Episode #6: Postpartum Strength Training for New Parents: Managing Training Expectations and Adapting to Life After Having A Baby

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Postpartum Strength Training for New Parents: Managing Training Expectations and Adapting to Life After Having A Baby

In this episode of The Progressive Rehab & Strength Podcast, new parents and Clinical Coaches, Drs. Rori Alter and John Petrizzo, dive into the challenges of maintaining a strength training program, specifically powerlifting and barbell training, after having a baby for the first and second time. From sleep deprivation to time constraints, they explore how your approach to training must shift in the postpartum period. If you're a parent, or soon-to-be parent, they talk about the differences in training expectations before and after having kids, and how to avoid the common pitfalls that lead to injury and burnout after.

This episode discusses the importance of flexibility and consistency over perfection, how to modify your lifting program to suit your current life stage, and the critical need to listen to your body and adjust your approach. It also covers how to stay realistic and avoid frustration by embracing the idea that this is a temporary phase, and there will be opportunities to get back to a more robust powerlifting routine that works for you.

Key Takeaways From This Episode:

  • Managing Expectations in Postpartum Powerlifting for Both Parents: Training as a new parent may look very different from training before kids. Explore the shift in mindset and realistic goals when it comes to strength training during the postpartum period.

  • Sleep Deprivation and Its Impact on Strength Training & Recovery: Sleep disturbances are commonplace after having a child, whether it’s the first, second or third time. Whether it’s early postpartum or you’re in the midst of a sleep regression, your ability to recover is impacted and training must adapt while you’re in this ever changing life phase. 

  • Finding Time to Train: How parents can carve out time for strength training despite the busy, unpredictable schedule of parenting. This episode  tackles the myth of "I don't have time to train" and shares practical tips for fitting in workouts, even when life gets chaotic.

  • Consistency Over Perfection: Why aiming for consistency instead of perfection can be a game changer in the postpartum period. It's all about progress, not perfection.

  • The Importance of Modifying Your Program: Not adjusting your training can lead to injuries and hinder your progress. This episode gives real-life examples of clients who struggled with injuries because their standard programs weren’t suited to their current life stage and recovery capacity.

  • Recovery and Injuries: Why you may need to slow down and focus more on recovery, especially after childbirth, when typical strength training programs may not provide enough rest.

  • Temporary Phase: Recognizing that this challenging stage is temporary, from the fourth trimester to toddlerhood, and that balance and recovery will improve as time goes on.

Episode Highlights:

  • The #1 reason people stop exercising is lack of time – and this becomes even more of a challenge after having kids.

  • Case studies of clients balancing demanding careers and new families, who had to modify their training to avoid injuries and achieve better recovery.

  • Real talk about the physical and mental adjustment needed after introducing a new family member, and how training programs need to reflect these changes.

Links and Resources:

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[00:00:00] Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: Alright guys, welcome back to the Progressive Rehab & Strength podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Rori Alter, head clinical coach here at Progressive Rehab & Strength. And today I am recording a podcast with my lovely husband, father of my beautiful children, and also a physical therapist here at Progressive Rehab & Strength and a strength coach, powerlifting coach, all of the wonderful things here at PRS and professor at Adelphi University in Exercise Science. And he's also a dad, just like I am a mom. And our podcast hiatus was because I was pregnant and we had a second child, and she's great, she's beautiful. She's so different than our son. We are definitely not getting as much sleep as we did with our sleep through the night from ten weeks on son. Now we have a four year old who wakes up and comes and gets us in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and we have a seven month old who still wakes up 1 to 2 times a night, and two crazy dogs who think that they own the house and, you know, jump in bed with us, get sick in the middle of the night, knock on the door to go into the room with the baby sleeping, like it's just crazy. With all that said, it's hard to have energy to train, and most people, as they age, you know, get married, have kids, their life changes, they get a new job, they have other responsibilities, and it changes the way we are able to continue to barbell train, strength train, and maintain our training habits definitely can influence that. So this series that I'm doing with John on the podcast is going to be a series of three episodes where we're going to talk about, you know, becoming a new parent, mainly from the dad perspective, because it is definitely very different from my perspective in this relationship. As a breastfeeding mother who also has some other health issues, it's definitely a different experience in terms of getting back into training or maintaining training habits, so we're going to talk about it from the healthy dad partner perspective, who doesn't have to breastfeed in the middle of the night. So the three episodes that we're going to be doing are going to cover managing your training expectations after having a child come into the family. We're going to talk about strategies to train in a time efficient manner, because when your life is not your own anymore once you have kids. And then we're going to talk about developing training and nutrition habits in a chaotic environment. So with that all said, John, welcome back to the podcast. So can you talk to us a little bit about the differences in training and the situation surrounding training and muscle development, recovery, etc., before and after having kids?


[00:03:36] Dr. John Petrizzo, PT, CSCS, SSC: Well, I think you touched on, you know, some of the things that are kind of obvious, right? When you were doing your introduction, you know, sleep is going to be something that is compromised, right, to varying degrees. Obviously, everybody is different and has different situations and, you know, arrangements with their partners in terms of how they handle that sort of thing. But like, you know, you and I, initially, at least for, you know, the first several months, I got up in the evenings with you, you know, to change diapers and things like that while you got kind of ready to breastfeed. So I was getting up, you know, multiple times per night. Now, I was getting back to sleep faster than you because you were then in the chair with the baby and that sort of thing. But, you know, I was having certainly disrupted sleep and that sort of thing. And, you know, that has an impact on your recovery. And then there's just probably more so than anything, it's just kind of finding the time to train, right, and making the time to train. I think, you know, the biggest thing for me from before kids is that, you know, the only thing I had to really consider was maybe your schedule, right? And like, you know, there wasn't any anything stopping me from training outside of just like my work schedule. And then, you know, if we had something going on, you know, socially or with family or whatever, right? So, there's just a lot more flexibility pre-kids than post-kids. After kids, you really want to balance, obviously, taking care of yourself and doing things that are good for your health and that sort of thing. But obviously, you know, your child's well-being has to come first and foremost. So, you know, you're working around that schedule, which is very different, and I think that's probably the biggest thing. You know, the number one reason that people don't train or exercise, you know, in general, is they say they don't have enough time. So if that's the case for you before kids and after kids, it's going to be, you know, even tougher, right? So I think that's really where people struggle is just like making the time or finding the time to train, and I think something that I always stress to clients is, you know, consistency is the most important thing, right? So when our kids were born, you know, right off the bat, like that was something that for myself, I said, you know, I'm not taking any time off from training. You know, we got home from the hospital with JD, and I trained like that next day, you know, and.