There is this big misconception that has developed throughout the health and fitness industry, as well as in the “momming” world that the only reason we would exercise after having kids is to make sure we get our “pre-baby body” back. While I am not one to say feeling confident in the way our body looks is a bad thing, I have issue with referring to this “pre-baby body” as the great achievement “all” moms are working towards.

I like to focus my training and the training for the clients I work with on strength and function. Why? Because that is the stuff that matters (And a little secret, when you focus there, body changes follow!). Being a mom is PHYSICALLY demanding, as well as emotionally draining. Why, then wouldn’t we try to train our bodies to deal with the stresses that motherhood alone (removing all other stresses from this conversation for just a second) places on us? We should and we owe that to ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to allow our bodies to HEAL and RECOVER after growing and delivering a baby (let’s remember, peeing your pants is NOT NORMAL. Read more here). Then we move forward and take care of and train our bodies to deal with the responsibilities we have now taken on.

Talking with a client the other day, we started talking about goals and why we train. I really enjoyed this conversation because she totally got it. We aren’t working to be able to run the fastest mile, or break any crazy records (although, if you want to, more power to you!). We are training for life. We want to feel good, be confident, and be CAPABLE. This mom life gig really does require a lot from us moms.

Just think about how often we pick up our kids in a day. 10? 20? Nope. I would bet that it is easily over 50, especially if we have more than one kid. And depending on the age of our kids, that could be anywhere from 10-50 pounds each time.

What about the last time you wrestled your kids into their carseats to go grocery shopping? Or carried your totally capable 3 ½ year old up and down the stairs AGAIN, because he just wanted you to carry him?

So don’t tell me that moms don’t need to be strong because they do. We need to be strong in many ways, physically, emotionally, spiritually, you name it, we’ve got it. This is why we train. WE TRAIN FOR LIFE. Just as an athlete trains for their event or competition, we as moms, need to train for our event.

Now, to be clear, I am not saying that we are doing this for our kids. I will always fall back on saying that we do this for ourselves and this is no different. We train for life so that we can totally CRUSH IT. We do it to have the confidence and ability to tackle anything that comes our way, because we are moms, and that is just what we do.