3 Band Exercises to Tone and Tighten
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnMberBXjL8
Tag: pilates southampton
Losing the Baby Weight Week 4.
The past 4 weeks has on the one hand flown past and on the other hand it feels like its been forever that this little boy has been around. Life has calmed down with visitors being less frequent, more of a natural routine appearing and sleep deprivation properly setting in as the adrenaline wears off!
I’ve just gone back to post natal Pilates, very cautiously. It’s great to be back in my studio exercising with other mums but I’m pacing myself and only doing short bursts of gentle core work. My tummy muscles separated a little in this second pregnancy, a condition known as diastasis recti, and I have a 1cm gap at present. This is nothing to worry about but I’m keen to close this gap completely before attempting any exercises that involve curling up.
For more on diastasis recti see here and here.
Here is my post natal mummy tummy. I’m keen to dispel the perfect tummy, air brushed celeb look and would love pics of your post baby tummies, at at any stage after baby for a blog post. Names optional! Please send them through to me – [email protected]
I’m also trying to fit in a daily walk, the fresh air and cardiovascular exercise is great for me and baby. Plus having a toddler have to get out and about. It’s all about pacing yourself and planning I think. What are your thoughts?
Perfect your Posture
Think about it, however often in your day do you pay attention to your posture? If you don’t do Pilates then I am guessing the answer is not often if at all. Yet our posture plays a large role in how we look, walk, sit and feel on a day to day basis. Bad posture can result in back, neck and shoulder pain along with too tight muscles in some areas and overstretched, weakened muscles elsewhere. Over time poor posture can result in disc issues and degneration of joints.
So in the next few posts I am going to talk through different types of posture, hopefully this will help you identify your own postural imbalances, make you more aware, so that you can focus on correcting the problems.
In this post we are going to recap on Neutral Spine in a lying position.
Neutral spine is the natural position of the spine when all 3 curves of the spine — cervical (neck), thoracic (middle) and lumbar (lower) — are present and in good alignment. This is the strongest position for the spine when we are standing or sitting, and the one that we are made to move from. Knowing how to find the neutral spine position is crucial for doing many Pilates exercises correctly.
Neutral spine lying down:
1. Feet hip socket distance apart, flat on the floor, straight and facing forward.
2. Knees bent, a small gap between them.
3. Pelvis rocked into neutral so it is neither tilted up (lower back pressed into the floor) or tilted under (large curve through the lower back). The hip bones should be lined up and you should feel you are flat from hip bone to hip bone and through to the pubic bone.
4. Slight natural curve through the lower back, think about being able to pass an envelope underneath.
5. Shoulder blades slid down in the back.
6. Neck long with the chin slightly tilted towards the chest as if you were clasping an orange between your chin and your chest.
Just lying in this neutral position can help with back ache, try lying there for 5 minutes, release the tension in your neck and shoulder, drawing your core and relax yout bum, thighs and feet. Take a few deep breaths. Feels good doesn’t it!
Losing the Baby Weight: Week 2
This week has been mainly spent in hospital as baby Judah lost a little too much weight. Now most babies tend to lose some weight post-birth and they are allowed to lose up to 10% of their birthweight with no concerns. Little Judah ended up losing 15% of his birthweight so we were admitted for tests and monitoring.
Now hospital is not a fun place to be and with all the tests, feeding and being in a hospital room it became 5 days of mainly sitting and lying down with occasional sleeping 😉 So all the gentle walks I had been planning didn’t happen.
On of the questions the medical team had was over my milk supply and quality, so I focused a lot on feeding, expressing milk and eating well. You need an extra 3-500kcals per day when breastfeeding. The best thing is to ensure your meals are all balanced and then to eat according to appetite. I find I’m often hungriest last thing at night and at the night feeds.
All that feeding and expressing seems to be doing the trick as I’ve definitely lost weight this week and I’m back in my “slightly large, extra comfy” jeans – you know the type I mean. I’ve done a couple of very basic pilates exercises on occasions including single knee folds, pelvic tilts and standing heel floats. Don’t rush to get back into exercise at this point, just settle into getting to know your baby but do think about your posture when feeding and carrying baby. Stand/Sit tall, imagine you are lifted by the crown of your head towards the ceiling, slide your shoulder blades down in your back, have your weight balanced evenly over both feet and try to keep your lower back in a neutral position.
Top Tips:
- Make sure you eat extra to enable your body to provide enough milk and good quality milk needed for baby.
- Keep a snack box handy filled with healthy items you can munch on as you feed. For example healthy flapjack, nuts, raw veggies and hummous, oatcakes and peanut butter, dried fruit and cereal bars all feature in mine.
- Keep going with your pelvic floor exercises, try to do these each time you feed baby.
- If you can build in a couple of short, gentle walks.
- Remember your posture.
- Look out now for post-natal exercise classes and pilates classes.
Losing the Baby Weight, Week 1.
It’s day 7 post birth and slowly my body feels like it is returning to normal. My mummy tummy is shrinking gradually and the after birth pains are definitely diminishing. For me these after birth pains have been the worst thing. I didn’t have them with baby number 1, but everytime I feed it feels like another contractions. This is due to my uterus contracting and everything shrinking back to normal so it’s a good thing, but I’m not enjoying it!
Having a toddler means little time to rest so I’m quite active around the house. I’ve already learnt that I can’t lift my toddler, it’s too much for my back and lifting her led to some twinges (yikes) so I’m steering clear of heavy lifting for a while.
So what exercises have I been doing?
Pelvic floor exercises or kegels. I’ve been trying to do these everytime I feed the baby. If you aren’t sure where these are they are the muscles that now don’t work very well 😉 Imagine you are doing a wee and try to stop the flow of urine, it’s those muscles. Try doing some fast contractions where you squeeze the muscles all the way up and then release – imagine a lift going up inside you. Then also do some slow contractions where you slowly take the lift up, hold at the top for 5 seconds and slowly release. You really want to strengthen these muscle as otherwise there will be problems when you cough, laugh, sneeze, jump…. you get the picture!
TVA or core activation. Think about drawing in the muscles below your belly button. There is a belt-like muscle that comes all the way around your body like a corset. Try not to scoop in all your tummy but just tighten up the lower tummy muscles. It may help to place your fingers just inside your hip bones, then cough. Did you feel something tighten? That’s the muscle.
Rest time is also essential though personally this is the bit I find hardest to fit in as I seem to have babies that require a lot of feeding! Try to rest when the baby is napping and remember you don’t have to be superwoman at this point in life. If you have a slightly “messy round the edges house” no-one will mind 😉 Plus if you do too much you can affect your milk supply, so be kind to yourself.
Giving Birth for the Second Time.
Judah Elisha Tew was born on Thursday 12th September at 11.46am, 7lb 1oz.
This was my second labour which did make it easier in terms of I knew a little more about what to expect and had the knowledge that I’d done it all before so could do it again. However it was not easy. Anyone who gives birth to a baby is amazing in my opinion.
I’m very fortunate in that I seem to have happy, healthy pregnancies. I worked all the way through both pregnancies, this time I was still teaching Pilates and seeing dietetic clients, in fact I had run a clinic Thursday afternoon and chatted to a journalist about an article that evening and then my waters broke!
My waters broke just before midnight and trickled throughout labour. Having had a 23 hour labour with my first baby I had a snack, a quiet whoop of excitement and then went back to bed to rest. A quick nudge to the hubby to let him know and he rolled over back to sleep 😉 At 3 am I decided to alert the birthing centre, they wanted me to go in to check my waters had gone, however I knew they had and wasn’t prepared to wake a sleeping toddler and leave her with friends at this stage. So I waited until 6am by which time the contractions were building but manageable. Now getting a toddler up, explaining the situation and getting out of the house with contractions every 3 minutes was a bit of a challenge, but typically the car journey led to the contractions slowing. Very frustrating, but quite common.
At the birthing centre I was 3 cm dilated, so we got ready for action. By 8am I was in the birthing pool and things started to get hard. Although my active labour wasn’t long in the moment of it, it felt like a long time. Around 9cm dilation I started to panic and needed reassurance, at this stage the gas and air was given to me. Thank goodness. Even though it did make me feel slightly woozy and sick I needed it to take the edge of the contractions. Pushing didn’t take long at all and it is amazing how your body takes over, suddenly I was aware I had to push, looked down in the water and there was a head – very odd to see!
This labour I really found made me go deep into myself, I was talking myself through it, willing myself on and it showed me how determined I can be. Focusing on the contractions and moving around as much as I could really helped. In the last stages of labour and pushing my husband took over and he was the voice willing me on, talking me through it and telling me what was happening. I gave birth in a birthing centre where they let the woman take the lead, this was amazing as it was a very natural birth but I also needed to know what was going on and have a plan ahead of me. This is where my birthing partner (hubby) came in. He was my eyes and ears.
Top Tips:
1. Stay as active as you can in the early stages, I found circular hip movements helped me work through the contractions.
2. Stay calm and focus on getting through one contraction at a time.
3. Find something to distract yourself early on. I blogged an article and finished making some breakfast/breastfeeding bars.
4. Eat food that will sustain you. I’ve not wanted to eat once my contractions have started coming fast and strong, so eat early on. Pasta, an oat based cereal, rice dish, wholemeal toast with peanut butter or a tuna sandwich for example.
5. Keep drinking and have small snacks in case you fancy a bite. Cereal bars, bananas, sport drinks can all be useful.
6. Have a birthing plan but be prepared for it to change!
7. Discuss your ideas with your birthing partner. Think through things they may be able to do to help you. Gentle massage or running you a bath for pain relief for example.
8. When your waters break collect a sample, the midwife may want to check! So take a wet pad with you.
9. Focus on the final goal – your baby! Labour is hard work but it is only a small part of the adventure of mummyhood.
10. Try and get some skin to skin time and a breastfeed in as soon as possible after giving birth.
11. Practise breathing techniques before hand. Pilates has taught me these.
12. Antenatal exercise classes can really help you be in tip top condition for giving birth. Don’t forget my “From Bump to Birth DVD”.
I feel privileged and completely blessed to have had a water birth, in a calm amazing environment. The human body is an awesome piece of work and giving birth shows what you can do. However I’m not planning on doing it again anytime soon 😉
Stabilise those Shoulders
Often in classes I come across people with tight shoulders, shoulder pain or can just see shoulders rising up towards people’s ears. It’s amazing how easy it is to start tensing in the shoulder region, I should know as I do it myself if I am not conscious enough. So I am often heard saying phrases like “Relax your shoulder” or “Draw those shoulder blades down in your back”. In actual fact the correct terminology is to “stabilise your scapulae”. Your Scapulae are the wing-like bones on your upper back, commonly called your shoulder blades. Stabilizing your scapulae is as important as contracting your abs during every exercise. This will help you avoid strain through your neck and upper shoulders.
When our scapula ride up or wing out to the sides, the shoulder area is less stable. Similarly, if you draw/squeeze the scapula together on the back this too is a less stable position than when the scapula are flat on the back with the shoulders drawn down in our favoured neutral position.
To find this shoulder position think about dropping the shoulders away from the ears and allowing the shoulder blades to slide down in your back. I like to think about them being down down towards the back pockets of your jeans. In fact this analogy has really help one of my ladies who suffered very badly from hunched shoulders, so hunches that she used to walk looking down at the floor. After learning where her scapulae should be her whole posture has changed! Amazing.
It can be easy to start with the shoulder in this stable position but harder to keep them there when doing mat based Pilates. If you know you have a tendency to lose this position and tense up, then keep bringing your attention back to your shoulders. Have you tensed up? Think about not doing the move with your shoulders and neck but switching on your core more. It may also be that you need to decrease your range of motion in order to get the correct technique established first.
Why is Pilates so beneficial for new mums?
Pilates is still quite a new form of exercise in the UK. Just to give you some background, Joseph Pilates, a German-born gymnast, circus-performer, boxer and anatomical-chart model, developed his training method during the 1920s, so it’s been around for quite a while. He named his method “Contrology”, initially to rehabilitate soldiers during the war. Later, it became popular in the ballet circuit, then went mainstream, where now it’s suitable for just about everyone.
You’ll hear Pilates Instructors mention your “core” muscles quite a lot during class. The “core” is made up of several muscles which wrap around your spine – a bit like a cylinder. There are muscles at the front of your body (transverses abdominus/hip flexors), side (obliques), back (multifidis), top (diaphragm) and base (pelvic floor).
To find your core muscles, you just need to tighten/pull/draw your abdominal muscles in slightly. Start by breathing into your belly first, then as you breath out, drawing your tummy muscles in towards your spine and keeping that light tension switched on. These muscles are slow to contract and slow to fatigue, so it means you should be able to hold your tummy muscles inwards with a low level of contraction, for a minute or two, then simply move an arm or a leg, or the spine, to create an unstable environment and therefore provide a challenge for the muscles. Pilates is quite simple in design.
Pilates is particularly beneficial for postnatal women, because, put simply, it targets the very muscles which get weakened by pregnancy itself eg the pelvic floor and core. It also helps you breathe better, puts your body in an optimal postural position and relieves tension in your neck, shoulders, hips and lower back from constant lifting, carrying, feeding and changing your baby.