Postnatal Home Workouts You Can Actually Do

Today I’m coming from a slightly different angle in my motherhood series of posts – I’m going to talk about postnatal home workouts.

Now I want to start with a massive disclaimer – THIS IS NOT TO MAKE YOU FEEL SH*T ABOUT YOURSELF IF YOU’RE NOT WORKING OUT AFTER YOU’VE HAD A BABY!!! Seriously, if you’re not ready, don’t do it!

Believe me! I didn’t start doing any form of exercise until about 6 months after my daughter was born (other than endless walking round the block with the pram that is) and even then, it was minimal – and I mean about 10 minutes, maybe twice a week…if I was lucky!

Then I’d say in honesty, my little one is now 19 months old and I still haven’t managed to get into a good routine with working out…

Postnatal Home Workouts

The Workout

All you need is yourself and a chair

Circuit 1: 3-5 rounds
Squats x 12
Step Ups x 12 each leg
Split Squats x 12 each leg
Lateral Leg Lifts x 12 each leg
Rest 45-60 secs in between each round

Circuit 2: 3-5 sets
Tricep Dips x 8
Press Ups x 8
1/2 Burpees x 16
Mountain Climbers x 16
Cross Climbers x 16
Plank Twist x 16
45-60 secs rest between each set

Take your rest. Do what you can for your ability. Make sure to warm up and cool down properly.

Why do it?

Since having my daughter 19 months ago, I’m seriously lacking in sleep and time! And although I’ve very slowly lost my baby weight and am back down to a size I feel comfortable with, my fitness has taken a real knock.

I walk a lot and of course, she’s a toddler so keeps me busy, but I’ve lost my strength and toning. I’m conscious that now in my 30s, this is the time to really focus on my health and fitness, to make sure I’m around for my family as long as humanly possible (and that I feel as energetic as possible for it).

Who has time for the gym?

Well I know some of you do, but some of us don’t! Particularly if you’re a mum, there just doesn’t seem to be many options to go out and get fit and I know as soon as hubby is home and can help takeover with baby duties, I’m either making dinner, trying to relax or catching-up on work…so the gym workout falls to the bottom of the list.

Sound familiar?

Well this is where the wonderful Vicki Mellard steps in. I’ve known Vicki for a little while now and I love her ethos about working-out and getting fit. She’s truly approachable and focuses on you feeling good and confident about yourself (not on weight or size!).

Vicki is a personal trainer and has also trained in pre and postnatal fitness.

Because I have limited time and never seem to be able to get out of the house to workout, I asked Vicki to put together a series of approachable, postnatal home workouts, that I could do with or without the toddler around and fairly easily and quickly.

And I thought if you’re anything like me, they’d be helpful for you too!

So Vicki’s kindly pulled together 3 workout videos, designed to be approachable for us new mums (and not so new mums) and I’ll be sharing these over the next few days. DISCLAIMER: always consult your doctor if you’re unsure about starting a new exercise regime.

Is it approachable?

Hell yeah! If I can do it, you certainly can. The good think about Vicki’s videos are, you can tackle them at your own pace and you use your own body weight and don’t need any special equipment (all you need is a chair!). This means you can adjust the regime to suit your own levels of fitness and push yourself just as much as you need to.

If you’ve got 5 minutes, you can do it. If you’ve got 30 minutes, you can do it.

So I hope you find these as useful as I have…and if you stay tuned over the coming week, I may even share a cheeky video of me following these workouts (notice the non-edited title photo of my workout space in between the couch and toddler toys! That’s how I roll!).