there's times when, you know, nauseous or tired and like I watched her go through all that stuff. But I also watched her like with this like, this is like nine months of my life that's going to be hard. And I'm going to do this thing. And I can do hard things. and be consistent with it. Yeah, and then I'm,

and then the, the results of the recovery time, the health of the delivery, the, how the baby, all those things was, I felt so blessed. And it was like,

man, that I think so much of that. And I think going into that, uh, with that, with that attitude of like, I'm going to be very, uh,

uh, intenseful, like, I'm going to go into this with intention and go, these, I have a plan. I'm going to follow. through it. Yes, it's going to be hard. Yes, these things. But I know that I'll be rewarded for doing these hard things through this process.

I think one of the mistakes that we have to talk about is there's a lot of women that after having a baby, they're like, I'm ready to, I got to go back to the gym or I got to get in shape now. Yeah, too early. And this is how much strength training is appropriate for most women postpartum, about two days a week. Maybe three, but usually two. Well, this is why we recommend map starter. Right. The program, even for someone who is... I mean, more than what I said is almost always too much. Yeah. It's almost always going to make you not feel good and kind of hurt and you're going to pull muscles and just not feel good or have the energy or not get the results.

It's about two days a week, maybe three, but one of those days is really easy. It's about two days a week. It's way less than you think. And then the strength, the reason why it's key, what I said earlier, is you don't need a lot to start to get your body to change. And what you'll notice, you just start to get stronger. Yeah, you'll make progress. That's the thing.

Yes. But you have to allow both things to happen to adapt and also to heal. So, you know, you don't want to take too much stress in the exercise, you know, away from the actual healing. The hardest part for me with Katrina was telling her to not to not do more. Like she wanted to do more. Because you feel like you can. Yeah, yeah. She felt good, right?

Because she trained all the way up until damn near the week that we had Max. but then she had, I think, I want to say it was six to eight weeks. I think she was told nothing, nothing can do anything. And so it was somewhere in that long time frame, six to eight weeks that she didn't do any sort of exercise whatsoever. And then she was ready. And then I started her in MAP starter. And, you know, within two weeks of doing MAP starter, she's like, I want to do anabolic.

I want to do it like, she, and I'm like, no, like, you're fine. And what I'm trying to explain to her, it's like, man, just six, eight weeks ago, you were still strength training and you're you doing this is enough you're going to be fine like you've you did all the hard work all leading up to this don't worry you're like yeah and and i can understand where she's coming from because her body feels and looks so different and because what she just went through and it feels like i want to get right back to where i was before and it's like don't worry rush the process then it'll set it'll set you back it sets you back i love physio ball uh physical ball's strength training for postpartum.

I love physio balls for this reason right here. And you don't feel this, by the way. You might feel this for some things. But a lot of times you don't notice this. Muscle recruitment patterns are different. And you need to learn how to reconnect. And a physical ball kind of forces that. So when I'm sitting on a physio ball rather than a bench,

while I'm doing, let's say, a shoulder press, because I have to balance on the ball, and it's not intense, not like I'm sitting there trying to, but things have to activate to stabilize my body. If I'm doing a one-arm dumbbell row And instead of putting my hand on a bench I put my hand on a physio ball There's stability that's involved

If I have my back on it while I'm pressing Or use it for leg exercises There's a stability component That requires me to reconnect to my muscles Because if you don't do this The injury rate postpartum is really high Because of this difference in recruitment patterns It's happened to my wife many times

Where she would come back I feel strong Oh my God, I thought this felt light and now my back hurts. Like what's going on? Yeah. And it's like these recruitment patterns aren't like they used to be.

They'll get there. Physio ball-based strength training is a great way to do. This was my favorite tool post-part. Oh, especially bridging on it, like you said, pressing movements where they have to bridge. Yep. And that is just such a good.

That's why we recommend starter tends to be the program that we recommend. And even though, like I said, she was feeling stronger and wanted to do more, I had to pull the reins back quite a bit and remind her. said that because a lot of times, like, oh, I feel like, oh, yeah, yeah. If, if you would have just let, if I would have just let her do what she want to do,

she would have done more because she felt like, hey, I'm strong and I'm good. And what I was constantly talking, I was like, you don't need to. I said, it's been eight weeks, six, eight weeks since you've done anything. This is, to your body again, it's a novel stimulus and you're going to build muscle. You're going to start getting back. There's no reason for you to do anymore. It's only increasing risk. That's right.

And what's great about strength training is it positively influences the metabolism, which means you'll, your body will burn more calories on its own versus having to manually try to burn the calories like you would if you just did elliptical or treadmill every single day. Now that being said, it is good to be active every single day. Walking is the best form of exercise.

Not running, nothing else. If you like to swim, that's cool, but that's inconvenient for a lot of people. Walking. And I like walking for postpartum because it just so happens to work perfectly with the fact that I have a baby, put them in the stroller and go for a walk.

So all of my postpartum clients I would encourage them to walk several times a day. And this is what they were like, well, that's perfect because I think I'd like to take my baby on a walk several times a day. And this became their daily activity. Baby would take an nap. I go for a walk. I get my steps in.

And then I strength train twice a week. It was a wonderful combination. It's really like reflective, active recovery. So it's like that level of intensity because we want blood flow and we want to contract muscles. But really, we want it to restore. the body and to get you reconnected. Reconnecting with your body at this point is the utmost importance. And think about it this way.

So you got to go slower than you think with all of this. The strength training, the walking, all of this. Think of it this way. I need to get my body to heal and recover. Now, I know the doctor says six weeks. That's not what I'm talking about. Yeah, that's like the acute healing. The healing process takes a lot longer.

Yeah. It takes a lot longer. for, I mean, they've done studies on this now. And in social media, we'll have you believe otherwise. But most women that I've trained, they did, and they did great, that, you know, we got great results

and they look fit and all that stuff, you know, eight months later, a year later. But it wasn't until year two when they were like, okay, I feel like I did before. This is when I feel 100% like I did before. So it takes a lot longer. And so I'm only saying this because if you go in with expectations, like you see some fitness influencers on social

media who were like, oh, I just had my baby four months ago. Look at me. I'm shredded. And you're like, okay, cool. I can get after it. No, that's never the case. Never the case. With every single female, and they trained with me. So they got a professional trainer. It takes about two years of doing things right and whatever to where you're like, man, I feel like I did before. So you got to go slower than you think. And if you go faster than you should, you'll set yourself back. And that's the thing to consider. Now with diet, here's the attitude with diet. If you approach your postpartum diet with the attitude of I'm going to change my body composition, I'm going to lose weight, you will fail. You're going to fail. You have a baby. You're probably not getting good sleep. Maybe you're breastfeeding. This is a recipe for disaster.

Instead, here's the mentality. I'm going to eat to nourish. And here's the side effect of that. You actually get great results every single time. So eat to nourish your body. What makes me feel good? what is going to be good for baby if I'm breastfeeding this typically looks like almost always looks like whole natural foods high protein, healthy fats

fruits and vegetables I eat when I'm hungry I don't eat until I'm stuffed I eat until I'm satisfied I don't eat things that give me indigestion if I look at something well it's probably not healthy

I'll stay away from that but I'm still hungry so I'm gonna go eat this healthy thing if you eat to nourish the rest of it takes care of itself if you eat for fat loss or body composition it's a fail it'll backfire almost every time.

I'll say it another way. Most clients at this phase say things like, or trying to eat to lose fat, you should be eating to build muscle. Yeah. That's the goal right now. Which will give you more fat loss. Post baby, we are not thinking,

I need to eat to lose this baby fat. We should be eating to build muscle. And that is not the normal thing that you hear. The normal thing that you hear is, I want to get rid of this baby weight, and they hire a coach, and they think diet, I need to cut calories or reduce. The strategy right now is not cut calories and try and lose weight.

It's let's build muscle. Totally. Building muscle will speed up the metabolism and it will actually make you leaner. You'll get the leaner part. You'll get the leaner part. But it's the better, smarter strategy to do it in a much healthier way. And so switch that mindset of I need to lose this baby weight to I need to build some muscle right now. And that should be the focus.

Totally. And here's another thing. If this is feasible for you, the best investment you can make in terms of your health, physical health, your fitness, and even including your mental health, and the data supports this as well. Like one of the best ways to combat depression, anxiety, postpartum blues, or even postpartum depression, exercise is remarkable. Properly applied exercise is remarkable with this.

So it's a good investment. Hire yourself an experienced good trainer. Now notice I said, experienced and good. So there's a lot of trainers out there. There's not a lot of good trainers, unfortunately. And of the good ones, not all of them have experience working with women who've had a baby. Now, this typically looks like, and I hate this stereotype, but unless you hire a coach for Mind Pump, because we know we have really good coaches, if I was talking to a friend of mine in another state,

and they were like, I'm looking for, I just had my baby, you know, three months ago, I need to hire a good trainer. And I don't know anybody in that area. And they said, what should I look for? I must say look for a female trainer who's already had kids who has experienced training postpartum clients. So I hate to stereotype, but typically they're the best at training this type of client. Insider knowledge. Because they've experienced it and they've trained other clients with it and then they've had kids themselves.

That's not to say there aren't good male trainers that are good at this. I was good at this. I know you guys were as well. Yeah, but I didn't get good until I train a bunch of people. That's right. That's right. I'd come out the gates good. Right, right.

So good because I've trained a lot. That's kind of like, there's a lot of ways to find a good trainer. But this is one of the things, like, do they have kids of themselves? Have they worked with lots of women who've had babies? In fact, oftentimes trainers are good at this will advertise it. I specialize in training postpartum women. This is a specialty. It is a specialty.

It's very different from normal fitness training and normal diet advice and all that stuff. And stay with group training. Terrible. Good point. Thank you for saying that. By the way, that happens a lot. By the way, that feeds right into what I was saying. because the common thing is lose this baby weight.

Go join my favorite group X, Orange Theory, F-45 type of class. Terrible strategy right here. It's a recipe for disaster. Eat to build muscle and train to get strong. That is what we're doing. And slower is better. Real solid strength training is all looking at it.

Yes. And lastly, be patient. I said this earlier. This is time and time again. In fact, now we have studies to support this. but your body isn't quote unquote back to itself for about two years. That doesn't mean you're not making fitness progress. You're not getting strong.

You don't feel amazing. You don't look amazing if you're consistent a year out. But you'll know. You'll know because you'll be a year out. You'll be fit and you'll be like, but I'm still, still don't feel like I used to. It takes about two years. So be very patient with yourself. If you rush this process, it's going to backfire.

It'll take longer. It's going to backfire. You just grew a human. So, you know, let's be patient and calm down and take your time with it and you'll get great, great results. Now, here's what we did. We had our trainers here at Mind Pump. So we have trainers and coaches at work here and they're amazing. And we had them put together a postpartum guide.

Okay. And it's free. It's mapspostpartum.com. Go there. Get the guide. It's free. It'll help you with this entire process. It breaks everything down.

At least you'll have a guide to follow. And again, I want to say this again, if you do it right, it's a good. smooth process. So it's not as scary as you may think it is. Do it right and it's going to be awesome. You can also find us on Instagram. You can find us at Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin

to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin, as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now, plus other valuable free resources at mind pumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support. And until next time, this is Mind Pump.