12 weeks PP and I am feeling...squishy. What way do you like to build muscle best?
Kettle bells? Body weight? Free weights? Yoga?
12 weeks PP and I am feeling...squishy. What way do you like to build muscle best?
Kettle bells? Body weight? Free weights? Yoga?
GOLD / watermelon / 14076 posts
I did the 30DS (well, about 1/2 of it) + cardio on the treadmill (brisk walking). I started at around 4 1/2 months PP and saw a noticeable difference.
ETA: I used 5 lb hand weights when I did 30DS
kiwi / 524 posts
I work with a trainer - mostly free weights but some cables and machines.
persimmon / 1363 posts
I work with a trainer and use free weights. More even than the lack of squishyness, I enjoy that my posture is a million times better and that I no longer have back pain!
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21628 posts
I do push-ups, pull-ups, kettle bells, and weightlifting. I go to a crossfit gym so I'm supervised by a trainer.
wonderful grape / 20453 posts
A mix. Free weights-dumbbell and bars (I break it up into days: legs, chest/abs, back/abs, and arms-shoulders), plus body weight (tricep dips, push ups, burpees, air squats), and kettlebells (squats, swings). Cables are good, too! I use a cable machine for rows, lay pull downs, tricep pull downs, and cable cross overs....
You got lots of options
persimmon / 1177 posts
I do free weights, with machines for some exercises (like assisted pull-ups/lat pull downs).
To build up strength and muscle, I'm a fan of lifting heavy using low reps (3-4 sets of 6 reps each). For me, that means I pick a heavy enough weight that I physically couldn't do another rep without resting.
grapefruit / 4085 posts
I do barre classes and I find the repetitive isolated movements (with light weights) to be good for strength training.
grapefruit / 4291 posts
@Rockies11: is there anything in particular you did to improve your posture and back pain? Lugging my toddler around and pregnancy really upset my back!
persimmon / 1363 posts
@Kemma: I am not really a fitness person so I don't know how to describe the exercises properly, but what happened was I went in for a training consult and they showed me the postpartum posture - so shoulders pulled forward, head pulled back, hips, legs and feet rotated inwards, and then an imbalance from carrying the baby on one side all the time. So we have been doing exercises to build upper back muscle to pull the shoulders back into place (like lifting weights on those pulleys, and using resistance bands) and then leg exercises like squats and lunges in the correct position to rotate the inward hips and legs back out. The trainer just tells me what to so, so I am not very useful at explaining it, but it has made SUCH a difference in terms of posture and pain. I used to have back pain after holding her for like 5 minutes - now I can carry her around in Ergo with shoulders back in the correct posture for hours with no back pain.
grapefruit / 4006 posts
i like pilates for toning. i actually do it because i have a bad back and it helps strengthen my back muscles, as well as my core which helps support the back. but my arms, abs and thighs have all benefited quite nicely.
apricot / 322 posts
Body weight + free weights. I have a favorite class at the gym that implements these two. Lots of repetitions and focus on small muscles as well as the big ones. It's a class of mostly women and we don't go above 7.5lbs in hand weights. That style of working out has allowed me to see (for the first time in my life) ab muscles peeking through and other muscles defining much better.
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