How safe is lifting heavy weights postpartum?
This is one of those questions I get asked a lot. I spoke about this on the Healthy Post Natal Body podcast dated the 3rd of December 23, and you can listen to the segment here if you prefer.
For those of you who like a little 2 minute read instead;
One of the things doctors often tell newly postpartum women to avoid doing is “lifting anything heavy” and, though well intentioned, it truly is quite terrible advice.
What we want to focus on post-partum is strengthening up and the ONLY way to do that is by introducing some resistance element to your exercise.
Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean you should pick up a barbell and add 60Kg tomorrow but lifting heavy things is actually a very valuable tool in your postpartum recovery.
Doing things in the right order;
A post-partum program should always start with the “muscle activation” stage; making sure the right muscles do the right things at the right time.
It’s not just about getting a weight off the ground, in fact that’s the least interesting bit, it’s making sure you’re using the correct muscles when performing an exercise (or any function).
After that it’s about strength and conditioning. Making sure the muscles are strong enough to do what you need to do and do it for long enough.
For most postpartum women there are 2 goals when it comes to post-partum recovery;
1; Making sure everything functions as well as, or better than, it did prenatal
And
2; Injury prevention.
Does this look familiar?
The first point kind of speaks for itself; You want to feel as nice, strong and confident postpartum as you did prenatal. Part if this requires making sure everything works as well as it did prenatal. This is the reason most women get in touch with me postpartum.
But there is an almost more important goal; To stay injury free.
How many mums do you know who constantly talk about back and neck pain or pelvic girlde pain? How many constantly “feel sore and stiff from having to carry the baby”. How many talk about doing their backs in by lifting a toddler and a travel system at the same time?
Your postpartum coach/trainer/program has to contain exercises that prepare your body for life with a toddler, and that includes lifting heavy things.
As most mums will know, just because a child CAN walk doesn’t mean they will. And a child who decides to just lie on the floor and be a deadweight is the heaviest thing known to man.
Now we could send you on a “lifting safely at work” course where they tell you to just “lift with your legs” OR we can train your body up, and strengthen your muscles up, in a way that will allow you to deal with situations like that without any issues.
Resistance training is a vital component of this;
There are many ways to add a resistance element to your training. The HPNB program starts by using resistance bands for convenience, and to keep costs down.
Later in the program we tend to give examples of dumbbell or kettlebell exercises that all serve a specific purpose. And, of course, there are various bodyweight resistance exercises as well.
The main reason I didn’t include a whole bunch of barbell exercises is not because they’re not safe to do, it’s because a lot of people don’t have access to them. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with using a barbell to get your lifts in.
Once your body moves in the right way, your muscles do the right thing at the right time, and your breathing is on point, then you can go and grab a barbell. Just start off at a lighter weight and work up to whatever your goal weight is.
I have seen women whom were 6 months postpartum deadlift 1.5x their bodyweight quite comfortably (and without a belt!!) And that helped their diastasis recti recovery!
You can not make your diastasis worse by performing an exercise correctly.
I will repeat that as a lot of coaches say different things here; If you perform an exercise correctly you CAN NOT make your diastasis worse!. This goes for planks, crunches, deadlifts, running and even kettlebell classes.
The only time women have “made their diastasis worse” by exercising is by asking too much from their body and not performing an exercise correctly. If you take a huge breath and then hold that breath whilst you deadlift you increase the internal pressure on your core, which is not great. If however you grab that big heavy barbell, breathe in at the top, then exhale and properly engage your core on the lift you’re actually strengthening your core up, And that’s exactly what we want to be doing!
This does not mean that you need to lift very heavy weights if you want to heal your diastasis.
You can heal it by doing lighter weights than 1.5x your bodyweight, of course, I’m just saying that you can safely lift huge weights and still help your recovery.
And in an ideal world you will do that lifting across several planes of motion and in a dynamic way, like below, so that you teach your body to get strong and move well through life.
Go lift heavy and be happy 🙂
Peter
