Let’s say you’re about to run a marathon. You’ve created a training plan and followed it for months; you’ve adjusted your diet to optimize the plan. You’ve bought some new sneakers and assorted running togs, and you might have sought the counsel of a nutritionist or a personal trainer.
There’s no question that a marathon is an incredible physical and mental challenge that requires careful planning and preparation. But if people are willing to devote such resources and energy to marathon training, what about prepping your body for the physical challenges of pregnancy and birth?
“[Maternity fitness] is an industry that’s been very slow to develop, and a lot of the thoughts and beliefs are old wives’ tales,” says Kira Kohrherr, the founder of FitBump, the media and services company dedicated to providing expectant and new moms with the information they need to maintain an active, healthy lifestyle through pregnancy and beyond. “To be able to have a team around you to support you—maybe you have your midwife and your doula and your OB-GYN…the same focus should be spent on pregnancy as running a marathon.”
The idea for FitBump developed as Kohrherr, who had represented various fitness apparel brands and studios in addition to brands in the maternity and baby space as the founder and president of her own PR firm, K Public Relations, noticed that though these two worlds increasingly overlapped—with prenatal yoga clothing, for example—there was still a gap: No one was making high-performance active wear specifically for expectant moms.
“The clothes [that existed] weren’t sweat-wicking; they didn’t adjust with you as you grew,” Kohrherr says. “And so as we started doing some market research, we interestingly found that pregnant women were actually not buying those clothes at all—they were still buying very expensive brands [like] Lululemon and Nike but sizing them up. So they’re still spending a lot of money on fitness clothes…but then maybe they don’t fit as well.”
Additionally, while pitching pregnancy-focused media outlets as a publicist, Kohrherr had also noticed a lack of specific fitness, nutrition, and general holistic health content targeted at pregnant women.
Armed with insights and fitness connections from her PR experience and her own athletic endeavors (she was a personal trainer for eight years and a spin instructor for five, and she’ll run her 21st half-marathon this month), Kohrherr decided to produce a small fair-trade line of high-performance maternity activewear, “to test the market.” Simultaneously, she launched FitBump.com to provide fitness and health-focused editorial content for what the site describes as “a new generation of moms,” who want to continue to be active through pregnancy and want the best information to help them do so.
As the publishing arm of the business ramped up, in summer 2014 Kohrherr hired an editor-in-chief, Ingrid Skjong (formerly the digital editor at Departures), making editorial content FitBump’s main focus (though they still sell the clothes). Visitors to FitBump.com will find everything from interviews with professional athlete moms, like surfer Bethany Hamilton, to pregnancy workouts and even weekly horoscopes for new moms and moms-to-be.
This past July, FitBump took its fitness coverage to the next level with the introduction of its T3 (Targeted Trimester Training) classes for expectant moms. Taught by Kohrherr and Skjong—who both have personal training, group instruction, and prenatal certifications—the classes were created to complement existing training regimens, and include a mix of cardio intervals and strength training, “strengthening the muscles that weaken during pregnancy and lengthening the muscles that tighten during pregnancy,” Kohrherr explains.
“The goal is to really help women become, or to stay as strong as they’ve been, during pregnancy and to prep them for labor, and also to help with a quicker recovery,” she says. “There’s just so much research about keeping your weight in check during pregnancy, and cardio at a certain level that’s really helpful and staying strong—you know you’re going to have to carry around a 60-lb stroller, a baby, [and] a lot of mothers I know literally get sports injuries post-baby.” At $20 per class, the classes fit an affordable price point, and are held in Hudson River Park, a short distance from FitBump’s Tribeca offices (until November 1, when they’ll move to Exceed Physical Culture). Within the first week of the classes’ launch, FitBump received requests for classes in LA, Dallas, Houston, and Toronto. By the end of this year, Kohrherr hopes to offer T3 classes in the Tri-State area, and, by 2016, to have expanded to other major cities across the country.
The editorial side of the business will also continue to expand, with plans for more ambitious investigative pieces focused on providing women with reliable information about health and fitness surrounding pregnancy. “I think decades ago, information was handed to you and you took it at face value,” Kohrherr notes. “Women have more questions [now], and there’s a lack of answers, so we’re going to start really diving into that a lot more.”
Most of all, as FitBump continues to expand and gain a wider audience for both its online content and its T3 classes, Kohrherr and the company remain dedicated to the idea that, like most athletic endeavors, a healthy pregnancy requires the support of a dedicated team.
“I think that pregnancy, especially [the] first time, is like a lot of new experiences, and you could be surrounded by a ton of people, but still feel isolated in [your] feelings and thoughts on what’s going on with you,” Kohrherr says. “And saying that Olympic athletes have gone through it…everybody’s going through the same stuff—I think that’s important to me, to make women feel like they’re part of a supportive community.”
To learn more about FitBump, visit fitbump.com!
