The best tips for getting back into shape after pregnancy, according to a WNBA superstar

• Napheesa Collier is a 3-time WNBA All-Star who made the All-WNBA First Team in 2023.
• The Minnesota Lynx forward returned to the court just 10 weeks after giving birth in May 2022.

Napheesa Collier shocked the world, and her own teammates, in May 2022 when she made her return to WNBA play just 10 weeks after giving birth to her daughter, Mila.

But she had a goal in mind — one on which she wasn't willing to compromise — so she put her head down and got to work on her recovery.

"Thankfully, per our CBA, I wasn't worried about my contract because I didn't have to play a game at all in order to receive my salary," the Minnesota Lynx forward and three-time WNBA All-Star told Business Insider. "But I did just miss the game and yeah, I had a teammate who was retiring. I really wanted to be able to play with her."

Collier announced her pregnancy in November 2021. Three months later — and just three months before Collier and her husband, basketball trainer Alex Bazzell, expected to welcome their first child — fellow Lynx superstar Sylvia Fowles announced that she would be retiring at the end of the 2022 season.

From then on, Collier made it her mission to play alongside the WNBA's all-time leading rebounder at least one more time; Fowles, for her part, said she fought back against Collier's plans for a speedy return out of fear that "it was unsafe" for the new mom to rush her recovery.

Collier won that argument, then immediately committed to "working her ass off to put herself in this position," as Bazzell wrote on X — formerly Twitter — following her return to the court.

Collier credited 'core work' for setting the foundation for her speedy comeback

The former UConn Huskies star exercised through much of her pregnancy — to the extent that it was safe to do so — in order to give herself as good a chance as possible of rejoining Fowles on the court. But once Mila had entered the world, the nature of Collier's challenge shifted.

The 2023 All-WNBA First Teamer noted that "when you have a baby and your stomach grows, your abs go to the side of your body."

"Which is crazy," Collier added with a laugh.

Ensuring her abs, obliques, lower back, and even glutes were "back where they needed to be" — both in terms of location and strength — was crucial to her ability to effectively train for basketball.

"Core work was definitely a big one," Collier told BI. "Getting that in place was honestly one of the hardest parts for me. So yeah, I mean I was working really hard with our trainers and in the off season."

"So if I picked one thing, I would say build up your core strength afterwards," she added.

For WNBA superstars and non professional athletes alike, exercising core muscles can help mitigate the struggles with pelvic floor weakness so many individuals experience after childbirth.

She added more protein to her diet

As a professional athlete, Collier has always "tried to eat pretty healthy for the most part." And while she initially suggested that she hadn't made "a whole bunch of dietary changes" postpartum, she later remembered that protein "was a huge thing that my trainer was having me implement into my diet."

"You have to eat a lot more protein than you think," Collier said. "So just trying to get that wherever I could because, like I said, I was really trying to build muscle again."

Chicken and salmon were her protein vehicle of choice, but eggs, beans, nuts, seeds, and dairy products are also great sources of the crucial macronutrient.

Not everyone can, or should, go all-in on a rapid return to exercise

Though many women may find Collier's rapid return to the court inspiring, it doesn't mean they should follow her playbook step-by-step.

Collier had a team of professionals guiding her rapid return to play, but for most people, doctors recommend waiting at least six to eight weeks postpartum before resuming exercise, Dr. Patrice Harold — the director of Minimally Invasive Gynecology at Detroit Medical Center's Hutzel Women's Hospital — previously told Business Insider's Julia Guerra.

"Women usually know what their baseline is," she told Business Insider. "I might start off with 5 to 10 minutes a day and gradually increase the time spent exercising."