Working Out with a Baby - Arms & Chest
Being a Mom, you may notice a lot of changes in your body. Many women, myself included, complain of upper back and neck pain. Three weeks after my son was born while I was sitting at the kitchen table my husband commented on how hunched my shoulders had become. I immediately attempted to sit up straight and felt the strain across my upper back. With new babies almost everything we do requires us to hunch forward: breastfeeding, bottle feeding or pumping all requires us to lean forward while supporting baby. Not to mention hunching over the bath tub to give baby a bath, leaning forward to change diapers, picking up toys off the floor. How often do we stop and stand up tall? If you’re like me, its hardly ever.
Strengthening our arms, upper back and core will help to improve posture and limit the strain across our upper bodies. Postpartum exercise can be tough, but these exercises can help make it easier to work out with a baby.
Overhead Press
It is very important to strengthen our arms and upper back to help improve posture and decrease upper back and neck pain. Overhead press is a fantastic exercise to strength the biceps, triceps and upper back muscles. If you have dumbbells at home this is a great exercise for strengthening. Standing tall with your core engaged, start with medium weight dumbbells at shoulder height and press both arms overhead, slowly lower down. Make sure not to shrug your shoulders up to your ears to avoid increased stress on your neck.
Incorporating Baby
Does your little one hate being put down? This can make it super difficult to get any workout done! Doing an overhead press with your baby is an easy exercise to do without having to put them down. I like to do this exercise sitting down to decrease the danger of your baby being too high in the air. Sitting with your legs crossed, hold baby in front of you at chest height with your elbows bent. Slowly extend your arms upwards holding baby overhead and hold for two seconds. Make sure to move slow and controlled on the way down to really target your triceps as well.
Bench Press
The chest muscles are another group of muscles that are frequently over looked, especially in post-partum women. Most women are focused on regaining core strength and tend to forget that their breasts have undergone many changes during pregnancy and after delivery which puts increased stress on the chest muscles. Because the pecs are such large muscles this exercise is best done with some kind of weight. If you don’t have dumbbells try using canned goods, full water bottles or baby!
Laying flat on your back, with your knees bent to protect your lower back, hold your weights in each hand. Raise the weights straight over your chest. Slowly bend your elbows bringing your arms wide, making a 90 degree angle between your elbow and your side. Press back up, holding the weights at the top of the press for 2 seconds.
Incorporating Baby
This is another great exercise to allow you to work out with your baby and increase that special bond between Mom and baby. Being face to face and maintaining eye contact helps baby develop social and verbal skills. Fair warning, if your baby is a drooler or spitter, you are directly in the splash zone with this one! Hold baby securely under their arms on your chest. Press straight up and slowly lower.
