What the heck is corrective exercise?
There is ‘regular’ exercise which keeps your muscles strong and your body healthy when you are well-aligned and in balance. You feel great! And then there is CORRECTIVE exercise which helps when things go awry - maybe with a nagging shoulder issue or hip pain that isn’t enough to send you to the MD or PT, but enough to be annoying.
Corrective exercise use specific exercises for your body to correct mis-alignments and muscle imbalances in the body that are causing pain (or could cause pain).
We use corrective techniques often with our clients who are finishing Physical Therapy after an injury and transitioning back into ‘regular’ exercise.
Which is exactly why corrective exercise is so helpful in the perinatal phase - because of the vast injuries our bodies sustain through pregnancy & postpartum. (Yes, injuries….and if you’re about to rant at us that we’re being dramatic about the injuries sustained through pregnancy, hold my coffee…).
Our bodies change at lightening speed during pregnancy, and then we mold our bodies around our children in postpartum. Tiny imbalances can turn into bigger ones over time which can then lead to pelvic pain / incontinence / diastasis / hip pain / back pain / neck pain & lots of frustration…you get the idea.
Corrective Exercise can help re-pattern and re-align your movement patterns to help you stay out of pain and feel strong!
Perinatal corrective exercise is even more specific, focusing on the after-effects of carrying a child (and then caring for the child in postpartum).
Don’t get us wrong, this work is not fancy stuff and it’s oftentimes a regression. Sometimes we have to back out of your movement patterns to re-train the brain to align in a better way, applying specific exercises to even out imbalances, and THEN go back to intensity. It can take time to ‘set’ in your body…but when it does, WHOA NELLY.
This is what I love most about corrective exercise. It’s incredibly detail-oriented and specific, and the results from using it are often pretty subtle but life changing. And for an anatomy nerd like myself, it makes me giddy to work with clients and put on my corrective exercise hat.
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.
