WHEN BUSY MOMS START EXERCISING AFTER HAVING A BABY

Well feeling better after food poisoning last week. I attempted my first workout back today. It was a no brainer busy mom fat loss workout that was interrupted by a screaming, teething baby. My busy mom fat loss workout- First Circut continuous modified pullups 10x followed by heavy front chops 10x, I repeated this 4x. INTERRUPTED BY CRYING so I brought the baby down and she watched me finish my workout from her jolly jumper. Circut #2 -full weighted front squat 10x and pushups 10x, I performed these 2 exercises continuous again 4x thru ( so 8 sets in total in the circuts).

We had a little family party for my daughter's first birthday on the weekend, she was happy and went to bed early. I did not attempt to give her any cake, as I tried to give her a bit of cup cake last week and it ended up all over me about an hour later. WOW, what a year, the first year is a mile stone for me and her, although she will never remember it. I am so fortunate to have my little daughters, my health and my husband, all of which are very hard work.

Lets touch on the guidelines of when to start exercising after you have a baby. This is a personal choice as long as you feel rested enough to maintain a regular program and are well hydrated. After speaking with your doctor you may restore or begin an exercise program 2+ weeks post partum for a normal vaginal delivery, and 4-6 weeks for a cesarean or traumatic vaginal birth.
If you start to bleed heavily after exercise, feel pain or suffer from a breast infection DISCONTINUE EXERCISE immediately. Other factors that may cause you to stop exercising are pain around your birth wounds, breast discomfort, and heavy persistent urine leakage.

Exercises such as the Furious 5 are designed for any mother to help cope with carrying your new baby and there are are few exercises (such as the neck retraction/protraction, reverse fly and shoulder rotations) that can be completed by any mother if they need them or wish to start them almost immediately. They are not designed as a regular exercise program, rather an integration to activity that can help correct posture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6yacpMQgkw

HOW & WHEN BUSY MOMS EXERCISE

I will not be performing my max strength experiment this week as I had of food poisoning, thank god it was me and not one of the kids. We have implemented a schedule to accommodate date night/family outing/entertaining in our household. Well this week during our family outing we took the kids to a restaurant and I got sick that night, it's been 2 days and I just ate my first bowl of soup.

It finally happened- they broke through. My baby daughter has the signs of her first teeth. Two little white "chicklets" on the top of her mouth. I know they usually get the bottom ones first. Well, we'll take it. She will be turning 1 year old on Thursday as well, this is a big week for her.

As a busy mom how and when do you fit exercise into your day?

1. Being extremely desperate on Friday I exercised in the shower. It's great because I will not be interrupted by screaming kids because I cannot hear them. I performed the BUSY MOM FITNESS mini circuit of 10 squats, 10 deadlifts (waiter bow), 10x 1 legged squats each leg, 10x 1 legged deadlifts each side. I repeated this circuit and got a bit of much needed circulation through my body. DO NOT do this if you are still nursing or on a slippery shower surface.

2. On Sunday I utilized nap time again. I performed 20 kettlebell chops, 10x weighted full squats, 10 pushups off the stability ball. I repeated this circuit 3x. I then performed 1 more circuit again 3x, Bulgarian split squat 10x each leg and 20x reverse flies with resistance band. DONE this took me about 12 minutes. This is a busy mom fat loss circuit.

3. When I do not exercise- when I feel sick or I am fighting something. I am the backbone of this household and cannot afford to go down sick if I can avoid it.

4. When I do exercise- when I am feeling emotionally drained I pull my butt off the couch and do a mini circuit, I always feel better. When I am only slightly tired, I usually feel better afterwards and adjust my intensity accordingly. I try to exercise before noon on days that I work because this is when I have more energy and I find I have better focus when I pick up the kids. I exercise during nap time (1pm) when I have the kids with me, I do not leave this until the end of the day because it will just be another thing that gets pushed until tomorrow.

5. If the kids won't nap- take them to the park and exercise- yeah people stare- so what. Get the kids to exercise with you, this for me is a last resort because I would rather use my exercise time as personal time. Everyone is different and many of you may find comfort and motivation in exercising along side your kids. They are able to do more than you think, and they want to exercise with you.
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So I hope this helped you as a busy mom;
How to exercise-answer very short circuit style training with minimal equipment needed.
When to exercise- whenever you get a chance (nap time, shower, park) and are not feeling sick or like you are fighting a virus

BUSY MOM FITNESS-Week 4 Max Strength

Busy Mom Fat Loss Workout Monday 15 minutes- Circut #1 chops, pullups, ball pushups repeat 3x
Circut #2-4 clean and press each side, ball roll outs, full squat/press repeat 2x
I used the 20 second work/ 10 second rest busy mom fat loss principles.

Workout Tuesday- Mommy Core Exercise work today. Exercises were done continuous with a few small breaks. Prone stability ball jack knife, stability ball hip pull ins, mountain climbers and x mountain climbers with elbows on stability ball,ball hamstring curls, ball lying adductor squeeze, ball hip bridge, cork screw wood chop heavy and very dynamic 2 sets, standing lat pulldown, cable chop with push thru, wall shoulder press (stick ups 2 sets), hanging shoulder retraction, low trap stabilization using ball. After this I finished with 2 sets of barbell clean and press for speed.

I have been feeling good this week and decided to take the girls to the beach on Friday. It was a beautiful sunny day and only minus -7 degrees Celsius. Yes we are Totally Nuts. My dog went swimming and so the toddler followed. She came up to me with her wet pants and asked me to roll them up I thought because they were wet, but she wanted to go further into the lake. I tried to explain it was still winter, she had a quick tongue and answered "there is no snow". She doesn't feel the cold- maybe we don't have to heat our house- oh ya the baby.
Yes this is my dog with the CONE on her head and the girls. We had to get a soft CONE so she doesn't knock over the baby.



BUSY MOM FITNESS STRENGTH EXPERIMENT- Day 4
So here we go again, I was having a great week until last night. The baby got up at 11pm, 1am and 3:30am last night. She still has no teeth so I thought teething was the cause for the 1am waking and I gave her a dose of medicine. At 3:30am she was starving. I felt tired today for some reason, more than usual even after a poor night sleep. I started training a new client today which is always a little uncomfortable at first- will they show up, will we get along, will she like the exercises, will she complain? You never know-went well.

MY WORKOUT I warmed up and attempted my max cleans, I stayed the same as last week and felt a bit weaker while I was performing them. Something didn't feel right today, maybe I was tight and I was definitely slow on my hip extension. Onto the Burpie pullups- I improved I performed 7 of them, although my last pullup was an extreme struggle. I don't care-I did it.

Off to sign my daughter up for the local soccer league tonight, we cannot wait until this starts. The first year she is eligible to play-she squeaked in by a month.
Follow along for some busy mom meals in the recipes group at BABY BUMP RECIPES

BUSY MOM FITNESS-Strength Experiment Day 3 and Berpie Pullup Video

Today I performed my workout and attempted my max lifts on the barbell Clean and total number of Berpie Pullups. This is the third week of my 6 week mini experiment. I have 2 control athletes that have been posting at http://babybumpfitness.ning.com and I am the test subject.

My conditions for the past few days have been brutal at best. This week my husband is away travelling so I have no relief after a day of training clients that begins at 5am. I did a small Tabata busy mom fat loss workout on Monday that took 15 minutes. On Tuesday I performed a day of just core training. My nutrition has been good this week so far and I feel well. My sleep has been BRUTAL. Monday night I was disturbed by the baby at 1:45am, I was up at 5am for work and went to bed at 9pm last night. I woke again last night to a screaming toddler at 10:45pm, she came into my bed for a cuddle and sleep as her nose was stuffy, she sleeps sideways. She woke periodically during the night and the baby woke me at 2:30am so I had to get up and comfort her as well. We were up at 7am this morning as I start work later.

FITNESS MOM Max Strength Experiment Week 3- my workout today after brutal sleeps. Dynamic warmup including thoracic mobilization moves, arm and leg swing, inchworm and lunges. I performed 2 sets of berpie pullups. I was able to improve and complete a 6 this week-I cut myself off after this as my right shoulder has been nagging me. I performed barbell Clean warmups and my weight increased by 5 lb for a 2 rep max. So there you go - good nutrition, bad sleep and med-high emotional stress still yielded a small improvement this week in my max strength experiment.

Here is a small video of a berpie pullup-I don't know what happened to my camera woman- too much wine maybe. I have been posting my workouts since I started this blog a few months post partum. You can track the progressions to get to an exercise like this. Any questions please ask- I would be glad to help. It doesn't matter where you start- it's where you end up that COUNTS. You will notice there are some root moves such as the front plank from the furious 5 in the berpie pullup exercise.

NEW RECIPE AND CRAWLING FOR FITNESS?

A new recipe has been donated by Gayle for Potato and Leek soup at http://babybumpfitness.ning.com in the Recipe group. Note do not use green parts of leek.

So I have a great video of my baby's first crawl. I was very excited to share this with you because it indicates proper neuromuscular development for her. So what does this have to do with you and your busy mom fitness. Well, have you ever suffered from back pain or a back injury?- most likely yes. If so, I want you to try to crawl. This is a primal movement and indicates good spinal health at the L4/L5 level that innervates the lower body. There are certain movement patterns that we are supposed to be able to perform and the pattern of crawling is one of them. So I challenge you- give it a try and see how fluid you are at crawling. Are you moving opposite arm and leg at the same time? Is your pelvis steady while crawling and not dipping excessively to either side. Again look at the video of my baby's first crawl- you'll notice her coordination is not perfect, but good enough to get around. I expect to see this develop rapidly over the next week as she progresses to a fluid, coordinated crawl.

Throughout our life to motherhood injuries and overuse happens to our bodies ( a lot from being pregnant and caring for a baby). This has an impact on our movement patterns. Working on a fluid, coordinated crawl is not just for babies, you can benefit too. Return to your roots and perfect this pattern, this is the start of a great exercise program. Let me know how you perform on this challenge and I may have some more insight for you.

Some great news for BabyBumpFitness:

Hi Jacqueline,

We just posted an article, “Top 100 Healthy Mom Blogs” (http://www.rncentral.com/nursing-library/careplans/top_100_healthy_mom_blogs). I thought I'd bring it to your attention in case you think your readers would find it interesting. I am happy to let you know that your site has been included in this list.

Either way, thanks for your time!

Kelly Sonora

Sleep Deprivation and Max Strength- my experiment day 2

Another tid bit of information regarding sleep. Over the past 3 nights my baby has been sick so I was averaging about 3 hours sleep per night and completing a course through the day (so not napping). WOW, has this ever affected my maximum strength. I did have a good night sleep last night but, I was only able to complete 4 berpie pullups in total today (last week 5 then 4- 2 sets) and dropped 20 pounds on my near max cleans (3 reps)(barbell pulling motion). I know factors like nutrition come into play as well, but I feel my accumulation of sleep deprivation was the kicker. I am putting myself through a little challenge where I am trying to improve on these 2 exercises every Tuesday. I will let you know my conditions (sleep and diet) and my improvements. So the question is, can a new mom dramatically improve her strength results? With constant set backs like the flu, lack of sleep and emotional stress, what is realistic? You can loose fat with the quick Tababta style fat loss workouts and being organized with your diet, I am living proof of that. Now the question is how and when will I regain my pre-pregnancy strength- if ever. My busy mom fitness strength workout today- dynamic warmup, standing lat pulldowns, lunge press, shoulder rotations, elevated prone plank with knee ins, 4 Berpie pullups 1 set, 2 sets of narrow grip pullups each 4 reps, circuit of front squat-pushpress-bulgarian split squat 2 sets. Now it is time to try cleans, warmup goes well so I add 20lb and able to complete, I add 10 more pounds to complete 5x but not maxed out so I add another 20lb to try for my 3 rep max- NO DICE. I could not complete this complex lift today. I altered my lift to a high pull 5x, then backed off on the weight to complete 5 more lifts. I proceeded with post rehab hamstring and glut medius exercises. I will be reporting on this every Tuesday for the next month and let you know how far I have come and under what conditions, I will perform these 2 exercises at the same point in my workout each week. I know strength training may not be your goal, but there are some great benefits to it. It is a great way to shake up your program, decrease boardum and allow you to set mom fitness goals for yourself. In the long run you will be able to lift more while you are circuiting, therefore cutting more fat. All training I talk about is strengthening, but I am specifically referring to trying near max lifts. I do feel I am ready for this as my baby is almost 1 year old.