This week’s blog has been written by Morven Bruce, another of our new contributors. She lives in Stirling and has been involved in sport for many years both as a participant and within her job. She was a competitive swimmer while at school and this is still her favourite way to exercise, althoughshe is now a member of Stirling Triathlon Club and enjoys cycling, running and walking her dog around the local area.
She is passionate about promoting the benefits of participation in sport to others which has led her to a career in sports development, having worked for Scottish Curling, Glasgow 2018 and Triathlon Scotland.
Morven is also currently 35 weeks pregnant and in her first blog was keen to explore sport and training during pregnancy and postpartum.
Speaking with Ellie Richardson, retired Scotland and GB track cyclist, clinical specialist physiotherapist and mum of two, we discussed what it’s like getting back into sports after having children.
Ellie grew up in the Scottish Highlands but is currently based in Manchester.
Advice for those looking to train in pregnancy is often vague and relies on women to gauge how they are feeling at the time, something that could potentially be a challenge for athletes who are used to pushing themselves to extremes. When you Google ‘exercise in pregnancy’ you will be told that a ‘brisk walk’ is great to keep active – but what about when you are used to training 10+ hours a week and pushing your body that bit further? When you have that base level of fitness, how hard can you push during pregnancy?
Ellie started her career in athletics as a sprinter, winning a number of national titles before heading down to Manchester to study physiotherapy at University. Unfortunately, Ellie’s running career was plagued with injury and, following ankle surgery in her early twenties, she decided to call it a day and focus on her career as a physio. Then, aged 27, someone suggested she visit the local velodrome for a bit of fun and the rest is history! `
From there, Ellie was scouted by British Cycling and despite having never ridden a track bike before, she was invited in for some profile testing. Showing her natural ability for sprinting, Ellie was told that with some training qualification for Team Scotland and GB was a possibility. She credits using her physio knowledge and previous experience as an athlete to ‘train smart’, successfully achieving the improvement in time required to qualify her for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Finding it difficult to juggle life and sport, and feeling that the Gold Coast qualifying standard was a little out of her reach without sacrificing her job to become a full time athlete, Ellie retired in 2017.
Speaking of her achievements as an athlete, Ellie said: b“That’s where it all started really, qualifying for Glasgow 2014. That was really my aim and everything else that happened off the back I felt was an exciting bonus. I didn’t think I’d go to World Cups or European Championships, I didn’t think I’d represent Great Britain. It was very exciting and very different and certainly not something I thought I would have done if you’d asked me 5 years earlier.”
In a world where people are often assigned or committed to a sport or programme in their teens or early twenties, Ellie was able to break into a new sport and compete at the highest level. Being a 30 year old athlete, and woman, getting her first GB call up, Ellie knows her experience probably differed from many others on the programme and believes she experienced some barriers as a result. With the funding set up the way it was, based on chronological rather than training age, Ellie entered the sport having been unable to demonstrate her medal potential as a younger athlete and therefore missed out on funding.
Ellie hopes the introduction of the new maternity policy from UK Sport may lead to a shift in mindset. Not only is this a really positive step for women’s sport in terms of HR and athlete support, she hopes this will also help address an age barrier for women’s sport later on. With UK Sport now likely to be working with expecting mothers on their programme it will be interesting to see what comes from that in terms of knowledge and research.
Ellie remained active after retiring from elite sport and heading into her first pregnancy in 2018. This pregnancy was uncomplicated and she found she was able to train close to normally through the first trimester, beginning to step back and modify her activity later in pregnancy, using her exertion levels and temperature as a guide for how hard she could push.
“As an athlete you become used to the endorphins and the feeling of being strong and fit and I think you generally perform better in other spheres if you are physically fit and it gives you good headspace’”
Of course pregnancies exist on a spectrum and can vary hugely. They can be uncomplicated or come with risk factors that need to be monitored.
In my own experience I have a low risk pregnancy but my experience, particularly in early pregnancy, has differed a lot from Ellie’s. I suffered badly from morning sickness in the first trimester and struggled to do any exercise at all, going from training most days to struggling to walk my dog. Now 35 weeks pregnant, I am feeling better than I did at the start, swimming multiple times a week plus a couple of pregnancy friendly strength workouts.
In Ellie’s second pregnancy from weeks 8-20 she felt pretty awful herself (morning sickness), and in one week suffered from idiopathic intracranial hypertension, a disorder related to high pressure in the brain, which had been caused purely by the hormonal changes associated with pregnancy. She also suffered from Braxton hicks from about 30 weeks onwards even with very little activity.
When pregnancy is uncomplicated Ellie believes woman can continue to do a lot. There is of course a need to be careful, but during pregnancy our bodies going through changes that they were designed to do.
Following the birth of both her babies, Ellie was keen to return to training but knew it is important to allow your pelvis time to recover and not rush back. She did nothing for the first week and just recovered from birth, then began to introducesome gentle activity like pilates and light body weight exercises. She aimed to do 20-40 mins while the baby was sleeping, but of course babies vary massively in their personalities, sleep and feeding patterns. With experience from her first postpartum journey, Ellie has felt more confident to take steps back to exercise a little quicker this time.
Ellie felt it important to take that time for herself postpartum: “It can be so easy to lose yourself to motherhood, there is so much pressure now on new mothers,
“Using that initial time for yourself as well is really important. ‘Happy mum, happy baby’ is a slogan that is thrown around a lot but I don’t think is taken very seriously. There is still a lot of judgement around if you do go off and take a little time to yourself. When your baby is born you are going to love this little thing as much as anything, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to want to spend every moment of every waking day there. Having an hour or two, two or three times a week is really good for you.”
If you have been fit before pregnancy and have the desire to return, Ellie believes your body is often working with you to recover. However, it has still gone through 9 months of deconditioning so it is important to take your time. It is good to have goals but new mums can be guilty of putting a lot of pressure on themselves or to have expectations going into parenthood that don’t transpire in reality. Being able to leave your baby in order to exercise also depends on a lot of things. Are they able to take a bottle? Is there someone available to watch them?
Ellie’s advice: “Go with the flow, and don’t have any expectations. Newborn babies can be quite boring, so you’ve got time in that period to get ‘you’ back, to get your fitness and your body back and to maybe do something for your brain if you so wish to do it. Having time to yourself is key, it’s maternity leave for you just as much as it is for the baby.”
Now with two children, Ellie admits there is a lot of juggling involved and it can be difficult to get out the door, because your kids will always come first.
Having recently joined Instagram, she is documenting her second postpartum journey, sharing evidence, research, stories and speaking about getting back into training.
On sharing that journey, Ellie said: “So long as you’re systematic and you listen to your body and you apply all the principles of training, progression and regressions, then you’re going to get to the goals you want to get to. It might take you a bit longer because it’s not just about you any more, there are other people that come first, but you’ll still get there, just in a different way.”
As a pure sprinter, Ellie found she would normally train at a maximum effort for short periods, but then also require a lot of recovery. Now, she quite enjoys that she doesn’t need to push herself to the max when training because she knows how important it is that she is able to recover and be ready to be mum again once back home and run around with her toddler.
“I enjoy training for me and not having the pressure to feel the stress of knowing I’m not recovering properly. Although elite athletes are now being supported to come back, that pressure is still going to be there so I think it is still going to depend very much on an athlete’s individual circumstances. There are going to be so many factors outside of just funding.”
I finished by asking Ellie if she felt her experiences as an athlete had helped her prepare in any way for labour, birth or motherhood. She felt she was able to internalise and use her athlete mindset to focus and wasn’t really aware of what else was going on around her.
She also felt her physical fitness has perhaps benefitted her recovery from pregnancy and birth: “Definitely being strong going into it helps. To me, labour felt like an intervals session, pushing with each contraction but with a rest period in between. If you are used to doing training sessions where you have pushed yourself to the limit, then you are better able to reference that, but it is still nothing like you will have previously experienced.”
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Follow Ellie on social media here:
Twitter: @Els_Richardson
Instagram: @Els_Richardson
Find out more about Ellie’s work as a physio here: https://www.circlehealthgroup.co.uk/hospitals/the-alexandra-hospital
Ellie also sent on the below useful resources for exercise during pregnancy:
https://absolute.physio/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/returning-to-running-postnatalguidelines.pdf
