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Hello World


Great to have you here! Thanks for joining me on this journey.

In these blog posts I'll be documenting my findings and experiences whilst going on this crazy journey that is pregnancy.

A bit about me - I'm Kat Suchet, a physiotherapist and athlete in my mid-30s. I do cringe at the word athlete as I feel this comes with all sorts of connotation. For clarity I'm not a professional athlete, just a keen competitor, with a high level of respect for the sport of competitive CrossFit.

My athletic journey started about five years ago, as complete gym novice. This was preceded by a lifetime of sport in different fields – dance, skiing, horse riding, climbing and triathlon – which all provided the perfect pre-requisites for fitness racing. I had a passion for acquiring physical skill, an enjoyment and curiosity in pushing my physical limits, and a hunger for personal and physical achievement. Within months I'd completely and utterly drunk the Kool-ade. I learnt the lifts, the lingo and the lifestyle and enjoyed a run of years training and competing with a fair amount of commitment. I did about 3-4 competitions each year, trained 6-8 times week (some double days) and am still proud to say that I did fairly respectfully in the European Championships finals in both team and individual events, and in the CrossFit Open for my age group. This is not a big deal and the aim is not a brag, but what I'm trying to get across is I feel I can safely say I've dipped a toe, so to speak, into the world of amateur competitive CrossFit.

As for my professional background, I'm a physio with almost 10yrs clinical experience and also a L1 CrossFit coach and fitness instructor. I've enjoyed what the world of fitness has taught me and allowed my practice to evolve and my own knowledge of anatomy and physiology has guided and enhanced my approach to progression, training, on occasion, rehabbing from injury. My passion for teaching and preserving good movement patterns and respecting the body has always seeped into everything I do. And did my background as a sportswoman and physio prepare and qualify me for this crazy life-stage as a capable, knowledgeable and intuitive pregnant woman? Absolutely not!

For the first few months I got truly and utterly sucked into the world that glorifies fit pregnancies. Even before I became pregnant there was a voice inside of me that said, as and when the time came, I would be the one who upheld exceptional standards in the gym. That with a strong body, a solid training background, a foundation built upon the sciences and a square head on my shoulders, that I could be a role-model for others. I wanted to do it for me, but also for all women - to represent our strength, our ability to defy the odds.

And so, I tried to be the athlete I had always been. For the first trimester the 'recommendations' said to "listen to your body," and just go with how you feel. There wasn't really much advice around it, let alone support. I didn't want to appear weak or feeble and I certainly wasn't going to be that chick that succumbed to sickness and lethargy. The ego part of me wanted to be the girl who was still owning it in the gym at 35 weeks. Because a fit women represents strength, doesn't she?

But something didn't feel right. As I tried to defy my body, I found that I couldn't fight the first months of nausea and overpowering tiredness, and the later months of growing-pains, altered centre of balance and inevitable weight-gain. Wasn't I capable? Wasn't I fit enough? I couldn't help constantly feeling like I'd already somehow failed. My attendance to the gym slowed. I struggled to listen to the chatter about fitness and pregnancy, on websites and all over social media. Everyone had something to say: "you won't show 'til 20 weeks;" "you'll have such a fit pregnancy;" "your baby is going to come out squatting;" "G trained all the way through to her due date, she's such a machine;" "M was back in the gym three weeks after she had her bub, what a hero;" "L is still snatching 70kg and she's 18 weeks pregnant - legend!"

At 16 weeks pregnant, and attempting and failing to snatch 60% of my 1RM one night, I felt a familiar fleeting feeling of failure. And then a gnawing urge to change things. A need for personal strength, understanding and development. I couldn't simply keep doing what I'd always done, I couldn't just ban a few exercises that correlated with my weeks' gestation and listen to my body. Brianna Battles says it right: it's all very well to ask us to listen to our bodies, but how can we if we're a) used to hurting, pushing through pain, 'sucking it up' and b) we've never been pregnant before. In fact, much of the damage we can do to our bodies during pregnancy doesn't even hurt. So how can we truly listen to understand? I dived head-first into educating myself on pregnancy and high intensity fitness. Not from the experiences and thoughts of others on Facebook, but rather, the scientific research and professional opinion in the world of women's health and athleticism.

And what I found, was that despite a plethora of generic fit pregnancy advice, there wasn’t much advice that was tailored towards the competitive, or at least experienced, athlete. Despite a growing popularity and an increase in female participation in high intensity sport – CrossFit, obstacle course racing, weightlifting – there seems a parity of information that is more specific to this demographic during pregnancy. It's still such a new topic, with a handful of courses in the US, UK and Australia only having been around for the last 5 years or so, and mostly designed at coaches and medical professionals, and not many specific to pregnancy. Antony Lo, Brianna Battles, Jenny Burrell and Girls Gone Strong as well as the BirthFit movement in the US have been recent trail blazers on the topic, and I've found some of their teaching absolutely brilliant. I've also explored the work of some seriously knowledgeable professionals and their research, most notably women’s health guru Diane Lee (more on all of this later).

Dianne Lee stresses: we are pregnant for moments, but post-partum for life. Our behaviour now will impact us forever. This is so very wise. I hope to encourage a rise in transparency and evidence-based conversation within the world of pregnancy, post-partum and women's health in high intensity/high level sport. I hope to make these conversations accessible and easy to digest, and hopefully become a resource for people at the same time so that we may take responsibility for, prioritise and respect our bodies during pregnancy. We must not be fearful, but educated. Only then can we preserve our status as fit, knowledgeable and body-wise women throughout our reproductive life and beyond.

I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I have.

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