How The Tenth supports postpartum fitness and physical recovery

Sep 18

This National Fitness Day, we’re redefining what fitness means for new mothers.

At The Tenth Wellness, our luxury postpartum retreat based at the Mandarin Oriental in Hyde Park, London, we believe postpartum recovery isn’t about “bouncing back.” It’s about returning to yourself slowly, intentionally, and with expert support. Postnatal fitness doesn’t begin with burpees or boot camps. It begins with rest, nourishment, and a gentle reintroduction to movement, always rooted in science and led by our compassionate, clinical experts.

Why Gentle Movement Matters After Birth

Your body has just undergone one of the most physically demanding transformations it will ever experience; from stretched abdominal muscles and a taxed pelvic floor, to shifting hormones and emotional upheaval. But here’s what many aren’t told:

If you skip your recovery now, your body will remember it later. Pushing through fatigue, ignoring pelvic floor symptoms, or jumping into intense workouts too soon can do more than delay healing, it can cause long-term dysfunction that doesn’t surface until months or even years later.

Common consequences of poor postpartum recovery include: thyroid imbalance, chronic fatigue, anxiety or postnatal depression, bone and joint weakness and pelvic floor dysfunction. That’s why gentle, expert-led movement isn’t just a luxury, it’s essential. At The Tenth, we help you rebuild from the inside out.

Our approach supports foundational healing by helping you:

Reconnect with your core through breath-led abdominal engagement • Protect and strengthen your pelvic floor
Realign posture and reduce tension from the physical demands of pregnancy and birth

This is not about calorie burn or chasing a pre-baby body. It’s about restoring the systems that support your long-term wellbeing physically, hormonally, and emotionally.

The Tenth Approach: Rest First, Movement Second

Unlike traditional fitness programmes, we don’t rush into movement. At The Tenth, rest is a clinical intervention, not an afterthought. Only once your body has had time to heal, replenish, and recalibrate, do we introduce gentle, expert-led movement designed specifically for postpartum needs. Your personalised recovery pathway may include:

Postnatal physiotherapy to assess core and pelvic healing
Pelvic floor rehabilitation for long-term strength and stability
Breath-led core engagement to rebuild internal support
Low-impact movement such as walking, stretching, or mobility exercises

Each session is tailored to your birth experience, body, and energy level and is never a one-size-fits-all plan

Expert-Guided and Always Personalised.

With so much misinformation around postnatal exercise, it’s hard to know what’s “safe” especially if you’re recovering from a C-section, pelvic trauma, or birth complications. That’s why we offer 1:1 guidance from our team of women’s health professionals including physiotherapists, osteopaths, and postnatal movement specialists. We help you choose movements that heal, not exhaust, progress gently, without pressure and build strength and confidence at your own pace. To shed more light on the importance of personalised recovery, we spoke to Clare Bourne, a pelvic health physiotherapist and our in-house pelvic floor physiotherapy specialist here at The Tenth.

‘Having a personalised assessment and treatment plan is key to recovery, so you can do what is best for you and your body. No two pregnancies, births or bodies are the same, and we all deserve a tailored and nurturing approach to recovery. However we birth our babies our body needs time, support, movement and TLC. Pelvic floor rehabilitation is important for all women who have been pregnant, however they have given birth. After vaginal birth women may need more support with pelvic floor recovery, rehabilitation and getting back to the exercise they love, whilst after caesarean birth women may need more support with scar care and abdominal rehabilitation. There is certainly no ‘easy way’ to birth and we all deserve a programme that works for us.’

National Fitness Day often celebrates intensity, grit, and transformation. But for new mothers, the most powerful transformation is internal, not aesthetic. At The Tenth, we reject the bounce-back myth. Instead, we ask: What if fitness looked like rest? What if strength started with softness? True postpartum recovery is not about reclaiming your “old” body. It’s about stepping forward stronger, softer, and supported.