Mamas & Babas Athletic

IYKYK 💪🏼❤️

Pregnancy is wild!

You may be walking in the gym, wondering how you even got here and then before you know it, you’re lifting the ice your new bodyweight for reps! 😂💪🏼

If you’re wanting a training plan that’s better suited for your pregnancy than your modified generic program, check out the link in my bio for the Pregnant Athlete Program!
80 x pregnancy specific workouts built to prepare you for birth and help you anticipate the postpartum!

We really need to talk about this feeling more, because I think almost every postpartum athlete will experience it in some way.

When you’ve spent years training consistently, when you’ve peaked athletically and you’re suddenly finding yourself postpartum, feeling like you have nothing to show for all that hard work, it can be incredibly tough mentally.

And we need to talk about it, because returning to exercise postpartum isn’t only a physical challenge. It’s a huge mental one too.

There’s frustration in having to slow down. There’s comparison with what you used to be able to do or what others around you are doing. There’s the temptation to skip ahead because you know what your body was capable of and because you’re itching to get back into it.

Having a plan during this season is quite literally essential! It can help you stay on track, understand your postpartum body, know what you’re working towards and rebuild your strength brick by brick, from the inside out.

I’ve put everything you need to map out your return to training and have a plan of action you can trust inside my free guide, The Postpartum Athlete Blueprint.

Comment BLUEPRINT and I’ll send it to you in the DMs❤️

These are 5 things I wish someone had told me back when I was first postpartum. I needed to know these important facts and I also needed someone to tell me that the messy, low-intensity, interrupted workouts I was doing were actually moving the needle, even if it didn’t feel like it.

Except, my story is a bit different! After my GP check, I jumped straight back into CrossFit classes (makes me cringe to even write this) and as a result, I injured myself at 9 months postpartum.

So if you’re reading this, I’m so, so glad! 💛 Thank you for being here. Save this post so you can always refer back to it whenever you need a reminder.

And if you’d love a clear guidance for your postpartum return, comment BLUEPRINT and I’ll send you my FREE Postpartum Athlete’s Blueprint to help you approach this season safely and confidently x

You will literally never know how much value this small gesture adds to an overstimulated, exhausted mama desperately trying to finish her 6-minute AMRAP!!

Tag your girlies/partner/coach below, to let them know what heroes they are 🩶

As much as I wish it was this simple, pregnancy doesn’t come with a list of movements to avoid.

Should some movements be avoided? Yes, absolutely.

Would those same movements need to be avoided by every single athlete at a particular point in pregnancy? Absolutely not!

Simply removing exercises and replacing them with the classic “kettlebell swing” or “ring row” can quickly lead to over-scaling, resulting in loss of progress and confidence.

What an athlete can do throughout pregnancy will vary hugely from one person to the next. It depends on the athlete, her training history, her symptoms, how she’s moving and handling abdominal pressure and how her body is responding to the demands of her training.

That’s why pregnancy training requires intention. We adapt where we need to, while continuing to challenge the athlete where we can.

If you’re wanting to change the way you approach training during pregnancy, I’ve put everything you need to know into a simple guide which you can have for FREE. Just comment PLAYBOOK and I’ll send it over.

And if you’re a coach who wants to feel a lot more confident working with pregnant athletes, get yourself a ticket to one of my upcoming workshops and become certified in one day!

📍 Middlesbrough — 23rd August
📍 Edinburgh — 20th September (early bird ends this week)
📍 Belfast — 25th October

Tickets via the link in my bio x

As a coach, we must be able to assess our clients’ form at all times.

During pregnancy, the visual cues become somewhat more complex, and we must know what to look for and what to do with what we see.

Spotting when an athlete is coning or doming is where it starts. Then we need to know what to do next and why.

The goal isn’t to wrap pregnant athletes in cotton wool.

It’s to give them the tools and coaching cues that allow them to keep training safely and effectively.

Coning and doming are signs that the abdominal pressure currently being generated exceeds our athlete’s ability to control it.

But not all coning is the same. Soft coning is a sign that we need to improve TVA engagement and pressure management.

Hard coning is more of a red flag.
But in both cases, we must be able to tell our athletes what to do next.

This is one of the things we dive into in my 1-day course “Coaching Pregnant & Postpartum Athletes”

There are 3 upcoming dates:

➡️ Middlesbrough — August CrossFit Middlesbrough
➡️ Edinburgh — September CrossFit MTS Edinburgh
➡️ Belfast — October Boundary Lisburn

It’s a 1-day, CIMSPA endorsed , in-person workshop that will teach you what coaching pregnant and postpartum athletes truly looks like directly from the gym floor!

If you’re a coach working with pregnant or postpartum athletes, comment or DM me the word “WORKSHOP” and I’ll send you the link right away!

What does a midwife really think about training during pregnancy?

In this episode, I’m joined by Nathalie, aka Nathalie | Midwife | Pre & Postnatal coach🌻 who is first and foremost, a gorgeous human! She happens to also be any athlete’s dream midwife! As she is a dedicated athlete herself, she has a real understanding of what it means to be an athlete during pregnancy.

In this new episode, we discuss training during pregnancy, preparing for birth, returning to exercise after childbirth, some of the biggest myths surrounding pregnancy and postpartum training, and the current postnatal care standards.

Such a beautiful conversation that I know you will love too!

Head over to my bio for the link to Spotify and ApplePodcasts x

We’ve come a long way from the days when pregnant women were told to rest.

We now understand the wide range of benefits that staying active during pregnancy can offer, and we also know that high-intensity training is generally well tolerated by both mum and baby.

But that doesn’t mean it’s a green light to continue training exactly as we did before pregnancy.

Pregnant athletes can absolutely train hard if they choose to, but “training hard” should never mean no adaptations.

Pregnancy requires us to work with an ever-changing body, not against it.

Intensity during this time comes from being intentional: adjusting the variables we can control, finding new ways to challenge ourselves , and doing so without compromising pelvic health or long-term performance goals.

The goal is to:
- Stop over doing
- Stop over scaling
- Prepare for birth
- And anticipate the postpartum

I’ve put all of this into clear steps inside my free guide, the Pregnant Athlete Playbook!
Comment PLAYBOOK and I’ll send it to your DMs right away x