I’m Dr. Megan Bojko with LifeMotion Physical Therapy, and today I’m going to talk to you a little bit about how to know if you are ready to return to running after having a baby.
I’m going to put Chelsea through a few tests here, and typically I will start doing these tests at about three months postpartum. At this point in her rehab, she would’ve already gone through a basic pelvic floor program. She would’ve already worked on her strength, her endurance, and her coordination. This is a more advanced way to assess somebody that’s getting ready to do a high-impact loading activity.
I’m going to come down here and I’m going to walk her through a couple of these drills. Chelsea, what I want you to do is I want you to lift one leg up off the mat for me. I want you to think about keeping your core nice and tight. I want you to squeeze your buns and lift your hips up off the floor. This is a single leg bridge. You can come back down. Good. Do about three of those for me. Typically, I’ll have my patients do 10 to 20 of these. What I’m looking for is how easy or difficult is the exercise and does it reproduce any symptoms? Is she having any urinary leaking? Is she having any pain in her pelvis? Is she having any pressure with any of those activities?
Okay, I’m going to have you roll to your side, and I want you to bend your bottom leg for me. These are called hip burners. What I want you to do here is keep this leg straight and bring it back behind you just a little bit, and then keep your core and your pelvic floor nice and tight. I want you to pulse up and down for me. Good. Again, I would do 10 to 20 of these with her to see how she does with this, how fatiguing it is, how difficult, and if she has any symptom. Good.
Okay. I’m going to have you come up off that mat. We’re going to come over to the chair. What I’m going to have you do is you’re going to stand on one leg and bring the other leg out in front of you. I want you to slowly lower down into the chair, and then you’re going to stand back up again. Good. I’m looking at her alignment here. I’m looking at if she’s having any difficulty maintaining control coming up and down and also if she’s having any pressure or an increase in pain or other symptoms. Good.
Okay. Now what I want you to do is I’m going to have you hop up and down on one leg repeatedly for me. Good. Now we’re looking at impact loading. I’m looking to see if she can tolerate that increase in pressure as she goes up and down here. Good and relax. I would have do 10 to 20 of those, and then I would reassess her symptoms. Is she having any pressure? Is she having any incontinence issues? Is she having any pain?
Okay, so the last one I’m going to have you do, I want you to do a big broad jump for me as far as you can go. Oh, very nice. Good. Those are five activities that I would have my patients do to assess to see if they have any symptoms come up that might indicate that there’s an issue, that there is a reason not to return to run.
If she had had any issues with those, if any symptoms had popped up, what we would do is figure out where those pop up. Say she can do two or three of those jumps and then she starts to have problems, I would take that and I would turn that into a treatment. I would have her do an exercise or two that would mimic that so that she could be symptom-free and work on that impact loading, and then we would gradually work her back up to that impact loading.
That is the quick and easy way to take a look to see if you are ready to return to running after you have a baby.
