Before I write a single exercise for a new client, there is a conversation that has to happen first, and it usually takes longer than people expect. I am not filling out a form to justify a template I already have in mind. I am trying to understand a specific person.
I start with the birth itself. Vaginal or cesarean, whether there were complications, how the recovery has gone so far, whether there is any pain, numbness, or unusual sensation around the abdomen or pelvic floor. This is not because I am diagnosing anything. It is because it tells me what tissue has been through, and tissue that has been cut or torn needs a different pace of loading than tissue that has stretched without incision.
Then I look at breath. How does this person breathe when they are not thinking about it. Does the ribcage expand, does the belly move, is there tension held somewhere that should be relaxed. Breath mechanics tell me more about someone's readiness for core work than almost anything else, because the diaphragm and pelvic floor move together, and if that relationship is off, building strength on top of it usually just reinforces the dysfunction.
I ask about daily symptoms that many women dismiss as normal. Leaking when they cough or jump. A sense of heaviness or pressure in the pelvis by the end of the day. Any doming or bulging along the midline when they sit up or lift something. These are common after birth, common enough that women are often told to expect them, but common is not the same as fine, and any of these deserves a proper clinical assessment before we move forward with training.
I also ask about sleep, feeding, and support at home, because those factors shape how much a nervous system can absorb from a training session. A woman feeding through the night and managing everything alone is working with a different physiological reality than one who is sleeping in longer stretches with help around her. Programming that ignores this ends up asking too much of someone who is already stretched thin.
And I ask what she actually wants, beyond the vague sense that she should be doing something. Some women want to run again. Some want to pick up their child without wincing. Some just want to feel like themselves. Those are different goals requiring different priorities, even if the starting point looks similar on paper.
I am not a physiotherapist, and where something falls outside coaching, I say so directly and point toward the clinical care it needs. What I am trying to build, before any programming begins, is an honest picture of one specific body and one specific life, because a plan built on anything less than that is really just a guess dressed up as a program.