Low Pressure Fitness
Maternity Benefits
Hypopressives, Low Pressure Fitness can be a great way to start getting your body ready for pregnancy. It helps to firm and tone the core and pelvic floor muscles from the inside out – creating a stronger body to carry your precious cargo. During pregnancy, performing the postures with deep breathing is a fantastic way to stay fit, with a safe, low-pressure exercise routine. Having your body prepared and strong before you deliver is a bonus and benefit when it comes to rehabilitating your body postpartum.
Post Partum
Congratulations! You've had a beautiful baby! That is a wonderful thing to celebrate. You (and your body) have accomplished a feat that is beyond amazing, and you should be proud of yourself.
Hypopressives was originally developed in Europe by Dr. Marcel Caufriez while working with postnatal women. His research developed the Hypopressive Technique which was a series of postures and breathing exercises focused on strengthening the abdominal and pelvic muscles in an effort to help treat complications that can occur after delivery such as prolapse, incontinence and diastasis. Hypopressives can be started as early as 3-6 weeks post partum (providing there were no complications during delivery). After your initial training, all it takes is 15-20 min per workout to help repair your pelvic floor and core.
Post partum is a critical time for the urogynecological future of women. Most women are immediately thrust back into the working world of motherhood. For the fortunate few that have longer than 6 weeks to recover, many of them find themselves lost between the thoughts of I’m a new mom & where did I go? So many women start working out too soon after delivery in an attempt to get their pre-baby bodies back. Unfortunately, for many – this unknowingly causes more complications. After birth, the body has undergone some serious trauma and changes. The same old workout and ‘core’ routines you used to do might not work. In fact, most of the traditional exercises that women have as their go-to for their ab routine are causing more harm than good. These exercises increase intra-abdominal pressure and cause strain on already stressed body parts. They can worsen diastasis and put unnecessary pressure on your pelvic muscles and organs.
Besides our altered outward appearance, many women experience internal complications and changes without even knowing it. These can include diastasis, damage to the perineum and pelvic floor, a weakened abdominal girdle and more serious issues as mentioned earlier with pelvic organ prolapse and stress incontinence.
The before and after effects of pregnancy on the connective tissues in the abdomen.
Variations of Diastasis Recti
The abdominal muscles - showing where the connective tissues are located.
The before and after effects of pregnancy on the connective tissues in the abdomen.
Diastasis Recti (aka – abdominal separation) is caused when the connective collagen tissue between the various abdominal muscles stretches or tears. It appears in the form of an indented ridge between your recuts abdominal muscles down the middle of your stomach. It can occur above, below or on both sides of your umbilicus. According to Laura Englehardt, connective tissue in postpartum women can remain stretched. The weakening abdominal muscles and weakness in the connective tissues due to the diastasis may make it difficult to lift objects, cause lower back pain and can cause weakened pelvic alignment and altered posture. As mentioned before, traditional exercises can increase the diastasis recti separation. Any exercise that is to be used to try to correct a diastasis should be done in a way of pulling in the abdominal muscles vs. pushing outwards.
Prolapse and stress incontinence are two very real potential issues that many women have to deal with after they have their baby. If you are dealing with either of these issues, please check out the other pages on this site as to how Hypopressives can help with those too. If you have not already seen or discussed these issues with your doctor, please do so. It is so important to know what is going on with your body.
The bottom line is that in our society fixated on looks – after having a baby, women are pushing themselves too hard in the wrong direction. This is an amazing time in your life and you should enjoy it! I completely understand wanting to get your ‘pre-baby’ body back. There is so much that happens to your body, and unfortunately, most of us are not educated or prepared for what to expect our postnatal body to look or feel like. I’ll admit – no one told me that after I delivered my baby, that I would look down at my belly and have a reality shock that I still looked pregnant! Of course now it seems obvious that my body wouldn’t just bounce back into it’s former shape, but somewhere in my mind I guess I naively thought it might! However, in an attempt to re-gain our former selves, many of us unknowingly so, are potentially damaging our future selves.
Hypopressives is an all in one sort of workout. It helps slim & trim your waistline, helps close diastasis, helps prevent and treat stress incontinence and early prolapse, helps improve sexual sensation & pleasure (a huge bonus for new moms!) amongst so many other great things. The best part? After you have trained with me, it literally takes less than 20 min at home to do this workout.
Also – Core Essence is baby friendly! I understand how hard it is to go workout with a new baby. Bring your sweetness along and they can hang out while you train and de-stress.
Lastly – as I mention on the Aesthetics page – there are several Victoria secret angels that have used Hypopressive training to get back their bikini bodies after having their babies. Not saying that we all could look like the VS gals, but it’s kind of cool that the angels do Hypos! :)
Check out these articles below from Low Pressure Fitness and see how you can benefit from performing Hypopressives during all stages on your journey to motherhood.
