Top 5 Fitness Barriers And How To Overcome Them

Regular exercise is often recommended for mums who’ve recently delivered. If you’re one of these mums, you could benefit from regular exercise in many ways. It can help you improve your energy, restore muscle strength, reduce stress, and promote high-quality slumber. Besides that, physical activity may also be the best way for you to reduce the weight you might have gained during pregnancy.  

Exercise Obstacles After Childbirth And The Solutions For Them 

As a mum in the postpartum period, you might have decided to start working out to lose some weight. In the first days, you might have been motivated to reach your goal. However, along the way, the drive might have gone down a little. If this is the case for you, you need not worry as it happens to many other mums.   

To help you get back on track, evaluate why you started exercising in the first place. If you’re yet to achieve that goal, the desire to attain it would help you stay motivated. To discover more ways to regain and maintain your drive, find more info from people who share their journeys online or consult a friend who has successfully achieved their fitness goals.   

Besides losing motivation, several other barriers could hinder you from reaching your weight loss goal. In this article, you’d find some of the fitness barriers mums in the postpartum period may face. If you might be experiencing some of them, too, this article may help you find efficient ways to overcome them. Some of these common barriers you may be experiencing include the following.

1. Not Having Enough Time To Exercise 

Sometimes it might be hard to find time for fitness because there’s so much to do for your new baby. You have to feed them, bond with them, and constantly watch them to ensure they’re okay. Aside from that, you might also be doing a few manageable chores around the house.   

In this case, the best thing to do is to break down your exercise session into manageable periods. For instance, if you’d like to work out for half an hour each day, you can have multiple sessions to complete your 30-minute target. For example, you can break this half hour into short periods of 5-10 minutes. Since infants love routines, you can schedule these sessions when your baby is sleeping. 

As you do this, also consider keeping a record of how much physical activity you’ve been able to do each day. This way, it can be easy to create a permanent and workable exercise schedule. Besides that, keep track of how much progress you’re making. This can motivate you to keep pushing to get to your intended weight loss goal.  

2. Not Enjoying Working Out  

Sometimes, exercising may feel unenjoyable to you. This might hinder consistency and cause you to stop working out eventually. However, you can make your sessions interesting by adding various activities you enjoy doing to overcome this. For instance, you can jog then play table tennis later with a loved one for one day. The next time, you can consider taking a walk and then practicing yoga after that.   

Doing this would help prevent boredom because you won’t be sticking to the same routine daily. Also, since you’d be trying new things or doing activities you love, you’d make your exercise sessions more enjoyable every day.   

3. Lack Of Social Support  

Working out alone can sometimes make you lose motivation to exercise. Also, since there’s no one you’d be accountable to, you could lose focus on your goal. If you don’t have someone to leave your baby with, going to the gym with an infant might be challenging. Therefore, the best thing to do here is to get a partner to exercise with.   

If other mums in your neighborhood have a workout group and attend the sessions with their kids, it’s best to join them. Exercising with people who share the same experience as you would give you a sense of belonging. Besides that, since the instructors and other mums understand your needs, they could sufficiently help you reach your goals with the right exercises.   

However, if there isn’t such a group in your region, you can consider starting one yourself. Alternatively, you can ask a relative or friend to join you in your fitness sessions. This way, exercising would be more fun, and you’d also have an accountability partner to remind you of your objectives and keep you on the right track.

4. Lack Of Proper Resources  

If you’re a mum with a newborn and you’re unable to go to the gym, the lack of proper resources to work out at home can be a fitness barrier. You may not have the right equipment or might not know the best exercise for weight loss.   

However, today, the internet has made things much easier. There are many professionals who make exercise videos for mums in the postpartum period, and there are also several mobile applications that could help. With these resources, all a mum needs next is sufficient space and workout outfits.   

5. Feeling Pain During And After Exercise  

Some mums experience pain during and after working out during the postpartum period, which can be a fitness barrier. If you’re going through this, too, you can overcome the problem. 

If you’ve recently delivered, it’s advisable to take it easy with fitness. Usually, professionals might recommend easy workouts to prevent or reduce abdominal pain or any other discomfort during and after physical activity. These might include cat-cow stretches, walking, and Swiss ball bird dog holds.  

If you still feel pain or experience discomfort in any area of your body even after changing to easy exercises, consider talking to your doctor about it. They’d evaluate if it’s the best time for you to start working out or not. Also, they’d give advice on whether you’d need to reduce the duration of your fitness sessions or the intensity of your exercise.     

Conclusion   

Physicians may recommend physical activity to women in their postpartum period as the best way to lose weight after pregnancy. However, many of these mums face several fitness obstacles that might cause them not to exercise regularly or at all.   

If you’ve recently delivered and are looking for the best ways to overcome your exercise barriers, this article could be helpful. You could remedy your lack of time by breaking down your exercise sessions into manageable periods. On the other hand, feeling unenthusiastic while exercising could be overcome by incorporating physical activities you enjoy.   

If you lack social support, consider joining or creating a mum exercise group or asking a loved one to join you in your sessions. If you lack proper resources, internet fitness videos and exercises that don’t require much gear would help. Lastly, if you experience pain after working out, switching to more manageable activities may be advisable. However, if the discomfort persists, it’s best to visit your doctor.