GF Just Had a Baby, Ready to Start Lifting

I am about to take my girlfriend to my gym. Awesome. She just had a baby a month ago Thursday and wants to ease into it. She hasn’t really seriously trained with weights before so I don’t want to kill her the first workout.

I would just like some input as far as to what I could have her do just beginning. My idea is a full body circuit using mostly bodyweight exercises and a couple simple weighted exercises. The goal is to learn the basic lifts and get her metabolism up to burn some fat and maybe even build a little muscle.

1.) pushups
2.) squat variation (single leg)
3.) dumbbell row
4.) kettlebell swings
5.) military press with dumbbells
6.) simple ab exercise (plank/reverse crunch maybe?)

just go through that 10 reps per exercise 3 times through. Does that sound like a lot? I want her to get the hang of the basic lifts so she can train without me since our schedules don’t usually let us both get to the gym at the same time. Any input would be most appreciated, thank you. :slight_smile:

I think I just read an article about this the other day. Where is it? Oh here:

That should work just fine. Just go light on her to begin with and tell her how awesome she is at it.

Also, doing light to medium cardio for recovery and keeping it easy helps with the extra calories, but it also keeps the gym experience feeling manageable.

Without an assessment it is hard to be help. As long she did not have a c-section, is no longer bleeding and she feels ready, it is awesome to get into the gym because moving the body is always a good thing! (Otherwise, she should not be near the gym yet because it could be dangerous for her)

Kettle bell swings are not a good idea until the doc clears her because she has a hormone (called relaxin) in her system which helped her hips move for childbirth. She should not be doing KB swings due to the hips and the traction on her spine (yet… her day will come soon). Air squats/body weight squats are safer bets.

Push ups - especially sets of 10 can be quite difficult for many people. It might be good to start on an angle - like a bench and sets of 5. Just start training the right muscles to get moving.

If you go with her, and assess her ability for each exercise, give her starting points, and then goals. It always helps to have something to work toward and see the improvements. Starting with 3 sets of 5 the first day, working up to 4 or 5 sets. Then 3 sets of 10 would give her progress and goals which always feels great. By then the doctor will have cleared her, her body will be getting familiar with the movements, and she can start slowly increasing or adding weight which opens the door for many more goals and progression!

Daily walks (listen to the body… start with 15-20 minutes) are excellent too!
Hope it helps … And Congratulations on the newest family member!!! Glad to hear she wants to get into the gym!

[quote]momcanlift wrote:
Without an assessment it is hard to be help. As long she did not have a c-section, is no longer bleeding and she feels ready, it is awesome to get into the gym because moving the body is always a good thing! (Otherwise, she should not be near the gym yet because it could be dangerous for her)

Kettle bell swings are not a good idea until the doc clears her because she has a hormone (called relaxin) in her system which helped her hips move for childbirth. She should not be doing KB swings due to the hips and the traction on her spine (yet… her day will come soon). Air squats/body weight squats are safer bets.

Push ups - especially sets of 10 can be quite difficult for many people. It might be good to start on an angle - like a bench and sets of 5. Just start training the right muscles to get moving.

If you go with her, and assess her ability for each exercise, give her starting points, and then goals. It always helps to have something to work toward and see the improvements. Starting with 3 sets of 5 the first day, working up to 4 or 5 sets. Then 3 sets of 10 would give her progress and goals which always feels great. By then the doctor will have cleared her, her body will be getting familiar with the movements, and she can start slowly increasing or adding weight which opens the door for many more goals and progression!

Daily walks (listen to the body… start with 15-20 minutes) are excellent too!
Hope it helps … And Congratulations on the newest family member!!! Glad to hear she wants to get into the gym![/quote]

This is a good point about relaxin. In fact, it affects your entire body. My knees and jaw felt weird and crappy for a while after having a baby.

I would start light and tentatively and just let her go by feel. It would help if she’d lifted before so she knew how it was supposed to feel.

This isn’t a case of women shouldn’t lift because their uterus will shoot out, it’s a concern about joint health for a little while until things normalize.


thank you very much for the replies. It was exactly a month ago today she had the baby so I’m hoping her body is about back to normal. She says her hips definitely aren’t quite back in place yet so I will keep that in mind. I had her doing the pushups on an angle the other day so it was easy on her. Didn’t get a chance to check this thread first I had her doing 10 I will def. scale it back to 5. I had her doing some light trap bar deadlifts today and light step-ups and a couple easy core exercises. She isn’t complaining about any pain so I think she’s doing well. I had her finish with 2 sets of 10 burpees.

Sounds like she is taking things slowly. I’d be fairly conservative since she hasn’t passed the 6 week mark yet. Just another thing to be cautious about. A lot of pregnant women get diastasis recti - a split down the center of the rectus abdominus. If she has a diastasis, some exercises like leg raises and crunches will actually make it worse. In the first couple of months after pregnancy, she wants those muscles to heal back together, rather than doing things that will pull them apart. I wish I’d realized this before I tore mine out.

This woman has a book. Basically, she recommends things like planks and exercises that pull the belly button toward the spine, rather than putting it under a lot of outward pressure.