Patience, Honesty, Yoga

Over the last two weeks I’ve taken on my own little personal challenge.

I think I’ve mentioned before how I struggle with my flexibility (I know planks of wood that bend more) and as much as I’m aware I need to work on this and it’s something I would always say to clients and class members it’s an area of my health that I neglect.

With this in mind and knowing that tightness in my hip and quad is very probably the cause of a recent knee injury I sign up for a twelve week yoga course. Several things appealed to me about this course.

It’s all video based so you can do it in your own time following the instructor via a weekly video.
The yoga instructor is also a Body Combat instructor and having seen a previous video they had produced on mobility wok for Body Combat I felt this was likely to a type of yoga beneficial to my mobility.
Each week has a different focus which appealed to both my limited concentration span and learning a variety of moves to be able to use going forward as and when I want or need to focus on one area.
The sessions are around 20-25 minutes long and you are encouraged to practice several times across the week rather than just doing one hour long yoga practice- this for me seemed much more manageable.
You are also part of a group with weekly Facebook lives where you can ask questions and get feedback, for someone not from a yoga background that is really useful and increases your accountability.

So far I’ve practiced three times in week one, twice on week two and once so far this week (week three) although I intend to get another two to three sessions in this week.

In my head when I signed up I said to myself – I will practice every single day. That obviously hasn’t happened, but that’s OK, because I’ve gone from zero mobility work to 50 minutes plus a week over the last couple of weeks. However you look at it, that is progress.

Another thing that I have gleaned from the last couple of weeks – and it’s been centred around the yoga practice but is really key to how you approach all aspects of your own health / fitness regime – is about being honest with your practice.

By being honest with your yoga practice they mean accepting your body and it’s current ability. That means not progressing a move to progress it until you are comfortable and performing the current move week. It means acknowledging when you need to adapt a move to get the best out of your session and not being too proud to do so.

These two key elements of the mindset of your yoga practice are equally beneficial when applied to the rest of your training.

I’ve had lots of conversations with people over the last few weeks, and can openly admit it’s something I’m prone to do as well, about the all or nothing approach to fitness. We want to be fit and healthy – and we want it now. Society is result oriented and whilst we all want change we also want it now, we tend to be less keen on the idea that those results can take time and require gradual change. It’s why we do often start a new plan or course with the intention to commit 100% and then get disheartened and feel like we have failed when we aren’t 100% perfect in week one. Then we get the urge to quit, start again, that this isn’t for me.

The reality is few of us will ever do anything 100% perfectly. Life will get in the way, require adaptations and compromises and if we give up on things when the first stumbling block comes along we will not reach our goals.

What experience does show me however is that if you do stick to things for ‘most of the time’ results come. Set backs are just that, they aren’t the end of the road, simply something to overcome and move on from. If you are doing nothing and this week you do something you have progressed. Results may be slower but they will be more long lasting. Quick fixes tend to be quickly back to ‘where you were before’ as well.

Equally, being honest about where you are and want to be with your fitness is important.

Your goals need to be reflective of the effort you can put in. If you can train twice a week then training for a physique show is unlikely to be a realistic goal for you. However, reducing your body fat and getting fitter in two sessions a week is entirely possible.

You also need to be honest about what you are really doing. Putting weight on even though you’re eating less? Yet you aren’t using my Fitness Pal to track your calories and aren’t really counting the calories in your two coffee shop coffees or the sauces that you put on food because they are barely anything. It’s easy to think you are in a calorie deficit but when you track EVERYTHING realise you aren’t. It really comes down to being honest about what you are doing.

You could even go more specific- what do you lift? Do you lift it was strong technique? Would you get more out of your session if you lifted less, better?

My message for this blog, which following the conversations I’ve had recently more than just me needs to remember, is this.

Wherever you are at with your fitness goals, it is a continuous journey, when you reach a goal it doesn’t end, new goals will arise and you will keep on working. What you can do and, indeed, want to do will change over time. Sometimes you will not do everything right, maybe for days and weeks on end, that doesn’t mean starting over or failure. Sometimes you will meet people who can lift more than you, are leaner, more flexible and this doesn’t mean you have failed because the only progress that genuinely matters is what you can do now compared to what you could do before.

Patience and honesty are key tools to have in your fitness armour.

Also, I can highly recommend adding a bit of yoga to your life!

I have been practicing Yoga with The Kicking Asanas 12 Week Yoga Challenge. You can find more information on the services Michelle offers here:

The Kicking Yogi

Post Marathon Blues

Today’s blog topic is a request (possibly my first ever topic request!) and is focused on the Post Marathon Blues.

This doesn’t just need to apply to marathons, it could equally apply to people who have trained for any big sporting even (half marathon, 10k, big swim or cycle, triathlon, a show, a tournament- anything where all your focus for several months has been working towards being in your peak physical form and at the top of your game for one specific event).

How we feel after an event is not something we tend to focus on. We put lots of thought into preparing for things and on the day itself and even on the immediate recovery in the hours or days after a physical event.

But many people report feeling a bit down in the weeks after a marathon or other big event. Words like lost, aimless, flat, down, void, lacking in motivation come up in conversations. It’s a lot like that feeling you get when you come back from a holiday and the realities of normal life hit you and now because the holiday has been and gone you don’t have anything to look forward to.

This is due to both physical and psychological reasons.

Physically the day itself will probably have left you feeling extremely tired, a cumulative effect of weeks of training hard and the extra effort of the day itself and you may have picked up blisters, bruised toenails and niggles which don’t help make you feel great about yourself. Your endorphins will have been high during the event and as you settle back into normality this can have an effect of how you feel as you struggle to replicate the high you felt in that moment again.

Mentally, you no longer have the event to focus on and that can leave you feeling like life has no meaning or focus after months of everything you do revolving around training (can’t go out Saturday have a long run on Sunday morning, can’t eat that as I’m in training and so on). It can make it harder to you to motivate yourself to eat well or train as you no longer have that reason for doing so. Many of us thrive on routine and having something meaningful to us to work towards and once you reach your goal where do you go from there?

Thankfully, these feelings tend to only last a few weeks and people normally spring back to their normal self but there are things you can do to help yourself feel better in this situation and feel the positivity you probably expected to feel after your big achievement.

Celebrate

Plan to do something nice to celebrate your achievement – a massage, spa break, celebration meal. Take time to congratulate yourself for what you achieved so it doesn’t feel insignificant now.

Book something nice

Similar to above, you could consider booking a weekend break or holiday- something to focus on that is nice and not exercise. This is bound to improve your mood

Reflect

Think about what you achieved, all the positives and even what you would have done differently in hindsight. Think objectively about whether it’s something you would like to repeat or if once was enough. That way if you choose to train for the same event in the future you know what pitfalls to avoid and if not you know you can confidently say once was enough. Sometimes reflecting on your feelings can give you more ownership on how you feel and help you both make decisions and manage your emotional responses better.

Recover Properly

Get a sports massage, continue to eat nourishing food (and enough of it) to help the body recover, stretch, get some good quality sleep and take some time to just sit and chill. Any sporting event which take a toll on your body requires some proper mindful recovery in the days after to help you feel better physically which in turn will help you feel better mentally.

Do some low impact exercise

Don’t feel like you need to be back training he day after. A week or two off could be exactly what your body needs. If you feel the urge to exercise though try and stick to low impact options which place less strain on your CNS. You may want to try some yoga or similar during this time.

Don’t run for a couple of weeks

Similar to above, a couple of weeks not doing the exercise you have just trained hard for can be beneficial, both in allow you to physically recover but also give you that little bit of excitement when you do go back out for that first run after a couple of weeks.

Find a new challenge

After a couple of weeks when your rested and refreshed this could be the time to think about what comes next. Another run of the same distance, a step up to the next distance (Ultra anyone), maybe looking at trying something new instead. Setting your next goal will give you a renewed sense of focus.

Above all, don’t stress about feeling a bit blue after a big event. It’s human nature and being sensible and kind to yourself is the key to letting it subside.

Equally, if you suffer from depression anyway, don’t let the idea of post event blues put you off training for an event. Research has shown that having something to aim for and the training and self care associated with that training can be beneficial in alleviating the symptoms of depression and as long as you are mindful that you might feel a bit down immediately after the event and have your coping strategies in place this should have a generally positive impact on your mental health.

What’s the hardest thing in the land of fitness?

Working out how to train?

Working out what to eat?

I don’t think so.

For me it’s accepting that you will never be perfect.

You decide to start something – training for an event, looking to drop a dress size, whatever it may be. You have your plan in place and you’re committed to doing it. Day one does well, so does day two, then day three something comes up and you can’t eat what you planned or miss a training session and suddenly it all feels like it’s unravelling. Fast forward a week later and you’ve completely dropped your plan and feel like you need to start again.

It’s so easy to fall into this trap.

It’s why so many people don’t reach the goals they set themselves.

A lot of us are very bad at accepting that one slip up doesn’t really matter.

I’ll admit this is something I’ve always been bad for. I’d start the week ready to have a totally perfect week and get to Friday upset with myself that it hadn’t happened.

Then I learnt (OK I had drummed into me) that PERFECT DOES NOT EXIST.

BUT.

A couple of not perfect things in an otherwise positive week won’t derail my progress.

Now, I get if you are on show prep or similar and a few days out then a slip up could make a massive difference. But if you want to feel good on the beach in a couple of month times and go over your calorie goal one day in a week it really isn’t going to matter that much.

As people we tend to focus on the negative over the positive. So there could be 9 great things about our week and one bad thing and you can almost bet your life we will spend more time thinking about that one negative.

So how do you get the results you want?

You accept that things don’t have to always go to plan for progress to happen. If in a week you miss one training session but have two really good ones, those two good ones haven’t been cancelled out by missing the third. If you’ve eaten everything you planned most days but on Tuesday had a cake, that cake hasn’t cancelled out all the nutritious stuff you’ve also fed your body. If the last month felt really really positive but this week you’ve felt a bit off that doesn’t cancel out last month.

In the same way people say one healthy meal won’t make you slimmer or one exercise session won’t make you fit. Well nor will the cake make you fat or missing that gym session and going to the pub mean you’re back to square one.

Find your goal. Make your plan. Then stick to it?

Nope.

How about:

Find your goal. Make your plan. Do it as best you can and when life gets in the way don’t start again just keep going and do what you can.

Not as catchy so probably won’t catch on but might mean you’re a little more likely to hit those aims.

After the Happy Ending

People thinking reaching their fitness goal is hard, and don’t get me wrong it is. If you want to drop 2 or more dress sizes or lose several stone starting from nothing and doing that can be very hard indeed. It involves making changes to your lifestyle, creating new habits and keeping doing those things week and week.

Getting to your goal feels brilliant. People will notice the change, you will feel brilliant. But what happens after?

The challenge is that the motivation to keep to healthy habits can be strong when you keep seeing the scales go down or having to buy smaller trousers, but at some point you reach where you want to be and those visible motivators come to a halt. Of course you still need to do all those things to maintain the goals you’ve reached but now you don’t have the initial goal to motivate you.

In my mind – the initial transformation is tough. What comes after can be tougher (it’s a bit like what happens after the Happy Ever After moment in films). Now you don’t have the oh wow moments to give you that push.

Mentally, this can be challenging. If you’ve ever lost a lot of weight you may have had the same (I admit not overly healthy) struggle to not just keep on going. I got to my aim and just kept on pushing to lose more – it can almost become an addictive feeling. Of course eventually I realised it was in no way sustainable to keep losing or stay the size I had reached and still eat cake (or well eat really) plus I had discovered weights. But several years on i do sometimes feel in a bit of a limbo. I don’t need to lose weight but I’m not as small as I once was and keeping yourself on track and motivated when you’re in that position isn’t always easy, in fact it takes a massive change in mindset and rethinking of your goals.

If you’ve reached your initial goal and now feel at a bit of a loose end, you’re not alone and it’s not unusual. New goals can be formed but you also need to give yourself a break for not being sure how you feel once you have reached your goal because reaching a goal is really rarely the end of a story.

Hangovers and Training

Sweating out a hangover.

Something you’ll hear often and we’ve probably all said.

How should you train the day after a heavy drinking sessions?

It sounds appealing- almost like atonement – make up for the things you put your body through the night before. But when you drink a lot you become dehydrated, going to the gym and working out will cause further dehydration to occur. This can make exercise feel more draining than normal (you are more likely to suffer from cramps for instance) so you can end up feeling worse rather than better. Studies have also suggested that greater than normal fatigue can also affect our co-ordination leading to a greater risk of strains or injury. There is also evidence that alcohol can have an effect on protein synthesis so it can be harder to recover after a sessions as effectively as you normally would.

Hangovers obviously vary on a scale and if you had one glass of wine last night you will probably feel fine to work out the next day but if you wake up dizzy, shaking with your head banging heading to the gym for a hardcore workout could make you feel worse than you already do.

Instead drink all the water to hydrate – consider adding some hydration tablets or salts such as these Electrolytes.

Don’t try restricting your food intake to make up for overdoing it, have a good meal – eggs on toast and a banana is a decent breakfast idea for making you feel better.

If you really want to be active get outdoors and go for a walk – some light movement and fresh air will almost definitely help.

Sleep. Your quality of sleep is often reduced when drunk so a nap could make you feel brighter quicker.

Fitness Professionals – A Reaction to the Last 24 Hours in my World

If you aren’t a Les Mills instructor you will not be aware of the changes made to the way payments are taken for the materials and education that allow you to teach Les Mills programmes. To bring you up to speed quickly, in a nutshell people aren’t happy about having the autonomy to pay for what they want when they want taken away from them. People who teach multiple programmes are not happy that they are now paying more than they used to. The details of this change affect me but are not really what I want to write about today.

When these sort issues arise in general people take to Facebook to debate them. I say debate but quite often there is little real debate. I will normally have an opinion, and I’m happy to express it. It may be different to the opinion of others, even those I’m close to – I will still express it. However I also am happy to consider different views, and sometimes my initial view will change based on what other people have expressed as I consider things from angles that I hadn’t originally considered (this is debate). Sometimes it feels like what actually happens is everyone expresses their view and simply insists anyone who disagrees with them is wrong. When both the customer and provider do this it creates a situation that becomes harder and harder to resolve. I sometimes think that people think that listening and acknowledging the validity in an opposing view weakens their own position so they instead aggressively defend their standpoint generating a greater negative response from people (whereas I have also seen some brilliant examples of the opposite over the last 24 hours where listening to people’s concerns has generated much more positive reactions from people who are upset – none of this is black and white). When we are passionate about something and think it is a good thing we can sometimes be blindsided to the negatives that others may see. I also believe, by the way, that there is a view that a debate such as the ones over the last 24 hours is always a negative thing unless everyone is pro the change being discussed. Actually if we viewed not agreeing with each other in a less negative way debates can be extremely healthy, as can being allowed to express your standpoint. Within my close circle I’ll frequently discuss opposing opinions on topics and we manage to do so without falling out and labeling each other as negative.

Ultimately this has got me thinking about how we work together as fitness professionals. It’s a weird situation. Other fitness professionals are our colleagues in some senses but not in other senses. I have an office job by day and the people I work with are colleagues, it’s very clear cut – we all work for the same company and have to follow the same rules etc. If something changes it tends to affect most people in a similar way. Fitness professionals are self employed / contractors / their own businesses (how we define ourselves if a personal choice). We may work at the same gyms but we all negotiate our own terms, potentially compete for classes, have different degrees of reliance on different fitness roles (main source of income could be PT, classes, other jobs entirely) so how we view changes will be very different for everyone. It makes an already quite competitive market feel more competitive.

It seems an odd idea expecting people who in some ways compete to also work together at the same time. For me it’s become the most positive way to progress your fitness career however.

I work in various ways with a number of different fitness professionals, some in my local eco system (where there is more argument you are competing for the same customers), others in different parts of the country all together. I also talk regularly with instructors from all over the UK, who I sometimes have different opinions to but am able to discuss them without falling out! This has made the fitness world so much nicer for me. Some things are still frustrating of course, but there is a support network, places where you can ask questions or vent about annoyances without being attacked by people who do not agree. I’ve found new work opportunities through networking and looking at how I can work with people rather than compete against them. I’ve learnt things because I’ve opened myself up to different people and they’ve helped me with things they are good at rather than guarding their knowledge and I’ve tried to do the same.

A few years ago there was a movement for a fitness union to fight stagnant pay, which struggled because essentially, as was pointed out at the time, if you don’t teach for the current rate there will always be someone else who will – basically the same argument that as we are all self employed we cannot work together at the same time. This isn’t true. Of course any partnerships need to be beneficial to both parties (and I mean that as individuals and our partnerships with providers such as Les Mill and gyms) and we need to be aware of what we offer against what we take (again both sides too- including gyms and providers). In a busy market however, with every changing trends, I think we need to reconsider how we work with other fitness professionals, possibly gyms and providers also need to consider how they work with non staff member fitness professionals also.

For me personally, I’m happy where I am currently at. My professional connections within the fitness sector are growing stronger and are all positive relationships where I don’t feel I am competing and I feel I can make a difference. The changes in fees, well it’s not ideal as it makes keeping three programmes I don’t physically have classes in financially no longer viable – but there you go, a potentially difficult head over heart choice made for me so good in a way! Perhaps Les Mills will listen to the feedback and adapt the new system to assist those with multiple programmes, if they don’t then instructors have the same choice as me and Les Mills can equally make the choice on how to work with those instructors. What I do know is knee jerk reactions are normal and to be expected and debates are hard not to be drawn into but a) debates don’t need to be seen as a bad thing and b) we will get more done if we try and hep each other.

Post Launch Feels

By now most of the Les Mills instructors reading this will have taught the new releases at least once (I literally just finished teaching my first solo run of Body Combat, did Body Pump this morning).

My thought process at this point each and every quarter (pretty sure I’m not alone):

Thank *** for that.
That went better than expected (i.e. I didn’t have a brain freeze and just stand there staring blankly at the class – therefore I win!).
I actually like that release a lot more than I thought I did.
I want to go and sit in a quiet dark room for a while.
I will now almost definitely get some kind of cold as my body relaxes and the adrenaline subsides!
Next quarter I will be better at learning and not stress myself out panic learning the cool down the night before.
I lie to myself a lot.
Also the cool down is legit the hardest part of every release to learn!
My body hurts. Why are all classes so much harder when you do them in a class situation than when you practice?
I get to listen to normal music again instead of the same twenty songs on repeat whilst doing finger choreography.
Except to be honest I don’t want to listen to any music at all right now – my brain just want quiet.
I’m so glad I don’t have to do this again for another three months. Three months of being able to teach without pre – game nerves and brain overload.
Looks on Facebook – someone is already talking about mixing … Like can we not have a couple of weeks to enjoy this one before we need to worry about remembering other stuff!?
Gets home, eats chocolate because teaching the new ones successfully earns you chocolate. Possibly add wine.
Go to bed- dream about choreography because now it’s ingrained in your brain (why is it never ingrained in your brain ahead of teaching it!?).

Why I Love Group Exercise

I’m a fan of Group Exercise, it was how I first ‘got into’ the gym and I now teach 8+ classes myself a week. I think Group Exercise actually works really well, and I don’t just mean classes – team sports, running clubs – I believe all the ways that people can train with others can have a beneficial effect on people.

It can help you get started – Going into the gym alone at first can be daunting when you have no idea where to start. A class or a running programme like Couch to 5k provides structure and allows you to get moving in a way you can be confident is safe and effective.
It keeps you committed – Signing up to a class or joining a team or club where there are set days and times to attend means you are less likely to decide you’d rather go home and veg in front of the TV at the end of a long day.
It can make you work harder – A team sport encourages you to perform you best for your team mates, running as part of a club can encourage you to keep to a set pace, the music, instructor and people around you in a class can make you try as hard as you can for the whole length of the class. For many there is something about a group that makes you try harder than when you are left to your own devices in the gym.
You have a ready made exercise support network – Especially relevant when you are starting to create new habits. Your family and friends might not get your commitment to picking a spin class over a Netflix binge at first, the other people in that class will, making all the difference in you not feeling like some kind of freak! And if you ever aren’t sure about something there’s a whole group of people who might be able to help, in particular, you will also have an instructor or coach who has the knowledge to help you improve at whatever you have chosen to do.
It’s social – You will make friends at a club or in a class. You get to meet people from different backgrounds and get to know people outside of your normal work / social circle. This in itself will make sticking to your exercise plans easier.
It can increase your confidence – The group environment and having an instructor or coach to hand can give you the confidence to try new tings, maybe adding a new type of class to your week or running a longer distance. All the things above can help create an environment where your confidence can grow.

I do like training in the gym by myself too but for pure enjoyment I would always pick a group exercise class as my training of choice that day.

Do you prefer to train alone or as part of a group?

How Realistic Are Your Expectations?

Last Saturday I got my eyelashes tinted for the first time.

I always get my eyebrows tinted at the same time as getting them threaded but have always chickened out of getting my eyelashes done because I hate anyone going near my eyes.

The thought of no more mascara was appealing though! So I bit the bullet.

Result? Highly disappointing! Half my bottom lashes are still blonde and I still need to wear mascara.

I don’t think it was the eyelash technicians fault. I have very very very blonde eyelashes and in hindsight it was unrealistic to expect them to go super black and noticeable (although I also have blonde eyebrows and these always look very noticeable after tinting – serial killer like in fact – so you can see why I thought they would!).

The issue was my expectations. I expected results that were unrealistic for my natural colouring. I considered trying again next month and seeing if it perhaps came out better, then I stopped myself. Why would I waste more money on something that isn’t likely to give me the results I desire – not because the product is bad because it just isn’t suited to me.

How often do you do this with your diet or training? You see a solution advertised somewhere and think that could give me all these amazing results. Then it doesn’t work, you’ve lost money and still aren’t where you want to be.

Now sometimes this could be because you invested in a product that is basically a fad (diet pills, shakes etc.).

But sometimes it’s because you signed up for something that could work for you but your ambitions are just not realistic. You can get leaner, gain muscle but some things about your body will be difficult or impossible to change. Therefore you might actually be getting results but you don’t see them or appreciate them because they aren’t the ones you envisaged as your ideal body.

My eyelash are too fair to be tinted the way I would like them to be. I could continue to get them tinted in different places month by month in the hope I one day find the perfect place. Or I can accept I need to use mascara if I want visible eyelashes.

You could chase after the ideal figure that you have in your head, trying diet and training plan after diet and training plan. Or you could find some eating and training habits that work for you and make you happy and enjoy the results you get from this.

Post Natal & A Fitness Instructor

About a month ago I wrote a blog about how periods affect my teaching of group ex classes. Turned out I’m not alone in this, it’s just we don’t really talk about it.

The blog also bought to attention the numerous other changes the female body goes through that also affect how we train, how we teach classes and how we feel about our bodies.

I decided I wanted to explore this a little more, because I do believe that the first step to improving understanding on issues which are rarely spoken about is to start talking about them. I have no personal experience in some of these changes however, and this blog has always been about my personal experiences.

So I reached out to a friend who is both a group exercise instructor and a new mother to try and understand what effects on training and teaching giving birth has had.

Jo gave birth to Jasper in October. She remained active throughout pregnancy, still teaching Pump until close to the birth and continuing to lift weights and train in Crossfit during pregnancy. She returned to teaching last week (Pump again to begin with).

I know from conversations throughout her pregnancy she was very realistic about getting back into training and teaching after the birth, she wasn’t expecting to be back to pre – pregnancy shape within days or weeks and was always going to approach things sensibly. Her experiences post birth are therefore helpful in appreciating how, no matter our knowledge and realism, there are numerous effects which impact instructors returning after giving birth that we might not give a second though to.

Physical Effects:

“Your alignment is WAY out and no muscles are connecting or firing up so your joints hurt”. Effectively a new mother has to start again in terms of movement, re-learning how to walk is a reality for some mothers. No matter how much someone might want to get straight back to teaching within a few weeks, giving birth isn’t something your body can just bounce back from.

“When you can walk for 30 minutes and your insides don’t hurt it could be time to start to exercise again. Meanwhile all your pregnant fitness, despite training to the end, has gone because it’s taken 8 weeks for your wedding cake sized uterus to shrink down to the size of a marble again”.

Many of use have had injuries and then had to regain our fitness following some time out. Post birth you’re adding time where you cannot train on top of recovering from the physical trauma the body goes though giving birth.

This is of course true for all new mums, but for those who need to bounce about as part of their job, the task of getting your body moving in even a basic way again must be daunting, and having the patience to allow yourself to heal when your income is dependent on you needing to move again must add an extra layer of stress for some.

Jo highlighted the core in particular as a physical challenge post birth. Now how often do you tell your class to brace their core in the average 45 minute class?

“Training can begin. Only nothing connects. So life is banded muscle activation. Body weight. No impact. And all the core… All you want is intensity but rowing 200 m cuts you in half – literally no core”

As instructors most of us are aware of what to advise our members: check with your doctor / midwife, wait until after you 6 week check up, lower back and core will feel weak, joints are still more supple than normal so injury is still a greater risk.

I’ll be honest until I spoke to Jo about this I don’t think I realised HOW weak someone’s core could feel to them (I’ve limited experience within my classes of members who are post natal). Every woman is different of course but I for one feel like if I have a recently post natal member in my class having a deeper understanding from someone’s real experience will help me be a better coach.

Mental Effects:

“There’s me thinking I would be teaching at 12 weeks”

Jo was sensible and listened to her body, rebuilding her fitness over time, re- adding in new skills week upon week to build up to a point she could train confidently again.

But the side that probably gets less attention (because we all tend to focus on the physical – our jobs being to train people’s bodies) is how you feel teaching post pregnancy.

“You have no brain. Your brain has been solely focused on building a new human for 40 weeks… You can’t even think straight. Why are you in this room? Who are these people? Not to mention your mini human is here and you’ve never had one before so keeping it alive is now your sole purpose… Researching EVERYTHING 24/7. You forget to eat. You can’t even get out. You have to plan 6 hours in advance to take a new born out.”

Most people, whether they have had kids or not, probably understand to a degree that having a young baby is exhausting. I cannot imagine learning Body Pump whilst my brain felt like this. My brain almost explodes during new release time anyway so the pressure of learning and retaining chorey at a time when you don’t feel mentally sharp anyway must be exceptionally tough.

“Then there’s the…. I hate my body. It hurts. I look shit. I’m not me. I’m a human incubator that will never be me again depression”.

I discussed in my recent post about periods that feeling of standing in front of people wen you are on your period and that yucky feeling that makes you want to fade into the background – not have 30 sets of eyes on you (someone described it well as feeling exposed). Again here, this is another time when even once you feel fit enough to teach you also have to re- find the confidence to lead despite not feeling confident at all.

Practical Effects:

Apart from who will look after the baby whilst you train, prepare to teach (even teach in the early months before child care is arranged!)

Sleep has a big impact.

More specifically – You don’t get any.

“No rest in the day. No rest at the night. So you’re always under fatigue. So classses seem daunting … and you can’t remember any choreo”

I don’t want to pain a negative picture of training or teaching after giving birth, personally I felt like Jo took to motherhood like a duck to water and nailed it!

As Jo says:

“Train at home . Order food to be delivered online. Join a gym to take baby with you. Gather your support network. Express milk so you can rest and partner feed. Take one hour everyday away from your baby. Plan your meals. Have a routine. Be consistent. And most importantly TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS”

This plan meant that when Jo came back to teaching she loved it and felt great about it, so it’s not all doom and gloom at all, but by understanding the stresses and emotions surrounding training and teaching in the months after giving birth we make the fitness community more supportive and inclusive and allow us to also potentially understand our members better. We can also understand so help to provide support to those who may not necessarily seem like they need much encouragement.

There is so much more that could be written in relation to periods, pregnancy and post pregnancy and our understanding of these effects (beyond the standard what modification can I give to a pregnant lady in Pump understanding). I’m also aware that there are PTs who specialise in pre and postnatal training and some PTs who understand the effect of the menstrual cycle extremely well on training.

What you don’t see very often is discussions of the real effects of these natural physical processes- both physical and mental. How they affect the more mundane aspects of training or teaching.

We can all rectify that. By talking about experiences we can empower others, both showing them they are not alone in feeling a certain way and also by educating each other in a way that we might be able to better understand both our fellow instructors and also female members.

Thank you to Jo Brickell- Haggan for providing the content for this blog and allowing me to share her honest experiences so freely.