Pro-Tip: How to get back to swimming in postpartum

Swimming is an awesome way to exercise in postpartum. It feels soooo good to float and glide in the water! No wonder our babies love being in the womb so much. 🙂

Here are a few notes to remember when you start swimming post-baby:

🏊‍ Keep your ribs down as you pull your arm overhead (ribs tend to flare out when we lift our arms overhead, which causes the intra-abdominal pressure to shift out, making diastasis worse)

🏊‍ Engage your core! Along with the rib-down alignment, keep a light tone to your belly as you’re swimming.

🏊‍ Try a little pre-engagement exercise before you jump in the pool. Take a deep breath in, exhale and contract the entire core (from the ribs all the way to the pelvis – that’s your whole core!). Start swimming your arms as if you were doing the front crawl. See if you can keep a light engagement in the core (and ribs down!) as you’re ‘swimming’. It’s much easier to do this on dry land when you don’t have the resistance of the water to distract you.

🏊‍ Stay aware of the arch in your back when doing the front crawl. We tend to overarch in the low back, especially in postpartum because we’re so used to holding that posture during pregnancy. Focus on core engagement which will keep your back in its neutral position.

🏊‍ Remember your abdominal canister, 360 degree breath and breathe into your mid-back as you are swimming. If you don’t know what the abdominal canister is, you can learn more in our Postpartum Repair & Restore experience listed in the links below!

Resources & Links

Looking for support to stay active during your pregnancy or start your postpartum recovery? Here are some options to get you started on a great path forward:

1) Take the Pelvic Floor & Core Strength Quiz. After taking the quiz, you'll get a score and based on your results, guidance on what steps to take to move you forward in your recovery.

2) Check out our podcast listening guides: Download the Pregnancy Listening Guide or Postpartum Listening Guide.

3) If you're pregnant, want to be way more active than you have been, AND want connection with other mothers, but don't know where to start…join the Expecting to Flourish™ Membership - a mom-driven and expert-guided virtual space empowering moms with a new approach to prenatal fitness and birth prep that actually prepares you for the physical and emotional hurdles of motherhood.

If you’re postpartum and ready to get moving, need to heal your body but you don’t know where to start…join us for Postpartum Repair & Restore LIVE, a science-backed and fun-stacked, Diastasis and Pelvic Floor Strength program. Start healing your diastasis and eliminating leaking in 8 weeks or less with our guidance.

4) Do you prefer working one-on-one, or have a high risk pregnancy, a severe diastasis or leaking that won’t quit? You might be a candidate to work with us privately. To find out, take this quick self assessment! If you qualify, you'll be invited to schedule a complementary Postpartum Strategy Session with us where we'll take a good look at what's not working in your repair process, and come up with a great plan just for you.