Either way you look at it, kids will change your health and fitness forever!

The saying is once postpartum, always postpartum, this is true. But I want to chat about all the ways that having kids will change the way you approach your health and fitness, both good and bad.

The time in your life before kids, it’s good, it’s free, we didn’t realise how much time we had and when we thought we were tired, oh man were we wrong. You could approach gym sessions fresh faced, hungover, or in any state really and if you flogged yourself, fine, you didn’t have to really function after that if you didn’t want to.

This is not a luxury us parents have. Once we have kids, our whole world changes. Time is a resource we now become far more limited in. your body might change in ways you couldn’t have predicted. I never had an injury until my son was born, then hello rotator cuff injury!!!

We’re more tired than every before and there is more to juggle in everyday life.

We may feel less like working out, but we may even feel more like working out. For some, having kids may be the start oftheir fitness journey, now having a real deep driving reason to keep healthy and strong for you and for them. Either way, shit has changed.

You may have been prone to the old HIIT class, before kids and now you realise that that might not be the most effective way to workout. You might have pelvic floor issues that stop you from running or performing high impact exercises that previously weren’t an issue.

You’ll most like be dealing with a whole new set of postural issues due to the nature of carrying kids a lot, feeding and more frequent sitting. Kids come with a whole new level of stress let me tell you. You you may need to start bringing in some down-regulation exercise into your practice such as yoga or even walking and breathwork.

Priorities change. You change, the amount of stress in your life changes. Working out becomes as much about mental health as it does physical and superficial. You may have been able to workout in the evening after work, and now you might have to workout at 6 or even 5am to fit it in before the family arises.

So it may be time to say goodbye to your favourite HIIT class and start focusing on strength work. There’s certainly a time and a place for HIIT, but maybe not everyday, and maybe you’ll need some more lower impact options because we should never neglect training for heart health.

After having kids the brain is so full to bursting with things you need to do for them, there is very little space left to be heading to the gym and think about what you going to do. You need someone to do the thinking for you. Someone who understands your life stage and all the things you have going on and will make sure the programming is best for you.

I am more than capable for writing programs for myself, but since having kids I have outsourced this job to numerous other trainers to take that mental load off. People who I trust will know what they’re doing, not just rocking up to some random class designed to just smash the absolute crap out of you. If I want that, I can go get that every now and then, but it will not serve me in the long run as much as working with an expert, equal doses strength, conditioning, low/moderate impact, strength vs hypertrophic sets and all the other nuances in between, whilst making in fun at the same time.

I’m not writing this to be all doom and gloom, if anything, I want to look at this through positive lens. Maybe it's time to look at how you want to change things up. Finding a new, better way. Finding your new normal, your new consistent, your desire to show up for yourself but also for you little ones, to set an example to them.

I’m taking my wife as an inspiring example this year. She made a conscious decision to change. To get strong, to stay healthy, to be consistent. I am so so impressed with how she has shifted her mindset. Not every week is perfect, but she keeps showing up when she can. Not 1 perfect week and then 3 non existent weeks as soon as she doesn’t see results. She’s focussing on slow progress and knows it is not linear. She is getting so strong, and healthy, I can see the change in her overall being, she started with a 1-2 non negotiable workout and walk a week and has slowly increased that over time to almost 4 days a week when possible, and her mental health is great, and she is juggling this with natural demands of being a mum to small kids and the pressures of a very demanding career and being the bread winner.

You might say, oh well, her husband is a PT so it’s easier for her, and yes whilst I write her programming, due to family life and my work schedule, i’m not there to coach her, so she gets up at 5am to go out to the gym and train on her own, when I know she’d rather train with others in a group, but there was nothing out there that offered quite right thing - hence BOX. Or she’s been eating into her precious weekend time, but in reality taking 45 mins out to workout makes you feel good and that knock on effect carries over into the rest of the weekend. Your kids might turn (or force) you into becoming a morning person, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. They’ve changed your life anyway right, so why not use it as a gateway to a heathier life.

We don’t necessarily need to train harder, we need to train smarter, so we can train for longer, for longevity, so we can stay fit and healthy in the long run and be the best parents possible. It’s hard enough as it is being a parent without having to throw in health concerns, brittle bones, hypertension etc… and it's certainly something we can do to prevent through exercise.

Having kids will change you health and fitness, however you look at it. But it’s ok, it can be for the better, it may feel like an adjustment. It may be the adjustment you need to make, but we can lean into it, we can still move, with smart programming, a good does of all the things we need and some fun a long the way so we stay consistent, it can be the thing we look forward to for the rest of our lives because health is not something we can buy back.

Lean into the new way and learn to enjoy expressing the way your body moves. I’m here to help, feel free to shoot me any questions you may ever have.

Lawrence x