By Dr. Melissa Hines, PT and Dr. Kristin Kennedy, PT
Running, my friends, is a high-impact sport! Delivering a baby is also a high-impact sport, hah! But really, the amount of pressure exerted on the pelvic floor during pregnancy is HUGE! The baby puts stress on the pelvic floor muscles during the duration of pregnancy. It’s almost as if the pelvic floor muscles have been engaging like you are running for at least 2 trimesters. If you have a vaginal delivery, even more pressure is sustained! Even with a c-section, scar tissue contributes to fascial tension and pressure within the organs and pelvic floor muscles. So, it makes sense running would be something we have to work up to. Adding MORE pressure with every stride during a run may contribute to more dysfunction within the pelvic area because the pelvic floor bowl literally is too full of pressure.
It’s important to be smart with your return-to-run plan, so take a look at some of the guidelines below. As pelvic floor therapists, we can do a run analysis and a return-to-run assessment to give you some technical tips and exercises to make sure you are ready to roll!
According to Return to Running Postnatal Guidelines, returning to run postpartum is not recommended until at least 12 weeks postpartum.
Before returning to run, you should be able to do all of the following with no symptoms such as pelvic pain/discomfort/heaviness and/or urinary/fecal incontinence.
Walking 30 minutes
Single leg balance 10 seconds
Single leg squat 10 reps each side
Jog on the spot 1 minute
Forward bounds 10 reps
Hop in place, 10 each leg
After being able to complete the above tasks with no symptoms successfully, start with a walk/jog progression as follows
○ Week 1:
Give at least one day between high-impact activity for your body to recover
5 min brisk walk warmup
30-second jog followed by 2 min walk (repeat this 3-4 times)
5 min brisk walk cool down
○ Week 2:
5 min brisk walk warmup
30-second jog followed by 1 min walk (repeat this 3-4 times)
5 min brisk walk cool down
○ Week 3:
5 min brisk walk warmup
1 min jog followed by 1 min walk (repeat this 3-4 times)
5 min brisk walk cool down
○ Week 4:
5 min brisk walk warmup
2 min jog followed by 30-sec walk (repeat this 3-4 times)
5 min brisk walk cool down
○ Week 5:
5 min brisk walk warmup
5 min jog followed by 1 min walk (repeat this 2-4 times)
5 min brisk walk cool down
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