MOM, FIX LOW BACK PAIN WITH FITNESS 5 Essential Exercises

Most moms suffer low back pain, wrist pain, neck/shoulder and upper back pain. Today I have a few suggestions to help busy moms manage low back pain using fitness. Please refer to last days post for wrist and forearm exercises.

MOM, Fix Low Back Pain with Fitness
Mom Fitness-Low Back Pain can be managed with a few key moves such as:


1. Front Plank
This is a great exercise for mom to help regain some tone in stretched out abdominal muscles. The front plank is a safe abdominal exercise for mothers who suffer rectis diastases. Start with 30 seconds and gradually work up to 2 minutes.




2. Side Plank


This exercise is great for your entire body, including shoulder stability. Hold for no more than 30 seconds on each side and stabilize your shoulder before you lift. Keep you body straight and lift your hip to the ceiling. Perform 2-3, 30 second side planks per side


3. Cook Hip Bridge


Gluts and hip flexors are addressed with this exercise. Pull your knee to your chest and perform a one legged glut bridge. 10/side




4. Bilateral Back Extension


Start on all 4's, tense your abdominals lift away your arm and opposite leg using your glut form you body without letting your pelvis shift. Work up to 10/side






5. Lateral Stability- this is often overlooked and specific for mom back back. Most moms push a hip out to one side and prop their baby on it- bad idea. Also your hips and pelvis are changing or have changed so you need to regain strength here. Try to old you child against your abdomen.

Use a resistance band under your feet and walk sideways keeping your feet straight ahead. 10-20 steps in each direction.



Some other moves that you will want to be doing to prevent, manage and alleviate low back pain are stretching your hip flexor muscles, using a foam roller to roll your spine and gluts and stretching your mid back thoracic spine.


I hope everyone had a great Canada Day. We had a great day around our house, all go with our backyard makeover. You see we are a home renovating kind of family. We have taken down our main wall on our main floor, ripped out and renovated our entire basement, tore our roof off and built a second storey on our house, built a deck and our latest project making a natural stone raised garden bed. This was by far the heaviest job we have done. We had 8 tonnes of stone delivered to our driveway this week. My husband and I just starred at it yesterday morning, hoping someone would arrive to help. We started lifting and moving, by the end of the first hour I could not carry any more of the wall blocks, they weight between 75-100lbs. Thanks god 2 strong friends turned up and the wall is complete. I was exhausted yesterday, but not sore today. My training had paid off, my numerous deadlifts and squats, pulls and pushes. It's not just about looks, it's about function.

How and what are you using your muscles for? As a mom you are definitely using them. You may be at the stage early after delivery and rebuilding your abdominals, you may be carrying the infant car seat or lifting a toddler. Really think about how you use your body everyday as a mom. Let me know what you find most physically challenging about dealing with your children, I would love to hear and will address some exercises to help you get through your day with a strong and healthy body.

300 Workout- Abs Modified for a Mom

I was talking to some colleagues at work today and they mentioned they had done the 300 workout. This is an intense barbell circuit with some great fat burning lifts in it. The original came out about 2 years ago and there has been a few updates since. There is one move in particular that is great, but can definitely be improved for a new mom. The move is called the Windshield wiper and it is for your abdominals. It requires you to lay on the floor with and perform a reverse abdominal curl while holding and pressing a barbell above your chest. Side swipes are also involved which requires you to perform this same reverse curl move for obliques as you lift your legs out to the side of the barbell, then to the middle (traditional reverse curl) and then to the other side of the barbell.

I had first attempted this move after giving birth to my first child a few years ago. My pelvis and abs were not stable enough to perform oblique reverse curls without over rotation in my lumbar spine (anything over 15 degrees)leaving me prone to back pain. As well performing a double leg reverse curl crunch put too much pressure on my weak pelvic floor muscles and displaced bladder leaving me prone to stress incontinence. So how can we make this great exercise MOM FRIENDLY? Very easy, perform your barbell press with alternating 1 legged reverse leg curls (a more advanced version of the dead bug in your mothers day program). This allows you to work both sides of your abdominals independently without putting too much pressure on your bladder. This also stimulates one side of your obliques and hip flexors while you are still able to maintain neutral spine and almost no lumbar rotation as you can anchor your opposite hip to the floor. This is definitely a plus for new moms or any moms that have undergone abdominal stretching, pelvic instability and rectis diastasis. Please note this modification does not make the exercise any easier and probably even harder, but it is much safer after going through pregnancy and delivery.

For the beginner you can place one leg on the floor and just do opposite knee ins to chest between barbell or dumbbell chest presses, for slightly more advanced you can elevate both legs to with bent knees and pull one knee in further and for advanced you can elevate both legs with a straight leg and pull one leg at a time to the barbell while hovering the other leg just above ground level.
Again this is a great abdmoinal exercise without performing a single traditional crunch sit up.

VENT- The Truth About Fat Loss for a New Mom

Ok, I rarely do this but I have to vent. I have been cruising around the Internet and reading blogs, getting the posts sent to me regarding mom fitness and pregnancy fitness. A few things confuse me

1. I keep seeing mom fitness posts and programs advertising "Get Your Arms Tank Top Ready"- are you for real?? If you have time to worry about this, you are obviously not a busy mom. What a waist of time. A- you cannot spot reduce .
and B- studies have been done with body builders, one group performing deadlifts only and one group performing biceps curls only. Guess who had the stronger biceps at the end of the program- You guessed it the Deadlift group. Total body is the way to go (like the deadlift). I would rather spend time with my kids rather than worrying about my arms.

2. This is another popular one -Walking on a treadmill is the optimal way for new moms to lose weight. What a load of crap. Walking will not make you lose weight, this is a submaximal effort activity. You need to reach your maximum intensity you can handle to lose weight (anaerobic threshold). Short, maximal burst of resistance training has been proven to be the most effective form of fat loss- period. 4 minute circuts with 20 second work/ 10 second rest intervals otherwise know as Tabatas are the best.

3. Many sites and entire businesses are based on Jogging with a Stroller and again indicate this is a great way to burn the baby fat. NOT, this one is down right dangerous. Most women still have relaxin in their body 4 months post partum and joints are not stable, your abdominals are still weak. Holding onto the stroller handles does not allow proper cross rotation of your body (opposite arm/leg moving in unison). Your arms are stationary and your low body will over rotate to compensate, this condition coupled with an already weak muscle and unstable joints can contribute to back pain. OK, so that is just one point why I don't agree with jogging with your stroller. If you think you will burn the baby fat think again. Jogging is still a submaximal effort activity and yes you will burn calories while you are jogging, but this is not optimal for fat loss. A better option is to do maximal sprint intervals without a stroller- but for new moms stress incontinence becomes more of an issue when performing these.

The truth about fat loss. Short bursts of maximal effort resistance is the best form of fat loss exercise. Lets break this down. There is something called Oxygen Debt (other call it EPOC of Afterburn)that means the more effort you put into your workout the more depleted your energy stores (including oxygen) you have to REPAY to your body. Your heart rate will remain slightly elevated after your workout for this to happen and burns more calories throughout the day. Using resistance training you will be building muscle that has a greater metabolic rate burning more calories. Short burst, because if you if you are working out at your anaerobic thresehold this is all you could manage. Your anaerobic threshold is approximately 220-age (ex. 220-36=184bpm). I also like short resistance workouts, especially for busy new mothers, because they are manageable if you are sleep deprived. You will not be training long enough to suffer from repetitive strain injuries (that you are already extremely susceptible to) and you can make your resistance program a multi directional full body functional workout.

I just think many new mothers are being lead a stray with their workouts. You can probably get your training done in about a quarter the amount of time from home. Fat Loss results can be made with a little as 4-10 minutes per day. 12 minute maximal effort is ideal. So realistically with warmup and stretching you can get a full fat loss workout done in 17 minutes.

Get your free beginner fat loss program sent to your inbox by signing up for a complimentary newsletter.

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

Jogging Strollers

Do I own a jogging stroller, you bet. Do I jog with it, NO WAY.

I own one because it was a gift and it is great for long hauls and walking the kids through the snow in winter.

First things first, I do not jog. I don't have time to jog and it does not get me anywhere near my personal fitness goal of fat loss. Jogging is cardio training your heart muscle, that's it. Holding onto a fixed handle with your hands while running places all of the cross rotational stress into your low back, your low back absorbs the upper body rotation and your low back will over rotate. As a new mother you are much more susceptible to the stress of lumbar rotation as you still have relaxin hormone floating around in your body allowing your joints to be hyper mobile and over rotate. As a new mother your core muscles have been compromised while pregnant which makes you that much more susceptible to lumbar rotation as well. You may be wondering, so what? What's the big deal with excessive lumbar rotation, Back Pain, that's the problem. I will cover this in more detail in an issue of my newsletter. Sign up if you wish to investigate this issue further.