What’s the best post natal exercise program?

Hi all,

I received an email a few months ago, before launching Healthy Post-Natal Body, and the writer asked me the above question.

She had been looking into Post-Natal exercise programs for a while now but was confused as to which program was the best, and the best value.

So I did a little comparison for her;

In one corner we had the Mutu-system, arguably the most well-established/most sold post-natal program out there. Basically this is a 12-week Core and Restore program focusing on Diastasis Recti repair. Cost $194. In my opinion Mutu is an excellent program but just too expensive for a standard 12-week program. At 50k copies sold you’d think they can drop the price a little bit, no?

In the other there is Jessie Mundell’s Floor and Core program. At $97 it definitely is a lot cheaper than the Mutu-system. It’s an 8-week program and it really is quite good. You can supplement this by adding her 6 month “To Pregnancy and Beyond” program for $350. Jessie knows what she’s doing and is an excellent instructor. If you have $450 kicking about you could do a lot worse than spending it with her. It’s a fair bit of money though.

Then we have free resources such as YouTube. I love YouTube trainers, I do. I think there are some excellent ones out there; Jeff Cavaliere, Scott Herman, Funk Roberts etc. are superb. For generic exercise videos you can go onto YouTube and you’ll find some excellent stuff. There are 2 problems with YouTube; 1; You probably don’t know who’s good at their job and who isn’t. And people that explain a lot of stuff in their videos usually create a 5 minute video for 1 exercise. You’d have to sit through quite a few videos before you’re even close to having a full workout.

The problem is that most of the Post-Natal videos are not great. Most of them are work-alongs; “20-minute Post-Natal workout” and all that.  I tend not to do work-along videos because I’m not a big fan of them. The problem with work-along videos is that the instructor is showing you an exercise and quite often does not explain the exercise. Or, when they do explain is, their breathing is all over the place because they are talking and exercising at the same time. I know I keep banging on about the importance of breathing for core functionality but it really is very important. When I talk through an exercise, such as the squat, I automatically start exhaling at the end of the exercise rather than through it. And you know how bad that is when we’re looking to fix Diastasis Recti, core functionality, pelvic floor issues etc.

I didn’t want to single anyone running their own YouTube channel out but the below is an eHowhealth one so that doesn’t count. And they titled it “how to lose that belly fat and love handles after having a baby” so they can F off, right there.

This is a prime example of a terrible video for Post-partum women to be looking at. Not nearly enough explanation, she’s just banging through the exercises, she doesn’t say anything about being careful doing crunching motions and her breathing is all over the shop. I almost cry a little when I see trainers like this training women who have just given birth.

As you have probably noticed, there wasn’t a 4th corner. There just wasn’t anything out there that slotted in in between the expensive programs and the swamp of free crappy ones. And this is what has been frustrating me for years. I have always said that Post-Natal health should not be a privilege. The issues women can suffer from post-natal, Diastasis Recti, Back pain, low confidence, a sense of loss etc. have such a big impact on their lives that it should not just be available for people with a large amount of disposable income. And, like all health issues, it definitely shouldn’t be left up to people to figure stuff out for themselves.

So now we have the 4th corner. Healthy Post-Natal Body does the same, if not more, than the expensive programs do. We have the correct exercises. We have the Expert support. And we are affordable to, almost, all.

And, unlike the others, you can actually try us out for free.

Take care,

Peter