Decorated black belt competitor Elisabeth Clay spoke to Grappling Insider about training through pregnancy and making a quick return to high-level competition.
Elisabeth Clay is undeniably one of the top pound-for-pound no-gi grapplers on the planet today.
Renowned for her dangerous leg locks and seemingly impassable guard, the Ares BJJ representative is typically one of the sport’s most active elite-level competitors. However, she spent most of 2024 on the sidelines while she was pregnant with her first child. In August, she welcomed a happy baby boy, Danilo, into the world.
Just two months later, Clay surprised many by not only competing at the 2024 IBJJF No-Gi Pans but also winning double gold at the event with a near-perfect submission rate, announcing her return to the world-class competition scene in emphatic fashion. Just several weeks after that, he won her fourth IBJJF No-Gi world title.
Clearly, pregnancy and childbirth didn’t slow down the 24-year-old submission hunter.
Clay recently sat down with Grappling Insider to discuss her approach to training during pregnancy and how she made an incredibly quick return to top form after giving birth.
Check out the full interview below and be sure to subscribe to Grappling Insider’s YouTube channel for more athlete interviews.
Clay said that she always knew she wanted to continue training in BJJ during her pregnancy. As a lifelong athlete who has been competing at a high level since her teens, the choice to remain active during pregnancy was a no-brainer:
“I didn’t want pregnancy to be a miserable thing. I’m already not able to compete. I want to be able to be happy and look at it with positivity looking back, that it’s a good thing. For me, I knew I wanted to train through it.”
During her first trimester, Clay continued to train normally and didn’t ask her training partners – many of whom are professional competitors – to adjust how they roll with her. While that changed slightly as her pregnancy progressed, she continued train with as few modifications as possible.
She admitted that this approach might not be for everyone. As an elite black belt, she could make informed decisions about who to roll with and how to roll in a way that felt safe:
“I think that’s something that I was able to do because of the level that I’m at. I don’t think that that’s necessarily something that everybody should do… One, I’m training with people that are predictable… I know each adjustment that I have to make to keep myself safe and the baby safe when I’m training… I felt like I could keep myself safe and because I was still training with pro athletes, I wasn’t gonna ask them to adjust when they still have competitions…
“My goal the whole time was just to train as much as I could, as far along as I could and I even ended up surprising myself with how much I was able to do training-wise.”
For many women in BJJ, finding sound advice on training during pregnancy can be difficult – whether it’s from a physician who doesn’t understand the sport or an instructor who doesn’t understand pregnancy.
Clay’s advice to training through pregnancy is simple: show up, try it out, and listen to your body. If you’re unsure about a certain pain or feeling, take a step back and look into it. Above all else, take it day-by-day.
She explained:
“For me, if you feel comfortable still trying to train, I would keep trying to train as normal as possible. If something doesn’t feel right, I would stop doing it, but look it up… If something doesn’t feel right, just stop, look it up. It could be something normal or it could be something that maybe you need to make adjustments on. I think the biggest thing is just be comfortable with making adjustments throughout the whole thing. Some days you’re gonna be able to do something, and the next day you can’t, and the day after that you can do it again.”
In part because she remained so active during her pregnancy, Clay was able to return to training and competition very shortly postpartum.
For women who want to return to BJJ after giving birth, she advised to invest in pelvic floor therapy both pre- and postpartum. Then, once the baby is born and mom feels healthy, bring the baby to the gym and just train:
“You can do a ton of research and find everything out but it doesn’t matter until you actually get in there. One thing that I would give advice is if you’re still in pregnancy or even afterwards, the two big things that were my main concern were abdominal separation and then the pelvic floor… Those are your two biggest issues with coming back physically. Prehab those or rehab them if you’re afterwards, to make sure that everything is healthy going in. And then just take the baby and go in.”
