Are We Taking Post-Baby Fitness too Far?
Is it just me or has anybody else noticed the glut of workout with baby style articles, ideas and even videos which are trending their way across cyberspace and (presumably) into our daily lives right now? All well and good if you are a former athlete and have a marathon to prep for. But I really think the rest of us Newbie Mummas should be taking life a little bit easier.
And do not get me started on the way we are morphing our tiny tots – often as gym equipment, yes really – into our chosen regimes of choice…!
Sometimes I really do question whether the world has gone utterly insane. And the video below highlights just how dangerously selfish training with baby can be.
I am covering my ears already in anticipation of the flurry of How-Very-Dare-Yous. Because of course, that was rather extreme and most workouts with baby come nowhere near that danger zone. But what it does demonstrate is the very fine line that exists… and how insanely unsafe things can get when we keep pushing those boundaries to cross it.
Yes, you are right, Little Ones may well be smiling in the myriad ‘Fitness with Mama’ videos on YouTube. Yes, playing pass the parcel between Mum and Dad as they perfect their abs looks like a lot of fun. But handstands over your baby? Lifting your baby between your legs as you complete your round of 50 crunches? It’s yet another fine line between a wobble and completely injuring your baby because you totally lost your balance or strength. Sometimes we need to remember that old chestnut called common sense. But also that, funnily enough, our babies are not so concerned about how many reps we can achieve in a minute or how many pbs we’ve surpassed this time round.
They love us just as much if we are tucking into a pulled pork sandwich to top up our milk supply. Let’s be honest, they’d probably love us more.
Or putting our feet up for an afternoon snooze because last night we managed approximately 3 and a bit hours sleep.
If you must hurry straight back to the gym…
(Assuming you have been sensible enough to check you are physically ready with your GP) then pop baby on a mat as you put yourself through the paces of your pilates DVD, take them to the creche while you hit the treadmill, strap them safely next to you in their buggy while you do your squats and lunges in the park. And take that crying cue from them when it happens, as it surely will, as a hint to STOP. Because they’d rather crawl, toddle, be held, have their milk, or gnaw on a piece of banana… than be your bloody sit up aid!
The Bubbas in these sequences courtesy of US based ‘Belly Bootcamp’ (could a fitness business name be any more frigging condescending to early motherhood?) didn’t have a whole lot of say in the matter…
And neither do the babes whose mums career them in pushchairs frantically around the nations parks. Yes, Buggy Bootcamps (here we go again, another version on the post-pregnancy military workout… because of course trimming down our tums to a more svelte and respectable waistband number should be one of our biggest priorities the minute we’ve had our 6 week check up) are BIG business.
Supposedly, these groups are meant to exist at various fitness levels. I say supposedly because I have lost count of the number of times I have meandered past them with my little boy in his buggy, inwardly wondering what planet the poor puffing and panting stragglers on the end are inhabiting.
Ladies: take it from me, pushing yourselves to those kind of extremes (unless you are Paula Radcliffe) is a one-way ticket to exhaustion and quite frankly postnatal depression. A gentle stroll to brush away the cobwebs, as and when your energy levels are in agreement, is the best way back to regular exercise of any kind.
I am all for keeping fit.
I’m a (gentle, non-swinging baby around like a lasso) yoga fanatic and a walker at heart. And I have long loved the benefit to my well-being that regular exercise brings. But some of us new mums are taking things to, well, quite frankly the max. And I can’t help but make the link between the pressure that society via social media brings, and this orthorexic mania that IS obtaining the airbrushed body courtesy of a Gwyneth Paltrow style dietary agenda and a fat busting exercise routine.
At a time when we should be resting and giving our body a break for all of the labour – yes labour, remember that? – that it has endured during pregnancy. At a time when we should be kinder to ourselves, letting tummies ping back of their own natural accord (we are entitled to after all, we did carry a new life within us for 9 months, it kind of stands to reason that it will take at least 9… and the rest for the ‘washboard stomach’ if we even ever had one, to return). And at a time when we should be having our cake and jolly well eating it if those extra calories get us through the sleepless days and nights, why, oh why would we fall for the utter silliness of burning ourselves out?
All hail Marina Fogle!
Who recently penned a very sensible bit of critique on the insanity of the Kim Kardashian 3 months post pregnancy naked selfie craze. Essentially, Marina reminded us ladies that:
“The pages of Hello! magazine, with celebrity mothers back in their bikinis, leaner than ever a few months after the delivery of their child, had me under the impression that once you’ve pushed out your baby, your tummy pings back almost to the size and shape it was. Before I had my first child, I hadn’t grasped that my uterus, usually the size of a fist, would grow to the size of a watermelon and, take a while to shrink back after the birth, leaving me with a bump not far off the size it was at six months’ gestation.”
A very noble stance in my book. It’s on but the very rarest of occasions these days that somebody in the public eye speaks out about another in their world (although Marina sounds much more down to earth than to post selfies to 63 million Instagram followers). But her comments are refreshing. We have in so many ways become ridiculously PC when it comes to not saying what we think.
A contradiction which in this case no doubt cheered up many a mum out there who just this very morning had counted five new stretch marks, tried and failed to squeeze back into her jeans, and is opting for booking a family holiday to Butlins instead of a fortnight around the pool in Mallorca, because the thought of her baring her ‘pot belly’ in a bikini is bringing her out in nightly cold sweats.
Early motherhood – heck all motherhood – is a time for remembering we are already being the greatest role models in the world. Anything else we can achieve in a day is just the cherry on the cake.
Motherhood can be a triathlon, or it can be a walk in the park.
Thank you, but I’ll take the latter… and a picnic basket!
(Note from The Editor: Do you want to read more from Freya Spring? Take a look at her authors page here to read more of her work with us here at The Glass House.)
