Photography by Felise Waxman of Felise Photography
A class at Materra Method
When Abby Erker taught barre classes in St. Louis, students would often sidle up to her before a session and ask in a hushed tone: I just found out I’m pregnant. What moves should I avoid doing in class? “The training for general fitness programs is not very pre- and post-natal specific,” Erker says. “I would give them my general response, but as I had more and more of those clients, I became more interested in helping them specifically with their bodies and what they were experiencing.” Erker, who was a speech pathologist, decided to go for her pregnancy and postpartum corrective exercise specialist certification. After earning that and taking some continuing education courses, she quit her job in the summer of 2019, launched her own studio—Materra Method—in fall 2019, and opened a brick-and-mortar location in University City in 2022.
Materra Method classes are a blend of Erker’s teaching background: There is a bit of Pilates and some corrective exercise. Corrective exercises address specific issues in the body—in pregnant people, those super-fun challenges might be separation of the abdominal muscles, pain in the joint that connects the pelvis to the spine, or pelvic floor dysfunction (IYKYK). So, for example, as a pregnant person’s abdominal muscles stretch and lengthen as the fetus grows, other muscles in the body try to compensate for the core weakening, sometimes triggering lower back pain. Erker’s class targets the places in the body like these where such injuries are more likely to occur.
It all sounds very physical therapy-ish—until Erker adds music and injects some fun into the movements. Indeed, she stresses, she’s not a physical therapist. “Instead, I’m here to bridge the gap,” she says. “Maybe that’s between postpartum and going back to your boot camp class or back to running, or maybe it’s bridging the gap between having gone to physical therapy and going back to a type of fitness that you really enjoy.”
All of Materra’s classes are divided into levels. A Level 1 class is gentle and best suited for someone in their third trimester or early postpartum. Level 3 is more advanced, good for someone trying to conceive, someone in their first trimester (and who magically doesn’t feel sick), or someone further out into postpartum. Level 2 is somewhere in between, likely best for women who are in the second trimester groove.
That includes Erker, who is pregnant with her first child. Before starting Materra and becoming pregnant, she says, there were aspects of motherhood culture that didn’t feel right to her. “This idea of, ‘Oh, we all pee our pants now and laugh about it,’ or ‘I never have time to work out,’” she says. “I thought, Is there a way that we can not accept this but still be a great mom and take care of our bodies and our needs, too? My biggest goal, if I boil it all down, is to take care of moms.”
FYI Materra Method is located at 7638 Gannon.
