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Running During and following pregnancy

The pregnancy journey brings with it a myriad of emotions, experiences, and challenges for women. Amidst the excitement and anticipation of motherhood, questions often arise about maintaining a healthy lifestyle, particularly when it comes to physical activity. For many expectant and new mothers, the fear of movement, especially when it involves high-impact activities like running, can be a significant roadblock in staying active during pregnancy.

Pelvic health plays a crucial role in the well-being of women during and after pregnancy, and it is vital to address their concerns and uncertainties with confidence and competence. Unfortunately, existing healthcare guidelines often fail to provide precise guidance tailored to individual situations, leaving pregnant women unsure about the safety and benefits of engaging in physical activities.

In this post, we’ll delve deeper into a groundbreaking research study conducted by Marion Raballand. The study revolves around the intriguing relationship between wearing an abdominal belt, running technique, and pelvic loading.

"Runeasi helps me guide moms returning postpartum, to make this return to impact more reassuring and objective"—Marion Raballand, PT, PhD Student

What is an abdominal belt?

An abdominal support belt for pregnant running is a specialized garment designed to provide gentle compression and support to the growing belly and lower back during physical activities like running while pregnant. The primary purpose of this belt is to alleviate the strain on the abdominal muscles and pelvic area, promoting better pelvic health and minimizing discomfort that can arise during pregnancy.

Pregnancy support belt
Visualization & set-up of an abdominal belt

How can it improve running technique during pregnancy?

Here are some key insights observed while using the abdominal belt during running. Notably, it led to significant improvements in various aspects. Her impact was enhanced, along with her pelvic side-to-side stability and overall symmetry. Remarkably, her running quality surged from a score of 53 to an impressive 85!

Moreover, the abdominal belt proved effective in reducing pelvic discomfort, which is supported by solid data validating her subjective experience.

These positive outcomes have notably boosted her confidence in movement, a finding that resonates with other mothers as well.

For a comprehensive understanding, you can access the full abstract from Marion Raballand’s Ph.D. research conducted at UC Louvain University.”

Large improvements seen in stability, symmetry and impact

“Aim of the study: To determine if the use of an abdominal support belt and a 10% increased cadence, separately and together, can improve the impact magnitude and duration, the pelvic instability, and the abdominal discomfort during walking and running in pregnant women. 

Methods: 14 women participated to the walking protocol and 12 to the running protocol. The experiment consisted in an appointment where women had to run or walk on a treadmill under different conditions: with abdominal belt and spontaneous cadence, with abdominal belt and 10% increased cadence, without belt and spontaneous cadence and without belt and 10% increased cadence. Collected data were abdominal discomfort, impact magnitude and duration and pelvis instability. 

Results: In running, the impact magnitude, impact duration and pelvis instability are significantly improved while wearing a belt. The increased cadence significantly increases the impact magnitude. In walking, discomfort and pelvis instability are significantly improved with the belt. However, the increased cadence does not bring any change. 

Conclusion: Our results are encouraging because the abdominal belt improves the values and decreases discomfort, which may encourage running and walking during pregnancy. On the other hand, increasing cadence did not show any effect in our study, but it would be interesting to deepen the research to see the long-term effects of it.”

Reference: Dochy, Juliette ; Lequeue, Camille. Running and walking during pregnancy : The impact of an increased cadence and the use of an abdominal belt on the pelvis dynamic instability, the pelvis impact, and the discomfort. Faculté des sciences de la motricité, Université catholique de Louvain, 2022. Prom. : Raballand, Marion ; De Jaeger, Dominique.

Picture of Case insight provided by: Marion Raballand, PT, PhD Candidate

Case insight provided by: Marion Raballand, PT, PhD Candidate

Marion is an expert in perinatality and abdomino-pelvic health in women's running. Her clinical activity at MoveMum is centered, among other things, on pre and post natal physiotherapy. She tries to make pregnant women and health professionals aware of the importance of maintaining regular physical activity during pregnancy. She is also a doctoral student in motricity sciences and her research focuses on the interest of sport during pregnancy (Free University of Brussels, Belgium). In addition, Marion specializes in the management of sports pathologies related to running.

She began her career as a physiotherapist in 2009. After an experience at the Belgian French-speaking athletics league (LBFA), she joined the sports medicine branch of the Saint-Luc clinics in 2011, before becoming co-founder of the Wolu Sport Clinic. Marion is involved in several continuing education courses at Parnasse-ISEI (Brussels, Belgium) and at the Catholic University of Louvain (Brussels, Belgium).

Finally, Marion practices running with passion and even more so since she became a mother. This practice is deeply rooted in his family and professional life. She is one of the best runners in the Brussels region.

Start assessing pre and post partum running.

Speak to a member of our Runeasi team, and learn how Runeasi can improve your client outcomes in making return to impact more objective and reassuring.

If you already have a full picture of Runeasi, go for a 15min call to quickly chat about the possible next steps. Do you want to go more in detail and learn about our parameters, schedule a 45 min demo.

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5 rEASONS TO USE OUR APP

1. Global movement quality

Track and improve your client’s Runeasi running quality. Identify their weakest link with our advanced visualisation.

2. individual recommendations

Get individual training and cueing recommendations to improve your client’s weakest link.

3. Real-time feedback

Engage your clients through visual gamification and watch how they self-optimize to your verbal cues.

 

4. Session trends

Learn more about your client’s running quality during daily training. Our session trends show when and where the quality drops with fatigue.

5. Quick comparisons

Compare pre-post data to show intervention effects on the movement quality. 

3 REASONS TO CAPTURE DATA USING THE RUNEASI BELT

1. No motion artifacts. The Runeasi belt is secured tightly against the body and the skin to capture the actual movements of the body’s center of mass. Attaching or clipping the sensor directly to the pants would allow the sensor to wobble from side to side (i.e., measuring the wobbling of the pants, and not the human body.

2.  Easy to standardize the sensor’s positioning. The Runeasi belt makes it easy to consistently position the sensor close to the center of mass. Attaching the sensor directly to the pants would dramatically affect the reliability of the outputs as the height and tightness of the pants will affect the results. Moreover, these pants attachments often shift sideways while running which further decreases the data quality. 

 3. Comfortable to wear.  Hundreds of runners confirmed that they immediately forget about our belt while running. This allows them to move without any restrictions and allows us to capture movements that are representative of a client’s true biomechanics.

SENSOR SPECS

LAB GRADE SENSOR

Accurately captures full range of motion and kinetic parameters by leveraging wide sensing range (16 Gs) & high sampling frequency (1000 Hz)

WATER & SCHOCK PROOF

Built to withstand high intensity training and sweating. Suitable for the outdoor elements, come rain or shine. Robust to handle the repetitive and ruthless impact shocks of running.

Lightweight & SLIM

Seamlessly integrates onto the body to support movement without restrictions. Weight: 9.4g/0.33oz with battery. Dimensions (36.6mm/1.44” dia. X 10.6mm/ 0.42” thick)

No charging wireless

Replaceable coin-cell battery with operating time up to months, depending on the usage. Bluetooth® 5.0 radio for effortlessly transmitting data real-time or post-session.