Hearts and Bones Pilates
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  • Home
  • Classes
  • Pilates teacher training
    • Why train with us
    • Training, timetable, and registration
    • Standard Pilates teacher training courses
      • Before you start and what you need to qualify
      • Mat Instructor
      • Reformer Instructor
      • Equipment Instructor
      • Comprehensive Instructor
      • Course content descriptions
    • Become a teacher trainer
    • Training policies
    • Our training graduates
  • Workshops
  • Shop: Exercise equipment
    • About Spring Movement
    • Privacy, payment, shipping, delivery
    • Warranty and returns
    • Use, care, and maintenance
    • Customer reviews
  • Business coaching
    • How my coaching can help your business
      • About me — why I can help
    • How it works and coaching options
  • Pilates articles
    • Finding your neutral alignment
    • Pilates breathing
    • Good pain, bad pain
    • Doing Pilates while pregnant
    • Doing Pilates after giving birth
    • Pilates glossary
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    • About Tania
    • About Mariëlle
    • About Donna Lena Marie
    • What is Pilates
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Phone: 
027 510 5220

Doing Pilates after giving birth

Pilates can help you get back into shape after pregnancy. This article explains the benefits that Pilates offers new mothers and gives you some important guidelines about starting exercising after giving birth.

Why new mums need Pilates

As a new mother, you do a lot of the same type of movements, such as bending over, or carrying or nursing your baby.
​

New mothers have special needs: 
  • Your abdominal muscles are over-stretched during pregnancy and then used rigorously during labour, so you need to build abdominal strength.
  • Your lower spine can easily over-arch, causing backache.
  • Leaning forward during breastfeeding can tighten your neck and shoulder muscles and cause pain. ​

Benefits of Pilates

Pilates can help you:
  • strengthen your abdominal wall, reducing your 'pregnancy tummy'
  • regain the good posture you'll need to nurse and carry your baby around
  • strengthen your arm muscles, so you can lift and carry your baby more easily.
​
A comprehensive Pilates workout programme that strengthens and improves the flexibility of abdominal, pelvic floor, and other important muscles will help build you up and reduce muscle tension.

Pilates' breathing techniques also can improve your body awareness and movement quality and help you regain your balance and posture.

When to start exercising

It's recommended that you wait at least 6 weeks after giving birth before starting exercise. This rest period allows your abdomen to recover from giving birth and gives you time to adjust to your new life with a baby.
​
After 6 weeks, you can start doing basic and gentle exercises provided you had a normal, vaginal delivery. If you had a caesarean section, you need to wait 5 to 6 months before starting doing exercise such as Pilates.

Do the 'Rectus Test' before starting Pilates

Towards the end of pregnancy, a woman's rectus abdominus muscle often separates (called 'diastasis recti'). The rectus abdominus muscle has to knit together again before starting Pilates. You need to be careful doing any twisting and turning so you don't damage the healing muscle.
​

Before starting Pilates, make sure that you (or your doctor or midwife) perform the 'Rectus Test' to find out whether you have an extreme amount of diastasis. ​

The Rectus Test

  1. Lie on your back with the knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
  2. Place 2 fingers vertically just below your navel.
  3. Press your fingers into your stomach and lift your head and shoulders off the floor.
  4. The rectus abdominus muscle runs vertically on either side of your stomach. You'll probably feel the 2 parts of the muscle coming together. However, if the muscles have already rejoined, there'll be no gap.
  5. If the gap is more than, or equal to, the width of 2 fingers, then you're not ready to do full-range abdominal exercises like Roll Up and Roll Over.
I came to Hearts and Bones Pilates after years of trying different therapies to resolve my back pain. I was nervous at the start of  my first session (as I had never tried Pilates before), but I felt very reassured by Tania’s gentle and personal approach.... I am now a regular client, and am able to work and live my life again after years of living a 'half-life'!" 
​
- Eleanor
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 Hearts & Bones Pilates Centre. ​All rights reserved. Please comment to: tania@heartsandbones.co.nz
​
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  • Home
  • Classes
  • Pilates teacher training
    • Why train with us
    • Training, timetable, and registration
    • Standard Pilates teacher training courses
      • Before you start and what you need to qualify
      • Mat Instructor
      • Reformer Instructor
      • Equipment Instructor
      • Comprehensive Instructor
      • Course content descriptions
    • Become a teacher trainer
    • Training policies
    • Our training graduates
  • Workshops
  • Shop: Exercise equipment
    • About Spring Movement
    • Privacy, payment, shipping, delivery
    • Warranty and returns
    • Use, care, and maintenance
    • Customer reviews
  • Business coaching
    • How my coaching can help your business
      • About me — why I can help
    • How it works and coaching options
  • Pilates articles
    • Finding your neutral alignment
    • Pilates breathing
    • Good pain, bad pain
    • Doing Pilates while pregnant
    • Doing Pilates after giving birth
    • Pilates glossary
  • About
    • About Tania
    • About Mariëlle
    • About Donna Lena Marie
    • What is Pilates
      • Joseph Pilates
      • Our approach
    • Our news
    • Contact us
    • Hearts and Bones' terms and conditions