I bought Expecting and Empowered and I feel scammed - a review

choirmom

New member
I wanted to share my review of the Expecting and Empowered PDF to dilute the sea of raving reviews here on Reddit and elsewhere on the internet.

Some background: I consider myself a fit person. I’m not an athlete, but I’m fit. I like going hard with moderate weights and HIIT training, but I don’t lift heavy — it’s not my thing. I also don’t do video follow alongs: when I’m at the gym (or working out in general because, you know, COVID) I want to work my body and relax my mind, so I don’t want to listen to some trainer “motivating” me, I want to zone out to music or a podcast. I was comfortable doing my usual modified programming in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, but once I hit the second trimester, I wanted something pregnancy-focused with some guidance. After reading lots of reviews and trying a few apps, I took the plunge and bought the E&E PDF.

Overall, I feel scammed. Here’s why:
  • The pelvic floor exercises are ridiculous. The reason why I bought the guide in the first place was its promised focus on the pelvic floor. Preserving my pelvic floor and functional core through pregnancy is one of my main goals. It’s also the area where I need the most guidance as I’m no expert. While the pelvic floor intro is well-researched, the exercises are a bit of a joke. You basically do kegels in various positions three times per week for five minutes. That’s it. That’s all the focus on the pelvic floor. I have SO MANY problems with this:
a. The singular focus on strengthening the pelvic floor muscles is problematic. A huge problem for women is a hypertonic pelvic floor where the muscles are too tight. This causes problems in delivery AND it can lead to incontinence, etc. postpartum. I went to a PT for lower back pain recently, she specialises in pregnancy and postpartum. She did an assessment on me and strongly recommended I lay off the kegels, shifting my focus to stretching and lengthening my pelvic muscles instead. What got me interested in the E&E guides in the first place was the fact that one of the authors is a PT. But nowhere in the guide does it mention the importance of lengthening alongside strengthening.

b. There is zero instruction on how to brace properly in the strength exercises. It seems like you just do your kegels and then do whatever with your core and pelvic floor as you do the strength exercises. Which obviously should not be the case. Do the authors assume their readers have prior knowledge? If so, this is a really terrible guide. Do the authors just not care? If so, they’re terrible trainers and PTs.
  • The programming is repetitive, boring, misleading and borderline dangerous. I was looking forward to doing some varied weight-based strength training. I suppose I got some of this, but with huge “buts”:
a. For the price, the programming just feels lazy. You repeat your workouts for two weeks (for example, weeks 16 and 17 are the same workouts). If that wasn’t bad enough, the exact same routines are repeated in subsequent weeks. I don’t mind repetitive workouts (I did various programs from the BBG app for like 2 years and a year of Freeletics) but those workouts are usually under an hour, challenging and satisfying.

b. They say that your workout will last for 30-45 minutes. This is a lie. I’ve not been able to get through the stretching routine, the PF part, and three rounds of the strength exercises in less than an hour. I’m usually still at it after an hour and 15 minutes. Admittedly, I don’t go too fast, I focus on form and I rest between sets (because, you know, pregnant) but doing all the programming in 30 minutes just seems unrealistic. By the end of the workout I don’t feel challenged. I feel bored out of my mind.

c. They tell you that you need dumb bells and resistance bands. Cool stuff! That (plus a kettle bell) is what I have at home! What they don’t tell you is that you need a hook/secure thing to attach your resistance band to for many of the workouts. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that’s a typical fixture in people’s homes. This just feels like a lazy, lazy adaptation of cable exercises in the gym.

d. They have you doing weighted Russian twists in weeks 16-17 and then again in weeks 22 and 23. And high planks with weighted side opens in the same weeks.They have you doing mountain climbers in weeks 24 and 25. Now, I know that every body is different, but pretty much all the advice I’ve gotten so far is to avoid these types of exercises after the first trimester. You can still do them if you don’t see any coning/doming and know how to brace your core properly. Which, may I remind you, they don’t tell you how to do. They also don’t offer any modifications of progressions of these exercises (all they offer is a completely different exercise if you have DR). They mention coning/doming ONCE in the intro. Which, again, for people who claim to focus on postpartum health seems ridiculous and dangerous.

e. Bonus rant! The stretches. You start each day of programming with three seemingly absurd stretches. My only comment is: why? Why are the stretches in the beginning? Everything I know tells me that passive stretches don’t help you warm up. Why these stretches? They feel just so unsatisfying and pointless. OWL STRETCH? Please...
  • The format and the whole purchasing experience feels really scammy. Don’t get me started on paying $150 for a PDF. Admittedly, I paid $80 since I only purchased the second trimester guide, but still. I suppose if you count it per week it kind of makes sense but whatever. Prices rarely make sense. You charge what people are willing to pay. However:
a. The PDF feels like something out of the early noughts. Here’s the buyer’s journey: you pay $80/$150; you get a link sent to your email, the link is active for 24 hours; you download it, unzip it and you get one PDF. There is no mobile version. There’s no week-by-week version. I mean, if you’re charging this amount and making the claim that it’s suitable for all devices, the least you could do would be to optimise it for mobile. Instead, you’re forced to open a humongous PDF file on your mobile which is bulky and really not user-friendly.

b. They claim you get access to a super-duper Facebook group as a valued client or whatever. And yet again: the only communication you receive from them is the link which expires after 24 hours. If you want to access the Facebook group, you need to find it yourself and request to join.

c. This is a complaint that’s my own fault really and it’s related to the guides being in a PDF. But I find it really, really annoying that they don’t offer at least a sneak peek inside the guides (like one week would be enough to give you a feel for the programming) OR a refund. I guess the joke’s on me: I really thought all the raving reviews on this sub and elsewhere were justified.

(EDIT: I stand corrected: there is a sample week. All you have to do to see it is dig through their blog until 2018: https://www.expectingandempowered.c...-trimester-recommendations-and-sample-workout)

Anyway, that’s it, that’s my review! Hopefully this will help somebody make a decision one way or another before buying the guides. If E&E worked for you, I’m honestly thrilled for you. I wish it worked for me. For now, it’s back to searching, creating my own workouts and throwing in some breath work and yoga.

If you have any recommendations for programs I could try, please let me know. So far, I’ve tried E&E, The Bloom Method (really useful month in pelvic floor education, but one month was plenty. It’s also too cotton-candy/mama-empowering for my taste) and Goodfortheswole (she’s great, but I just can’t do follow-along videos)
 
@choirmom Thank you for this!!

I am 16 weeks along and also starting to look into pregnancy specific plans. This and Hannah Bower's guide were on my list, but from how you have described it E&E is definitely not what I am looking for. So thanks for saving me the frustration and I look forward to following what other people reccomend or have had experience with!

Edit: bought Hannah Bower's The Functional Core Guide this morn, wow!! What a huge resource. So glad I went for it, I love how this will be useful throughout pregnancy and post partum and "normal" training.
 
@skyangels Oo great to hear! Tbh I just keep getting confused by the options- the 2 different guides (mama bundle?) and then she also has an app.. what did you go for? Are they follow along workouts or "just" a pdf/doc?
 
@lovinlife87 So the mama bundle has the pregnancy guide too! Which I don't have but its like recipe and workouts. If it is anything like her app I'm sure it is very detailed.

I only have the core guide since the pregnancy guide wasn't out when I purchased but it is great in itself. I do the core stuff and then do my own workouts. The core guide is AMAZING. There are several parts to it and she has a guide on how to read everything. She has a whole PDF explaining the anatomy and why our body does what it does during pregnancy. How the pelvic floor and abdominal work and it is really informational. Then she has a ton of videos on there that walk you through the process of diaphragmatic breathing, how to engage pelvic floor and core properly, and then exercises you progress through. I really love it. Used it after my first, during and after my second and now during my third again. I seriously think it saved me from long labors and it helped me bounce back. It really is great and I love that its not just like "do this" instead she explains everything and why you have to do that. She also has lots of videos that progress to after you're done healing and how to brace your core while working out so I really think everyone, pregnant or not, should use this.
 
I also forgot to add, you can get added to her Facebook group. Which is great because you can post videos and have people help. She also posts videos to there which is great.
 
@skyangels Amazing thank you!! As a ftm this stuff gets pretty overwhelming, and after hovering on buy now so many times already it is really great to hear your perspective! Sounds perfect.
 
@choirmom I started to right a long response but it was basically repeating what you said. Co-signed. Also the absolute gall to charge $150 for PDFs with proofing errors! Hire a copywriter please.
 
@yitzii THANK YOU. I omitted this from my review because it's really not relevant to fitness and it's mostly just my pet peeve, but as an English Lit graduate and a content professional, this annoyed me TO NO END.
 
@choirmom My library has a free library app so I can download a lot of books and at 22 weeks I've been powering through the pregnancy section. I think out of over 20 books I've finished maybe 3 and got halfway through 10 and the other 7 were such garbage I couldn't go more than a few chapters.

I feel most pregnancy books/programs are a cash grab and are completely useless garbage. Honestly I've found way better information searching and browsing pregnancy subs on reddit.

I know the feeling of feeling completely disappointed especially when you bought the program. Ugh im sorry it sucks.
 
@katrina2017 For real though, I managed to escape the wedding money grabbers by eloping, but I guess it all caught up with me in pregnancy.

Out of curiosity: what were the three books you finished?
 
@katrina2017 yes, when it came to pregnancy programs & information, the pink tax is REAL.

do men complain if they’re faced w such crap & that’s why it’s worse in topics focused on women??
 
@katrina2017 yeah honestly i think @choirmom @yitzii @skyangels and @daveptsd should all complain to E&E & insist on returns /refund. For the rest of the pregnant women out there!
 
@choirmom Girl same. Also you brought to my attention more things I wasn’t annoyed about but now am haha. I feel like my workouts previously were just as good if not better than this.
 
@choirmom Yes! It is great for beginner's but it kind of feels like its just copy and pasted. Really has no wealth of knowledge about pregnancy.

If you are looking for more core stuff I 100% recommend Hannah Bower's core guide. She is a certified trainer with focus in the pre and post natal fitness. Also, she just had her second baby! To me her guide was 100% worth it as she is always adding to it and the Facebook group is a great community. She adds lots of videos of what she is currently doing to it so its not just like "here is your PDF, bye."

If you don't want to spend the money or want to see what it is kind of like her Instagram is hannahbower2 and she will sometimes add stuff to her stories.
 
@skyangels Thanks for the recommendation! I've been following Hannah Bower on Instagram and she's great. She's really knowledgeable and relatable, so I may try her guide next. I guess the only thing stopping me is that I already dished out $80 for a program this month, so justifying spending another $125 is a bit of a mental hurdle haha.

Are you talking about her Functional Core Guide or the Healthy Mama, Healthy Baby one?
 
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