The Physiology of Endurance Running Podcast · Dan Nash and Owain Zerilli

Post-partum running, a scientific approach - with Dr Megan James

·1 hr 19 min·5 clips

About 20 women said they never stopped running through pregnancy and restarted straight after birth.

1. The Physiology of Endurance Running Podcast episode covers postpartum running and return-to-run guidance with Dr. Megan James, whose PhD examined biomechanics and lived experience around pregnancy and running. 2. Megan James is the guest, and the hosts say her work matters because it combines survey data, biomechanics, and mixed methods at Cardiff Met. 3. The episode asks what evidence should guide women returning to running after pregnancy, when to start, and which exercises belong before the first run. 4. Megan says her interest began in an undergraduate degree at Swansea University, then continued through an MSc at Cardiff Met with Dr. Izzy Moore. 5. She describes a dissertation on pelvic acceleration during running and later postpartum survey-based studies completed during COVID. 6. The hosts say the work became useful because postpartum return-to-running research was limited when the PhD began. 7. Megan says the 2020 return-to-run clinical guidelines were the first guidance of their kind but were “quite clinically based.” 8. She says only around a third of the survey sample had accessed those guidelines. 9. Megan explains that the team therefore built a co-designed guide with postpartum runners so it would suit everyday use rather than only clinical settings. 10. She says the guide was informed by study one and study two from the PhD and aimed to be flexible enough for different post-birth experiences. 11. Megan reports that the focus groups highlighted time pressure, planning, newborn care, and fitting running around other children. 12. She says physical concerns included pelvic floor dysfunction, pelvic girdle pain, injury fear, anxiety, confidence, and motivation. 13. She adds that environmental factors such as hills, flat routes, and buggy access also affected whether women could run with a baby. 14. The hosts note that these factors were treated as interacting parts of one problem rather than separate disciplines. 15. Megan says the survey found some participants ran throughout pregnancy and restarted immediately after birth, which surprised her. 16. She also says many runners reduced from several weekly sessions to occasional runs, often because sleep deprivation made the choice between running and napping difficult. 17. Megan describes social pressure too, saying some people openly told pregnant runners that they were doing “the wrong thing.” 18. The tone is technical but conversational, with the hosts asking basic questions about surveys, biomechanics, and pelvic loading. 19. Megan explains the biomechanics in accessible language and ties them back to practical return-to-run decisions for postpartum women. 20. People returning to running after pregnancy would likely value this episode; listeners wanting quick training tips might skip it.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Physiology of Endurance Running Podcast