Eased yourself back into fitness and ready for the next challenge?

Don’t be scared to up the intensity try a little run!

Cardio fitness seems the easiest part of an exercise programme right? Anyone can walk, run or bike – but do they do it regularly? Boredom often settles in and variety is a great way of injecting some excitement back into your workouts.

Running is a fabulous form of cardio-respiratory fitness once you are about 4 months post natal, but often we do too much too soon and put ourselves off continuing either through injury or the ‘it was hard last time so I can’t be bothered’ attitude. Many Mums give it a go, but very quickly get bored through lack of knowledge on how to vary a running session.

Before you decide on the type of cardio activities you want to try in order to ‘up’ your fitness levels and burn more of your ‘baby weight’ you need to think about a few critical factors in cardio-respiratory training and learn ways to keep the sparkle in your regime!

Overload

Overload is a basic training principle used to keep us working harder and progressing to see results. In terms of Cardio fitness it means increasing your heart rate and the return of blood to your heart through continuous activity. Sustaining large volumes of blood returning to the heart is essential for conditioning your heart and achieving training benefits. Activities that have the potential to simultaneously increase HR and return large volumes of blood to the heart use large muscles in the hips, thighs and buttocks e.g. walking, jogging, running, cycling, stair climbing and swimming.

How often, how long and how hard should I work?

How Often

If you have eased yourself back into fitness after the birth of your baby and are just starting to up your fitness levels you should aim to perform cardio training 2-3 times per week with a day off in between.

If you want to see serious improvements in your fitness and you have developed a good base of fitness already you need to challenge your cardio fitness at least 3 and up to 6 times per week.

Your goal should be to do some form of exercise on most days of the week.

How Long

Again if you are just easing yourself back into things start with 5-10 minutes once or twice a day. Longer term you should be looking at building our duration to 30 minutes of cardio-respiratory fitness on most days of the week.

Remember to start by getting yourself a good base of fitness. This should take about 4-6 weeks and you cannot progress too slowly! You can perform your 5-10 minutes of activity in one continuous bout or break it up into smaller sections of the day. E.G Push the buggy for 10 minutes in the morning, again at lunch and again in the evening. After a few weeks you would want to make this more continuous.

If you have been working out regularly you can move beyond the base fitness level. Gradually increase your fitness duration up to that 30 minute mark then head up to 60 minutes if you can over time. Remember to only start jogging after 4 months and only then if your breasts are well supported and you have regained your pelvic floor strength.

How Hard

Unless you have a heart rate monitor the best way to gauge your intensity is by listening to your body and using the rate of perceived exertion scale. In the early conditioning stages you should work at an RPE of 3-4 which is moderate to somewhat hard. At this level you should be able to speak short sentences whilst exercising.

Moving beyond the base fitness level you should aim to work out at 4-6 on the RPE scale, which is somewhat hard to very hard. You should still be able to hold a conversation during this activity level.

Running or walking 5k, 10k or beyond!

How fast should I run? How often and how far? I’m too scared to enter a race… sound familiar?

Don’t be scared – give it a go, you might find you like it!

As we’ve outlined above in the principles of cardio training, start yourself out slowly, run or walk at an easy pace for a set duration to begin with rather than a distance. Begin with 20 minutes of jogging and walking – each week you can increase this slightly. To run a 5k would require about 20-35 minutes jogging (30-45 mins walking) depending on your fitness. To prepare a base for training, a frequency of 3 walk / runs a week is a great place to start.

Once you start don’t try and increase your duration by too much too soon, approximately a 10% increase per week is all that is needed. Allow 2-3 weeks for your body to get used to running before you increase your speed or duration.

Running continuously doesn’t have to be your goal. Taking walk breaks throughout your run can often result in faster times and more overall enjoyment anyway!

Enter a Race

Community races are often free to enter and a great place to start if you are new to running and racing as they attract all walks of life – from people just walking around with their dogs and mums and dads jogging with their babies in their buggies! These races are well-organised, great fun and usually have a few cheering supporters. It’s a great goal to work towards and a tremendous achievement can be felt when you cross the finish line! (take a look at www.parkrun.com to find an event near you)

If you are a mum, have eased yourself into fitness, are at least 4 months post natal and would like to give running a go find your local Run4Mum running club and join many other mums will the same goal. Our clubs are fun and friendly, run by qualified running leaders and range from complete beginners to more advanced 10k runners. We welcome everyone and our goal is to get you to your first 5k and beyond.