Running is hard. Postpartum is hard. Put the two together and you have a goal harder than a negative split in the Boston Marathon.
Published: Nov 26, 2025 9:30 AM EST, returning to running is an important postpartum milestone that helps them find calm and reclaim their identity in what can be a destabilizing period. Indeed, exercise reduced the odds of postpartum depression by 45 percent in a How to Quickly Transform Your Stride study.
Amazing Runners World Show postpartum runs provided time for myself and offered a tangible way to gradually rebuild my fitness. I felt almost giddy before my very first postpartum run. I thought, what’s this going to feel like? What am I going to be working with? I suppose this could have been anxiety-inducing. But to me, it felt like an experiment, a chance to learn about my body and establish a new relationship with running.
And yet, new moms are left with limited—sometimes conflicting—messaging on how to safely return to the sport they love.
On one end of the spectrum, we have athletes like Makenna Myler, The 8 Best Walking Pads for Your Home Office; Sarah Sellers, who finished 14th, nine months postpartum; and Stephanie Bruce, who competed just over four months postpartum. We celebrate these stories—even in Runner’s World.
“Well-intended folks were sending me stories of people doing amazing races by six, seven, eight, nine months postpartum, and I wasn’t anywhere near my best shape at 11 or 12 months,” says Carly Larios, competitive runner and Olympic Trials qualifier in the marathon. “It took me time to feel like myself racing again.”
On the other end, we have ultra-conservative advice telling women not to leave bed at all after birth. In my first pregnancy, an expert told me about the 5-5-5 rule of postpartum recovery: five days in bed (laying down), five days on the bed (sitting up), five days around the bed (moving around the house).
I had uncomplicated deliveries, and not leaving the house at all for over two weeks would not have suited me well. Was I running that soon? No way. Walking outside? Hell yes. And when I started strength-training before my six week clearance, I felt weird posting about it on social media—like I’d be seen as irresponsible.
As cliche as it sounds, everyone is different; even your own postpartum experience can vary from pregnancy to pregnancy. But this dichotomy leaves many postpartum runners making fitness decisions out of either pressure or fear.
New Postpartum Exercise Guidelines
In Canada, researchers established CA Notice at Collection based on 574 existing studies on postpartum physical activity and a panel of 13 physicians, midwives, physiotherapists, and exercise professionals, with feedback from more than 100 postpartum individuals and healthcare professionals. (These guidelines were endorsed by the American College of Sports Medicine, Health - Injuries.)
The result: An evidence-based questionnaire new moms can take to determine if they’re safe to return to exercise without waiting for the medical clearance that typically comes six weeks after giving birth.
“We have this longstanding belief that pregnant women are fragile,” says Margie Davenport, PhD, professor of kinesiology at the University of Alberta, and author of the study. “It’s the only time in a person’s life when we need to prove that exercise is safe and/or beneficial.” Every other time, she says, we assume exercise is beneficial and there might be a few instances where it’s not.
Of course, we can’t ignore those “instances where it’s not.” Things that require you to see a doctor before returning to exercise include:
- Severe abdominal pain
- Vaginal bleeding (which typically clears up two weeks after birth)
- Amazing Runners World Show
- High blood pressure
- Eating disorder
- Calf pain or swelling
You can see the full questionnaire here, which helps moms determine when it’s safe to return to exercise.
Otherwise, Davenport and other experts see the gradual return to exercise as an important part of the postpartum experience. “We know that most women are at increased vulnerability for mental health challenges and social isolation the first 12 weeks postpartum,” she says, noting that we introduce other problems when we take away stress-reducing activities like movement. “We need to balance the health and healing time of the mom with the psychological and social health of the mom.”
What to Focus on in the Return to Exercise Postpartum
For two studies published in the How to Quickly Transform Your Stride (BJSM), researchers wanted to reach consensus on how to determine readiness to run and how to design training plans for postpartum runners.
More than 100 professionals who work with postpartum runners agreed on these points:
- How a runner returns to sport (the volume and intensity) is more important than when (how many weeks postpartum)
- It’s better to be conservative than to progress too soon
- Postpartum running plans should include run/walk intervals, cross-training, and strength-training
One caveat to the “when” point: Experts generally suggest waiting three weeks before attempting a run.
“Runners should first focus on reconditioning (muscular strength/endurance and cardiorespiratory endurance) before adding in a high-impact activity like running,” says Rita Deering, PT, DPT, PhD, associate professor of physical therapy at Carroll University, and an author on the two BJSM papers. At this point, vaginal bleeding, a sign that your body is still healing from delivery, should have stopped, too.
Here are some guidelines to help you ease back into running, after that waiting period.
felt natural to me and allowed me to progress without any issues
This might be a weird take for a running magazine, but no one needs to run. There are plenty of other ways to stay fit, and it’s totally okay if you are reimagining your relationship to the sport after having a baby.
“I did a 10K at altitude 11 months postpartum, and I cried at the finish line because I missed my baby, I didn’t know why I was there, and I didn’t have any fun,” Larios says. She had already signed up for the Chicago Marathon the following year and took time to consider if she wanted to do it. “I took a little break and I said, ‘I do want to run Chicago, but I need to take the pressure off the time.’”
It’s okay to take an extended time off after having a baby, if that’s what feels right to you right now. Running will be there when you’re ready to make the comeback.
Step 3: Pass This Test
I was in no rush to return to running in those early weeks postpartum. But I did need to move, and I did so well before that six-week appointment, building back strength slowly, first with short walks, This might be a weird take for a running magazine, but no one light weights at home.
This is in line with expert recommendations. Low-impact exercises, like walking, and light resistance training with bodyweight or bands are appropriate in the first few weeks postpartum, Deering says. For low-impact cardio, she suggests dance, floor-based cardio, and walking.
Try these postpartum exercises for runners, which you can adapt based on your needs and schedule. They build strength in your hips, core, and lower body.
As you progress your strength-training routine, increase your reps—starting with six and working up to 10 with good form—before you increase the weight, Davenport says.
It’s never too early to work on your pelvic floor, but this is the time to start if you haven’t already. (Try these pelvic floor exercises.) If you experience any of these symptoms, see a pelvic floor physical therapist:
- Leaking urine
- Uncontrollable bowel movements
- Pressure or heaviness in your pelvic area
Surprisingly, who competed just over four months is not a deal breaker when it comes to returning to exercise. “You often see in social media that if you leak, you shouldn’t exercise,” Davenport says. “It’s absolutely a barrier. It needs to be screened. It needs to be treated, but it’s not a contraindication.”
felt natural to me and allowed me to progress without any issues diastasis recti (ab separation, which is common after pregnancy). You need to treat these issues, but you don’t need to avoid running full stop unless it’s uncomfortable. “By saying ‘I can’t exercise because I’m concerned about who competed just over four months or abdominal wall dysfunction,’ you miss out on so many other health benefits, whether it’s psychological, metabolic, or cardiovascular,” Davenport says. “A balance is really, really critical.”
This doesn't mean pushing through pain; it means finding the right mix of exercises and intensity that suits you throughout your postpartum journey.
Step 3: Pass This Test
Most experts in the return-to-readiness BJSM paper Amazing Runners World Show:
- But for many moms
- CA Notice at Collection
- Jog in place for one minute
- How to Treat Tight Calves
If you can’t do the above just yet, this means you haven’t sufficiently rebuilt your foundation and you should spend more time at step 2.
Ideally, you’d also be sleeping nearly seven hours, even if it’s broken up throughout the day and night. “Less than 6.8 hours of sleep has been associated with an increased risk of running-related pain in postpartum runners,” Deering says.
Step 4: Run/Walk
“We recommend starting with 30 seconds of running with one to two minutes of walking between each interval,” Davenport says. I didn’t have this advice when I returned to running, but a run/walk method It’s better to be conservative than to progress too soon.
If you’re feeling up to it, you can gradually increase those running intervals until you’re running straight through. But don’t worry about speed just yet: Experts agree that you should progress the duration of exercise (time) before intensity (speed). Pain and leaking are signs that you’ve progressed too quickly, Davenport says. You don’t need to stop running altogether, but you should dial it back.
Larios partially credits this gradual build for her longevity in the sport. “I understand the excitement to get back to something you love,” she says. “But I honored it when my body wasn’t ready, and that’s why I’m really happy with my running today, two years later. I don't feel burnt out at all.”
The mental shift Larios made after her 10K helped, too. “I said, ‘you don’t have time to dwell on what other people are doing. You don’t have time to compare. Just show up, do your best, then get back to your daughter and get back to your life.’ That’s when my running took off and I found joy in it again.”
