Watch: exercising with a bump... and beyond

When physiotherapist Ailish Cleary first started teaching pregnancy Pilates after completing a training course in the UK, she thought she had it all figured out.

“I thought I was really good because I basically regurgitated what I had been taught in the course and I had the video learned off… and then I got pregnant!” she laughs.

“I got pelvic girdle pain and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I need to change what I’m doing’.”

And it was that lightbulb moment that gave birth to The Bump Room: a business providing pregnancy fitness classes led by chartered physiotherapists experienced in women’s health, with 12 instructors now located across Ireland.

Three of these instructors live on farms, with Ailish joined by her colleagues Ailish Mangan and Fiona Healy for this photo shoot and interview for Irish Country Living, as well as recording three exclusive exercise videos suitable for pregnancy and post-delivery recovery.

Farming and physio

And as it turns out, farming actually had a part to play in setting up the business for Ailish, whose husband Eamon Cleary runs a dairy farm in Ardcroney, Co Tipperary.

“Because I grew up in the town, I didn’t realise the extent maybe of how long Eamon would be away,” she says, explaining that to fill her spare time after getting married, she decided to teach pregnancy Pilates.

“At the time I was working in the maternity hospital in Limerick and I started to see that there was a lot of fear and anxiety around exercise and pregnancy and also there was lots of people with pelvic girdle pain that I felt it would have really benefitted them if they could be guided in the type of exercise they could do.”

As explained earlier, it was while expecting her eldest daughter Niamh (now nine) that Ailish decided to move away from Pilates towards more physio-based exercise classes. And as demand grew, so did her family, with Niamh followed by Anna (now seven) and Maria (four).

During her second pregnancy, Ailish linked up with fellow physio and mother-of-three, Caitriona Quinn from Co Clare, to meet the need for more classes.

That led to the pair formally co-founding The Bump Room, which now runs classes in Cork, Limerick, Clare, Tipperary, Mayo, Sligo and Dublin, as well as online courses.

Which brings us to the next two instructors who mix physio with farming.

Ailish Mangan lives on a dairy farm in Millstreet, Co Cork with her husband Don Murphy and children Conall (six), Barra (four) and Aran (one) and teaches The Bump Room class in Macroom, while working part-time in Cork in primary care.

Meanwhile, Fiona Healy – who has developed the online exercise course for women post-delivery – lives on a sheep farm in Tuosist, Co Kerry with her husband James and their daughters Roisin (three) and Caoimhe (19 months) and works part-time with the HSE in west Cork, as well as in private practice in Killarney in women’s health.

Importance of exercise

As physiotherapists, all are emphatic about the importance of exercise for mothers-to-be, with Ailish Cleary explaining that the guidelines for physical activity during pregnancy were actually changed in 2015.

“Physical inactivity is an independent risk factor now, so it’s actually prescribed as such,” she says. “And the prescription is that you have to do a minimum of 150 minutes of aerobic exercise a week, which includes strength and resistance training.”

However, as many women may be unsure about what type or intensity of exercise they should do during pregnancy, this is where The Bump Room comes in. Every exercise in the class is tailored specifically to strengthen or support the pregnant body, such as targeting the pelvic floor, the lower back, hips and glutes, and can be modified if a woman is experiencing an issue such as pelvic girdle pain.

“And a lot of them (the exercises) are functional as in you’re going to have to get up and down from the ground when you have a small baby, so let’s do lunges, let’s do squats,” lists Ailish, “so every exercise has a reasoning to it.”

Classes run for one hour and according to Ailish Mangan, while the women are monitored to ensure that they are exercising safely, they are still encouraged to work up a bit of a sweat.

“We’re monitoring what they’re doing, we’re modifying all the time as they do it, but they’re being challenged at the same time. And I think sometimes women are quite surprised, particularly after the first class,” she says.

“They may not realise that they can be challenging themselves and pushing themselves a little bit more.”

At the end of the class, there is always time left for a Q&A, as well as top tips on practical issues during pregnancy, such as getting out of bed, sitting comfortably and even the correct position to adopt when using the toilet (see panel).

“I always say this is the most important thing you’re going to do for your pelvic floor every day,” says Ailish Cleary. “It’s not the pelvic floor exercises; it’s how to go to the toilet properly.”

Recovery after baby

As well as classes during pregnancy, The Bump Room also offers a course for women post-delivery online, called The Bump Room Beyond Birth, which was developed by Fiona after working with new mums in Cork.

“I’d seen the gap between being post-natal and going into the gym and I just felt that gap needed to be bridged,” she explains.

“Suddenly you were six weeks (after having the baby) and you were into the GP and it was like, ‘Great, off you go’ and you were like, ‘Wait! No muscle is working like it used to work’.”

While not every mother will have problems post-delivery, issues that can occur include pelvic floor dysfunction, pelvic pain and diastasis (abdominal separation), which can make a return to regular exercise challenging. To address the most common issues, Fiona has developed two 10-week online recovery courses- one for vaginal delivery and one for C-sections- which participants can work through at their own pace at home.

“Putting the programme together, I wanted to make sure that all of these women had somewhere to exercise because you’ll see so many women with pelvic floor dysfunction that know they can’t go for the run, they can’t go back to CrossFit, so where do they go?” says Fiona, who also has a private Facebook page for participants for any queries, and hosts regular Q&As.

Mother’s mental health

While the online classes allow mothers-to-be and new mothers all over Ireland to do The Bump Room courses, they are always on the lookout for qualified physiotherapists to join their team to extend their outreach.

Because while keeping fit might be the focus of the classes, all three physios agree that there are many other benefits, particularly when it comes to mothers’ mental health.

“What I enjoy most out of teaching the classes is just seeing these groups of women coming together in their community, going through this major life event at the same time and seeing them support each other,” says Ailish Cleary.

“The perinatal mental health piece is really important because we are kind of an informal social support; like you might have someone who has just moved to the town, especially in rural regions, they don’t have the same support systems if they had family there and you see them making these friendships and it’s so nice… and they help each other through those first few months.”

Each Bump Room course runs for six weeks and costs €95 (and €10 less for every block thereafter). The online course costs €97 and consists of unlimited access to five full classes from basic to advanced levels, plus add-ons. The Bump Room Beyond 10-week recovery course costs €127, with access to several bonus features. For further information, visit thebumproom.ie

1 Sitting posture: live life on the wedge.

2 Sleeping position: pillows are a girl’s best friend.

3 Toilet positions: knees higher than hips to reduce straining.