New mums have a lot on their plates. Between nappy explosions, work meetings, school runs, and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life, it’s almost guaranteed to be an overwhelming time, most of the time. Throw into the mix disrupted sleep, patchy eating times, and the emotional rollercoaster of parenting, and it’s no wonder that to most postnatal women, finding time for fitness and wellbeing seems impossible. As a mum of four, I’ve done it many times over and know the pressure all too well. And yes, time is tight, but the good news is that rebuilding your body post-pregnancy doesn’t actually require long, mean hours in the gym.

Are Kegels all they’re cracked up to be?

So, you’re postnatal and determined to carve out time for you and your body. Good news: there’s no shortage of fitness advice online. Bad news: not all of it is as credible as it might appear. Trying to figure out whose advice to trust is overwhelming, especially when two experts completely contradict each other.

Most exercise advice for postnatal women will mention Kegel exercises. Kegels are pelvic floor contractions which strengthen the deep core muscles. Don’t get me wrong – they’re a really important part of postnatal recovery. But there is much more to the story than it often appears, and a few more steps are needed before bringing Kegels into our workouts. When these steps are missed, women can be left feeling frustrated at the lack of results they’d hoped for.

Before you start squeezing your pelvic floor every time you’re at a red light or unloading the dishwasher, we need to reconnect with the entire core system. Pregnancy can have drastic effects, like shifting posture, flaring the ribcage and tilting the pelvis. These changes can all affect your pelvic floor health, and Kegels alone are not enough to fix them.

Your pelvic floor doesn’t work in isolation. It’s part of a team, along with your glutes, abdominal muscles, abductors, lower back, and your respiratory system. Together, they make up the deep core. Everything needs to work in synergy, and for that, we need three steps: respiration, engagement, and activation.

When I started the StrongLikeMum YouTube channel, I wanted to create a hub for short, effective postnatal workouts for all women, from a postnatal expert who knows that intensive courses and strict diets are completely unrealistic. Here are my three absolute non-negotiables when it comes to exercise after pregnancy – and what makes them so vital to recovery.

Step 1: 360 breathing

Okay, breathing sounds boring, but this step is not to be missed. Our breathing really affects how our core functions. The movement and position of your diaphragm and ribcage can deeply impact how the pelvic floor is loaded and positioned. During pregnancy, it’s not uncommon for the ribcage to lift, or ‘flare’, as the baby grows and takes up more space. Internal organs, including your diaphragm, are pushed upwards, and this can cause the ribcage to protrude outwards, with the lower ribs pushing upwards.

As pregnancy progresses, your pelvis is tilted forward, which means the increased weight of the baby, placenta and amniotic fluid is shifted off the supportive bony structures of the pelvis and rests much more heavily onto the pelvic floor below. If misalignment continues, no matter how many kegel exercises you do, the increased pressure on the pelvic floor could mean you struggle to engage the muscles as efficiently as you’d like to when needed.

For this reason, I start all my clients with a 360 breathing exercise. You can work on this exercise sitting in a chair, but I’d recommend lying back on a mat. While keeping your hands relaxed by your sides or resting on your lower abdomen, take a deep inhale. The goal is to encourage the diaphragm to descend. Keeping your shoulders relaxed, allow your ribcage to expand and visualise your pelvic floor relaxing and releasing. In the first stage of this exercise, allow your breath to ‘fall’ away with a soft ‘hah’ sound, without drawing up the pelvic floor on the exhale. Focus on keeping your shoulders relaxed and the pelvic floor released. You can then build on the pelvic floor kegel activation as you exhale.

Often, Kegel exercises reference the feeling of stopping the flow of urine. Instead of this, try visualising the coccyx bone at the back of your pelvis and the pubic bone at the front of your pelvis, drawing inwards towards each other and lifting up along the midline. To join me in this technique, try this StrongLikeMum workout.

Resistance bands

Resistance band exercises can be incredibly useful as we attempt to fix rib flare and support our posture, all of which allows better core engagement. Here’s a great exercise to engage the pelvic floor and abdominal muscles, including your obliques: Sit or stand holding a resistance band in one hand. Holding this arm out in front of you, in line with your shoulder, grab the other end of the resistance band in your other hand, a little lower than the first. Inhale, and as you exhale, pull the resistance band diagonally downwards, gently encouraging your ribcage across to the opposite hip. Inhale and return to the start position and repeat.

Step 2: Getting to the deep core

The ‘box row’, as featured in this workout, is one of my all-time favourite exercises for postnatal women rehabilitating their pelvic floor. This move is best when paired with other deep core engagement exercises like pelvic tilts, leg slides, the bridge and heel taps.

Firstly, by working in the box position, we slightly increase the challenge for your pelvic floor because you’re working against gravity. Pulling backwards with the resistance band strengthens your upper back muscles, which helps to support better posture.

Resistance in the upper body also triggers a response in the pelvic floor via a deep line of soft body tissue known as the Deep Front Line. This is why this box row is so fantastic for postnatal women. If, however, you are managing diastasis recti, it’s important to keep an eye on your midline when performing this exercise. The box/all fours position can place an increase of pressure onto the front abdominal wall. However, this can be a good way to strengthen the front abdominals and rehab diastasis recti, provided you can garner tension along the midline. If you notice a bulge along the midline, modify your exercises and begin with workouts like this.

Step 3: Don’t forget the glutes

Alongside pelvic floor activation and posture rehabilitation, glute exercises are a crucial (and often forgotten) part of postnatal recovery. During pregnancy, as your bump grows, your pelvis can shift forward, which puts increased pressure on the pelvic floor. By activating your glutes, we can help to restabilise the pelvis and encourage better alignment. Glute kick-backs are a fantastic body-weight exercise that activates the deep glutes, and you can progress the movement by adding a resistance band.

By looping the middle of the band around your foot and holding the ends in both hands, you can increase the resistance in the working leg, pushing backwards. Other valuable glute exercises for the postnatal period are the glute bridge, butterfly, fire hydrants, lunges and squats when you’re ready.

But before anything else, the three steps of respiration, engagement and activation are vital for an effective postnatal recovery. Connecting your breathing to your deep core, using your upper body to engage your pelvic floor and activating your glutes to realign posture all help to strengthen and heal your body, post-birth.

Subscribe to Strong Like Mum to get new videos every Monday and Thursday. There, you’ll get all the help you need to build functional strength, core stability, and confidence, from bodyweight and resistance workouts to gentle return-to-exercise routines

For years, the wellness world told us that fitness had to hurt to work. Early morning boot camps, relentless HIIT classes, “no days off” mantras and punishing training schedules became badges of honour splashed across social media feeds.

But in 2026, a very different kind of movement is taking over and, for many women, it feels like a collective exhale. Welcome to the era of “soft fitness”, the wellness trend redefining what it means to be healthy.

Instead of chasing exhaustion, people are increasingly gravitating towards gentler forms of movement that prioritise feeling good over pushing harder. Think reformer Pilates, long walks, mobility work, stretching sessions, recovery-focused workouts, infrared saunas and moderate strength training designed to energise rather than deplete.

And according to experts, the shift may actually help people stay healthier for longer.”Soft fitness gives people permission to move their bodies in a way that supports both physical and mental wellbeing, rather than constantly pushing themselves to exhaustion,” Tahnee Donkin, National Fitness Manager at Genesis Health + Fitness tells HELLO! “It’s really about creating a fitness routine people can sustain and enjoy.”

At its core, soft fitness is not about abandoning exercise or avoiding challenge altogether, it is about balance. Rather than exercising purely for aesthetics or dramatic transformation photos, the focus has shifted towards longevity, recovery, energy and emotional wellbeing.

It is also attracting a remarkably broad audience, beginners who once felt intimidated by traditional gym culture are embracing it, alongside busy professionals, older adults and even dedicated gym-goers looking to soften the intensity of their routines.

“Some people still love high-intensity training, and that’s great,” Tahnee says. “Soft fitness simply creates more accessible pathways into fitness for people who may have previously felt overwhelmed by traditional gym culture.”

© M.R.Woods

The rise of soft fitness reflects something much bigger happening culturally too, after years of hustle culture encouraging people to optimise every aspect of their lives, many are reaching a point of physical and emotional burnout. Increasingly, wellness is no longer about punishment or perfection. Instead, people are asking a different question entirely: “How do I want to feel?”

“We’re seeing people redefine what health actually means,” Tahnee explains. “It’s no longer just about aesthetics. More people are focusing on how movement supports their overall wellbeing.”

That mindset shift has helped fuel the booming popularity of recovery-led wellness experiences too, from red light therapy and cold plunges to massage, mobility sessions and infrared saunas.

Recovery, once viewed as something reserved for elite athletes or luxury spas, is now becoming an everyday wellness essential.

And while gentler movement may sound less effective on paper, experts say soft fitness can still deliver significant long-term results, particularly when consistency is involved.

“When people genuinely enjoy their routine, they’re far more likely to stay consistent,” Tahnee says. “And consistency is what creates lasting results.”

© Getty Images

Beyond physical fitness, many people are also reporting benefits including improved sleep, lower stress levels, better mental clarity, faster workout recovery and more stable energy throughout the day.

In many ways, soft fitness is not about doing less at all, it is about training smarter. Another reason the trend is resonating so strongly is because it feels far more inclusive.

Traditional fitness spaces can often feel intimidating, particularly for people who do not identify with intense gym culture or transformation-focused messaging. Soft fitness offers something different: calming, welcoming spaces centred around wellbeing rather than competition.

Reformer Pilates, for example, has emerged as one of the biggest gateway workouts for newcomers because of its supportive atmosphere and adaptable nature.

“Environment matters,” Tahnee says. “Spaces that feel calm, welcoming and personalised help people feel more comfortable starting their fitness journey.”

Combined with more flexible training schedules and recovery services that fit around increasingly busy lifestyles, the wellness industry is becoming more approachable than ever before. And perhaps that is why soft fitness is striking such a powerful chord right now.

In a world that constantly feels overstimulated, exhausting and permanently switched on, softer approaches to health feel not only appealing, but necessary.

The rise of soft fitness may well signal the end of the old “no pain, no gain” mentality and honestly, many people seem more than ready for it.

With a 3:45am wake-up call, it’s a wonder Susanna Reid has any time or energy left to work out, particularly after hours of grilling politicians live on Good Morning Britain. Nevertheless, movement has remained a priority for Susanna – even if that movement looks slightly different to what it did previously.

‘I used to go to the gym and run a lot. I would do marathons, 10ks and parkruns, but I don’t do that any more, so I have to keep my body moving,’ she revealed to Fabulous Magazine earlier this month. While Susanna said she’s ‘quite disciplined’ about incorporating that movement into her day, she’s not doing ‘three gym sessions a week’.

So, how does she maximise the movement in her day?