Let’s Be Frank About: Starting to Run Postpartum
Hello there, new moms and soon-to-be-running enthusiasts! As a pelvic floor physiotherapist, I'm here to dish out some wisdom on the exhilarating yet often challenging journey of postpartum running. Whether you’re someone who ran pre baby or are simply itching to be able to (quite literally) run away from home for some solo time, let’s cover the basics first so you know you’re setting yourself up for success. Here’s what we’ll cover:
How Soon Can I Start Running After Having a Baby?
How to Start Running After Having a Baby?
Is My Pelvic Floor Strong Enough to Run?
How Do I Know if I’m Doing Too Much?
Can Running Cause Prolapse
How Soon Can I Start Running After Having a Baby?
The postpartum period is a delicate dance between recovery and readiness. While the eagerness to hit the pavement might be strong, it's crucial to prioritize your body's healing process. There has been some amazing research that has come out clarifying and supporting the importance of waiting until at least 3 months postpartum before getting back into running or high impact activity. The main reasons being:
Tissue Healing: Waiting allows for adequate time for tissues, including the pelvic floor muscles and connective tissues, to heal properly after childbirth.
Hormonal Changes: At three months postpartum, hormonal changes have begun to stabilize, reducing the risk of exacerbating any existing tissue laxity or weakness.
Physical Recovery: By this time, most women have regained some level of strength and conditioning (via Frank obviously!), which can help support the demands of running and thus reducing the risk of injury.
Pelvic Floor Function: Your pelvic floor needs time to recover it’s range of motion, strength, endurance, speed of contraction and reactivity and that takes TIME. It’s also essential to address any pelvic floor dysfunction or weakness before returning to higher-impact activities like running so that this new increase in pressure doesn’t exacerbate your baseline.
Reduced Risk of Complications: Delaying the return to running reduces the risk of complications such as pelvic organ prolapse or stress urinary incontinence, as the body has had more time to recover and strengthen. Can we all just take a moment to appreciate that if it took 9 months to grow a baby and then birth it through your v@gina or belly it’s gonna take more than 6 weeks to figure out how to pound against concrete.
If you’re feeling nerdy and want to read over the paper yourself:
How to Start Running After Having a Baby?
Like everything in the world of rehab, and life(?) patience is key and little by little wins the race. There’s an entire section in the Postnatal Frank Platform specific to Return to Running that will work you through the single leg stability, pelvic floor education, and gradual bounce work to help you feel resilient when introducing running. If you’re on the edge of feeling ready, test yourself using this Return to Run Assessment and watch these videos;
Is My Pelvic Floor Strong Enough to Run?
Our pelvic floor muscles are the unsung heroes of stability and support, especially during high-impact activities like running. Their strength and speed of contraction are essential to keep things in! Organs, pee, farts everything! Pelvic floor exercises, such as Kegels, can help strengthen these muscles and provide the foundation you need to hit the ground running HOWEVER as you may be starting to gather from all your Frank education — range of motion and being able to absorb shock is more important than a jacked stiff muscle. I would strongly encouraged everyone who’s had a baby to check in with a pelvic floor physio prior to starting to run just to be on the safe side.
How Do I Know if I’m Doing Too Much?
Listen closely to that sweet lil bod—it's trying to tell you something! Signs of overdoing it may include pelvic pain, urinary leakage, or a feeling of heaviness in the pelvic area. If you experience any of these symptoms, it doesn’t mean you’ve f’d anything up but it is a signal to dial back the intensity and reassess the bases. Often what I see when someone gets into running too soon or too quickly is that their pelvic floor and core muscles stiffen to compensate for their lack of strength. Like a desperate attempt to kegel your way through the run. Trust me, it’s not a sustainable approach and you’re pelvic floor will fatigue more quickly then if you strengthen it and then let it do its thing while running. One quick suggestion is after introducing any new load, make sure to spend some time releasing these muscles. Similar to the cool down stretches you’d do after any hard workout! Try out these pelvic floor relaxation videos.
Can Running Postpartum Cause Prolapse?
The dreaded "P" word—pelvic organ prolapse—is a valid concern for many postpartum runners. While running itself doesn't directly cause prolapse, factors such as weakened pelvic floor muscles, increased laxity around the pelvic organs and increased intra-abdominal pressure can contribute to increased symptoms of prolapse. If this lack of support is gone unchecked, especially early postpartum, prolapse can develop but hopefully given you’re even reading this, you won’t ignore these heavy signs from your body and will come see your fav pelvic floor PT.
In Summary:
Returning to run can actually be a very fun part of the process and definitely can inspire an appreciation for how much strength, stability and coordination you need that you never considered before. Knowing the steps to progress through, what symptoms to be mindful of if doing too much, and gradually introducing more and more load into the body will set you up for success. If you have any questions pop me an email! frankaboutpelvichealth@gmail.com
