When applied exercise science (AES) assistant professor Abbi Lane was working at the University of South Carolina, she conducted a study of new mothers’ heart and metabolic health. Some moms would come in laughing about the chaos of parenting while others were struggling with recovery after a difficult labor, pregnancy, or pregnancy loss.

“We realized that no pregnancy is the same,” Lane says. “It was then that I stopped thinking of pregnancy as just a biological event. It’s a whole person life event. And the things we ask postpartum people to do need to respect that.”

Lane, a mother herself, has since made it her mission to understand not only how the pregnancy and childbirth experience affects maternal health but also how to use that information to help mothers re-prioritize exercise in ways that work for them.

We sat down with Lane to talk about how her work as a committee member at the American Heart Association; in her new Kines lab, the Lifestyle, Exercise, and Arteries Lab; and through her conversations with media outlets, she’s trying to make exercise more accessible for mothers and society at large.

Q: How would you describe your research? 
A: We’re studying changes in women’s heart and metabolic health around reproductive events. So we're thinking a lot about pregnancy (and dipping our toes into the water of menopause) as these are identifiable times in the lives of women where there is shock and change.

Having a baby changes you forever. Every mom knows this, right? But we're trying to understand what's happening to these women’s bodies and then how to get them on the right track to be healthy in this new phase of life, in ways that really work for them.

Q: You’ve served on the American Heart Association’s National Physical Activity Committee and worked on their scientific statements [public recommendations] around exercise. Why were you interested in that work? 
A: The topics were very in line with what I was doing. Someone else in the group brought up this idea of life transitions and how to support physical activity for people going through those, and that spoke to me so much. We put so much burden on the individual to make exercise happen. But we need to consider how we can aid people in doing that.

And then we released another statement on resistance training. Before academia, I was a personal trainer and strength and conditioning coach. I look in the mirror and see a meathead. So it was lovely for me to marry heart health and weight training.

Q: I remember when you spoke to media outlets about that one. Why are those media appearances important to you? 
A: My big problem with science is that it sometimes exists in its own little space that doesn't touch people in obvious ways. What I loved about being a personal trainer and strength coach was trying to help people be active and get stronger. The media is just an opportunity to reach more people and hopefully help them understand that they can exercise and then how to do it.

Q: This idea of making science more accessible seems to be a thread that runs through all the work you do. 
A: Yeah, that’s a big gap, and it’s no longer OK with me.

Our lab is working on implementing a resistance training intervention for postpartum people, and I’m very excited about this because resistance training is probably more doable than telling a new parent to go out and walk for 20 minutes. It’s something you can do in the corner of your home. If you don’t get through your full routine all at once because your baby is crying or you have to pick their sibling up from school, that’s OK.

Our other goal with the lab is to get more user-focused information. My mistake in the past has been telling people what they should do in a generic way, and it turns out people don’t always like that.

So, in the studies we’ll be doing, we’re going to ask focus groups of postpartum people what they want.  Do they want to come into a gym? Could we let them use SoK’s Clinical Exercise Research Center? Do they need something they can do at home? Do they want to use bodyweight, resistance bands, milk jugs? We’ll design a program based on those responses, and we think that’ll lead to the best chance of success.

Q: It makes sense given your background that you have a different perspective on science. Why did you decide to make that transition to academia? 
A: I was actually the assistant director for fitness and wellness at two major universities, including the University of Texas at San Antonio. They got into a bind and didn't have anyone to teach a kinesiology class one summer, and someone heard that I had a master's degree in exercise physiology.

I taught the course, and the floodgates opened. I realized I missed exercise science so much. So I cold emailed a couple of professors at the University of Florida, where I got my master’s, and said, ‘How does one go about getting a PhD?’ And it’s been a crazy ride from there.

Q: What brought you to U-M? 
A: I never thought I would be at U-M because I’m from Columbus, Ohio. So my family is a little distressed. But during my career, I’ve looked at where the opportunity is and who I want to work with. And my U-M students are mind-bogglingly smart and creative. I think they’re going to grow my research because of their great ideas and the way they think about things. It feels like such a big deal to be here that I still pinch myself.

Note: In this story, we have decided to use a variety of language, including “women,” “mothers,” and “postpartum people.” Federal grants that provide money for Lane’s type of research vary in their word choice, and we recognize that some folks identify strongly as mothers while others prefer to use different terms. We welcome this diversity of identities and believe in representing them accurately yet inclusively.