Read Part 1 Here!

My doctor gave me the go ahead to start exercising quickly after W was born. I started doing some light conditioning and just moving in ways my body hadn’t done in many months. I didn’t have much of a plan. Thankfully, there has been a lot more research and teaching about post partum recovery in the past few years. I based a lot of what I did on what I found online and what felt right for my body. It was a lot of trial and error on my part. There were certain exercises that would make my body scream HELL NO, but I found my way.

I was eager to get back into pole dancing. I missed it a lot more then I thought I would and started trying beginner spins and movements with my home pole. About 2 months after I gave birth there was a pole community event at the studio I was training at and I decided to go. I missed my people and was going through a mild identity crisis becoming a new mom (that’s a whole other can of worms). I told myself that I would visit and spin and not do anything to crazy. LIES, ALL LIES!

I started doing intermediate and advanced moves, just to “see what I could still do”. They felt WRONG, my body felt WRONG. I knew better, but in my mind, it felt good to do something I was so familiar with.

After that I knew I wanted to get serious about retraining pole and aerials and was advised by one of my post partum mommy groups (thanks ladies) to make an appointment with a pelvic floor physiotherapist. That was THE BEST decision I could have made for myself.

My first appointment was a lot of questions, evaluating how things were going on my post partum recovery, how things were before I got pregnant, and what my goals were. Over many weeks I learned about muscles I didn’t know I had and the importance of properly engaging and relaxing muscles when I needed to. I learned exercises that were safe for me to do so early after having a baby, signs of things that weren’t being done right, and started to tie together other issues I had been having even before I got pregnant. It was unbelievably eye opening.

Although the therapist I was seeing had no specific experience working with a pole dancer, she did lots of her own research to help me safely reach my goals. I saw her roughly every 2 weeks in addition to my regular PT. To be honest, it was overwhelming at times. Perhaps the goals I had set for myself should have been pushed back a bit. I was not giving myself credit for adjusting to sleeping in 2-hour intervals at night and caring for (and feeding!) a new baby. The stress and exhaustion of being a new parent makes it even harder for your body to heal from pregnancy, even without added training for pole dancing.

Over the next year I slowly worked back up to training at the level I had been before I was pregnant. It was a lot of back tracking and frustrated training sessions. I often ended feeling completely defeated. There were tears, lots of emotions (some of which my husband argued were irrational), and times where I just thought it would be easier to just find a new hobby. There were skills that I had been doing for years but was activating the wrong muscle groups. I had to completely rewire my brain around some tricks to increase my long term success and decrease my chance of injury. I focused a lot on training my non dominant side to help with balance for my body. BREATHING before and during tricks became a fundamental part of my training. Now I train things that I have never been able to do before.

I also gained a lot of respect for my body. I learned to give myself credit for where I was at, appreciate the awesome thing I had done – hello baby - and rest when I needed to rest. Having such a wonderfully supportive partner, and health care team helped me reach my goals without wrecking my body or losing my sanity. I’m now raising a busy toddler, back at my regular job, and teaching at the studio. I’m still working on balancing life, maybe one day I’ll have that figured out!

-Megan

Training After Having A Baby - Megan's Story (Part 2)