Post-Pregnancy Fitness: 3 Simple Exercises For New Mums

By Body Beyond Birth‘s Becky Dyer

As mums, we understand how crazy busy life is, so we’ve made all our workouts around 20 minutes long so you can squeeze them into the cracks of your day. You don’t need an hour a day to exercise, gym membership or fancy equipment.

Start with baby steps and if that means you really can only find five or ten minutes a day for yourself to walk, do squats, or dance, then start there. Also, don’t overlook incidental exercise – take those stairs, walk instead of driving, stand instead of sitting. It all adds up.

Find simple and safe exercises to help new mums feel strong and healthy:

1. Quadruped plank for core strengthening

As a mum, if you do one strengthening exercise a day, it should be one for your core. It’s time to get your pilates on and strengthen those deep abdominal muscles.

SET-UP: Get down on your hands and knees, hands beneath shoulders, knees beneath hips, spine in a neutral position and lengthen through the back of the neck with your eye line just past fingertips.

ACTION: Gently draw your navel toward your spine, then lift your knees off of the floor approximately 1-2cm. Hold this position for 10 seconds and keep breathing! Repeat five reps, once a day.

NOTE: If this hurts your wrists, make a fist and go up on your knuckles for the plank, keeping wrists in-line with fists. Still no good? Modify by going onto your forearms.

2. ‘Perfect’ squats for backyard strengthening

Having strong legs and butt helps protect your back from injury.

SET UP: Stand up tall with feet spread hip-width apart, hands resting near sides.

ACTION: Draw navel to spine and maintain a neutral spine position. Keep tummy drawn in towards your spine the whole time. Initiate the squat by sticking the butt out and bending the knees. Squat as low as you can while maintaining your neutral spine, with no knee pain. Your knees should track toward your second toe, so don’t go cowboy or knock-kneed on me! Knees do not go past your toes. When you squat, hands reach forward toward chest height with arms extended. Return to tall standing then repeat. Repeat 2-3 sets of 10 reps each day.

3. Sneaky exercise

We all need to move as much as possible throughout our day but when we’re busy, it’s hard to squeeze in exercise. The best way to exercise without making it too hard is incidental exercise – a fancy word for movement with a purpose! My sneak-it-in exercise is walking instead of driving, always taking the stairs, standing/sitting with good posture, and playing with my kids.

Daily mummy muscle exercises

1. Quadruped plank 10 seconds x 5 reps
2. Squats 10 reps x 2-3 sets
3. Walk, stand/sit tall, play Make it a new habit!

Source: medibank.com.au