Pregnant Clients Support

Hi. I'm Ashley Francis Hoffman, and I'm going to speak a little bit to instructors who are training pregnant clients. I have had the privilege of having a number of pregnant clients over the years, and I can definitely speak to feeling a little intimidated or just a greater sense of responsibility when training anybody who's pregnant. I had one client tell me that she had just found out she was pregnant. She was like six weeks pregnant. And it's hard to have that information and not feel like you might have to adapt and modify for your client.

So the biggest thing that I can tell you from my experience is to develop a level of communication with your client, where they just feel they can tell you. If something doesn't feel right today, if that doesn't feel like they can do that exercise anymore, or just, hey, this isn't this exercise doesn't feel like it should. We're fortunate to have some clients who have more of an awareness of their body, and then some clients we kind of have to have that awareness for them. So, of course, we're doing continuing educations to understand how to train pregnant clients, but further than that, really being able to check-in with them daily or weekly in your session, how are you feeling today? What do you feel has changed? And some people don't, you know, wanna confesses much about not feeling good, but it's really important for a pregnant person to be able to articulate just, hey, that's that doesn't feel right today or, oh, that feels really good. And then you know, okay, we're gonna leave that one in as long as it feels good.

At the first trimester, a lot of clients don't have to change much, but some may have to. And again, even if they're not changing it, we still can't get that thought out of our mind that, like, they are pregnant. We want to really keep them safe and baby safe. So that's where that communication can really just make everyone feel better and more confident about the relationship, and you take that in with any other pregnant clients you have in the future. You might be able to start speaking to, yeah, you know, a client who in her seventh month, that didn't feel good for her.

So we're gonna leave this out now. Some clients feel good lying on their back for longer. So just really being able to say, Hey, how's that feel today? Or, being able to watch those kind of hidden cues of their facial expression or something happening in their body that tells you we need to make a modification here. And as the client progresses in their pregnancy, you will create more and more modifications or just work the body differently. And we wanna make sure that when they come back after babies, that they don't feel this expectation to go back to where they started at the beginning of their pregnancy, but wherever you went, up into the labor and delivery, then after that, we kind of meet ourselves right back there. Once they've been cleared by a medical professional to work out again and they come back to you, what did you do in your last session with them?

Whether that was three months ago, six months ago, eight weeks ago, and you wanna bring them back to that place. You might be able to be, on their backs longer, doing some abdominal connection stuff that you wasn't necessarily available in the ninth month. But just really understanding for them and assuring them that they don't need to be at the same place that they were pre pregnancy. They might never get to that place they might get stronger than that place. This is a huge change, and for a client to feel safe, physically and emotionally in their sessions, is is really our privilege to provide that space for them.

Another thing I wanna mention is when I was pregnant, I had these really tight hamstrings. They felt tight, but really I'm hypermobile. I had a previous career as a dancer, and all of the relax and all that hormone that helps us loosen to create space for the baby to grow is creating instability in our body. So what I felt were tight hamstrings were actually destabilized hamstrings where I needed to strengthen more around my pelvis, ham not just the hamstrings, but inner thighs, outer hips. So being aware that sometimes tightness means, okay, I need to bring more strength into the pelvis, into the thighs, into the back so that the person doesn't feel so, like, they just need to sit in a stretch, but really create strength to relieve that tension.

Cause sitting in the stretch when they're pregnant might not give that to them. But mostly, I just wanna impart to you that developing this communication, being there for your clients supporting them, and understanding, just that imparting to them that they can trust you is is a huge part of how we train our pregnant clients. And I just hope that this helps make things a little more clear and gives you the confidence to go forward and not, not be afraid to work with a pregnant person. Thanks.