This style of training best reflects the way we need to move on a daily basis for health. When load is shared through the entire system efficiently, no one area is subject to overuse, and thus prone to injury. Full body, integrated training is the ultimate way to build resilience for whatever life throws your way, making you able to accommodate bending at awkward angles, carrying uneven weights like a baby, getting down to the floor and up again, and simply being strong in a variety of ways.

Watching your heart rate is CRUCIAL in pregnancy for your babies safety. Keeping the heart rate below 150/160 beats per minute is the international standard for pregnancy training to avoid adverse effects and keep your baby safe. This means that a mother’s heart rate intensity bests mimics a steady state style, low intensity aerobic heart rate zone, rather than high intensity! We ensure all our mothers wear heart rate monitors during training in both classes and personal training.

This ties into integrated training, because a healthy foot is adaptive to load, and shares load transmission with the whole body. Training in shoes reduces our proprioception, or sensing of the ground beneath us, and reduces the functionality of the structure and function of our foot. This is especially important in pregnancy, when a mothers centre of gravity and balance are constantly shifting. Having a healthy, mobile and strong foot is imperative to healthy joints up the chain, and closely tied into pelvic floor strength. Additionally, moving barefoot helps to create a better ‘pump’ of the lower legs to increase lymphatic drainage and help avoid the pooling of fluid or ‘pregnancy cankles’ that occur from poor circulation.

We use certified medical grade vibration devices. We limit vibration training to the lower limbs (calves) while pregnant, and use it to hydrate connective tissue, increase mobility, enhance circulation of fluid, blood and lymphatic waste, as well as increasing recovery. Post-natal vibration training is even more important, and we use it to release stuck tissue around the pelvis after the trauma of birth. Vibration training or flushing rapidly increases healing of injured tissue, and helps restore pelvic health. Vibration training also helps create an accelerated training effect due to the increases forces the body is subject to, creating up to 40 contractions per second, allowing for fast gains in muscle and bone strength. Read more about the benefits of vibration

We don’t bother with kegels or any single muscle activations, because they isolate an area that needs to be able to share load with the rest of the body. Laying on the floor and activating your core isn’t very appropriate for a mother who doesn’t get to lay down much, or for post-natal recovery when pelvic trauma, stitches etc are at play and the rest of the body needs to pick up the slack. True pelvic floor strength comes down to the efficiency of the whole body and how force is shared through the entirety. Many women have stuck tissue or tightness around the pelvic region, which creates a break in the flow of energy through the system, often resulting in pain, leakage or pressure. We use manual therapy or fascial release to enhance glued up tissue and optimise postural alignment, and vibration and movement to train the hips and pelvic floor to share load with the rest of the body. Download our free Pelvic Floor eBook