Physios: What Happens When She Wants to Train Again?

If you’re a women’s health physio, you already know the responsibility that comes with supporting new mamas through pregnancy and postpartum.

You know how to assess a pelvic floor properly. You know how to recognise prolapse, DRA, pelvic girdle pain, and all the variations of what recovery can look like. You understand healing timelines, tissue tolerance, and how much nuance there is in every single postpartum body.

But there’s a moment most physios recognise. The point where your client is doing well. Symptoms have settled. They’re stronger. More connected. More confident.

And then they ask what comes next.

Can I run?
Can I go back to CrossFit?
Can I lift heavy again?

And this is where things can get a little muddy. Because clearing someone and guiding someone back to performance are two very different things.

Being symptom-free doesn’t automatically mean someone understands how to rebuild their strength. It doesn’t mean they know how to progress load safely. And it doesn’t mean they won’t either hold themselves back out of fear or push too far, too fast because they finally feel like themselves again.

As physios, we care deeply about what happens to them outside our clinic. We want them to succeed long term, not just while they’re under our care.

But most physio training quite rightly focuses on assessment, diagnosis, and rehabilitation. It doesn’t always go into depth on strength and conditioning principles, exercise progression, or what return to athletic training actually looks like after pregnancy.

That’s the gap HATCH COACH was created to support.

HATCH COACH was built by physios and coaches working directly with athletic, fit mamas who wanted to return to training. Women who weren’t just trying to exist without symptoms, but who wanted to lift, run, compete, and feel strong again in their bodies.

It’s grounded in understanding the anatomical, physiological, and biomechanical changes that happen during pregnancy and postpartum, including how the pelvic floor, abdominal wall, and wider system respond to load and movement.

But it doesn’t stop at understanding the body in isolation. It explores how those changes interact with strength training, progression, and physical demands.

Because ultimately, our clients don’t live on treatment tables. They live in gyms, in classes, in sport, in busy unpredictable lives where their bodies are asked to do far more than controlled rehab exercises.

One of the biggest shifts physios often describe after taking HATCH COACH is simply understanding that world more clearly. Understanding how these training programmes are structured. Understanding how load is progressed. Understanding how to support clients as they gradually rebuild capacity over time.

It makes conversations easier. It allows you to give clearer guidance. It helps you work more confidently alongside fitness professionals, knowing you understand the demands your client is navigating. And knowing when to call a fitness professional out if they're not upholding a standard. 

It doesn’t change your role as a physio, it's built to strengthen it.

Because when you understand both sides, rehab and progression, you’re able to support the full journey, not just the early stages of recovery.

And that journey doesn’t stop evolving. Which is why HATCH COACH was designed to be more than a one-off certification. Every member has access to monthly CPD sessions for life, so you can continue learning, asking questions, and staying connected to a community of physios and fitness professionals working in this space.

Perinatal care continues to evolve, and being part of ongoing education allows you to grow alongside it.

HATCH COACH was created by physios to support what comes next. To help you feel confident not just in helping women heal, but in helping them rebuild strength, capacity, and trust in their bodies again.

Because being cleared is really just the beginning.

Looking to find out more on HATCH COACH? Explore the syllabus here.