I’ve always struggled with motivation to workout hard, but a few months before getting pregnant I FINALLY started to go to the gym consistently with my super-fit husband as my trainer. I was seeing results like never before and had more motivation than I ever had. However, I was doing heavy lifting. Hitting my max and reaching for new personal records on deadlift, bench press, and squatting. So when I got pregnant I thought “Great, I’m gonna have to change my whole workout plan because I can’t lift heavy weights anymore”.
When I asked my midwife about it, she told me the rule of thumb is “if you were doing it before pregnancy, it’s safe to continue during pregnancy”. So essentially, don’t start anything new. Don’t change your workout plan. You may not want to go for that really big PR, and you definitely don’t want to put more stress on your body than what you’re used to. But if you’re a gym rat with a healthy (keyword healthy) pregnancy, you can ABSOLUTELY continue to workout like you were before.
Now you might be wondering “wait, does that mean if I was inactive before pregnancy I can’t exercise at all during pregnancy?”
Not at all! According to John’s Hopkins Medicine, it’s safe to do a moderate amount of exercise during pregnancy when you were inactive before. In fact, no matter what your activity level was before pregnancy, it’s recommended to exercise while your body grows your baby. Exercise is sometimes even used as gestational diabetes treatment!
The National Library of Medicine recommends pregnant women do 150 minutes of pregnancy-safe cardio per week (that’s 21.4 minutes per day on average). You can break it up however you want, the example they give being 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. When you start your exercise program you can start with 5 minutes a day and work your way up from there.
I AM NOT MEDICALLY TRAINED AT ALL, THIS POST IS DIRECTED AT WOMEN WHO HAVE NORMAL, HEALTHY PREGNANCIES
An important note to add: you should ALWAYS consult with your healthcare provider first to verify that YOU are safe to workout. There are complications that can make exercise during pregnancy unsafe like cervical problems, dizziness, amniotic fluid leakage, high blood pressure, and more. Please, please get a doctor’s approval before working out after finding out you’re pregnant.
While exercising while you’re pregnant is good for you, certain exercises are not. Specifically, abdominal exercises. Some movements can cause diastasis recti which is the separating of your abdominal muscles during pregnancy. You don’t want to do exercises that put pressure on your abs during pregnancy such as sit-ups, crunches, and planks. If your belly is coning (there will be a lump that goes from top to bottom bulging out of your belly in the middle), you should stop what you’re doing and change it up. Exercises that train your “six-pack” muscles are generally unsafe, and you should focus on your obliques (side abs) and transverse abdominals (lower abs). This video is a great ab workout for pregnancy, and if you want more pregnancy safe workouts check out her whole channel!
Avoid anything that can cause a fall.
It’s pretty common knowledge that any sort of fall during your third trimester constitutes an ER visit. Because of this you should avoid horseback riding, bike riding, and all other forms of exercise that can cause you to have a major fall. Of course you can make any decision regarding your own pregnancy and decide which risks you’re personally willing to take, but you should keep in mind the safety of your baby.
You should also avoid exercising on your back after the after the first trimester as this can cause reduced blood flow to your uterus.
EXERCISE DURING PREGNANCY HAS BENEFITS FOR YOU AND YOUR BABY
According to the National Library of Medicine, exercise during pregnancy can reduce your risk of preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, c-sections, low-back pain, urinary incontinence, and macrosomia (a baby that is larger than 8lbs 13oz). I don’t know at all what my pregnancy would have been like if I didn’t exercise at all, but I can say that I exercised during pregnancy and didn’t end up with any of these other than macrosomia (my baby was 9lbs 3oz and delivered over a week past his due date) and, because my boy was so big, I had some lower-back pain as well towards the end. Obviously it’s not a guarantee, but statistically it does reduce your risk.
It is so, SO important to remember to stay hydrated and eat enough calories when working out during pregnancy. Really that’s important for everybody who works out, but especially when you’re pregnant. You need more water and more food than normal when you’re pregnant, so if you’re exercising on top of that you need to be very aware of how much food and water you’re taking in. Avoid giving yourself hypoglycemia for which warning signs can include painful contractions, dyspnea on exertion (feeling of discomfort or breathlessness), dizziness, chest pain, or calf pain.
I hope this post helped you understand a little bit more about what healthy exercise looks like while pregnant. There is of course much more to learn than what I’ve included in this short post, so ask your healthcare provider any questions I’ve left unanswered. As always, stay healthy and do whatever you can to support your baby’s health as well as your own!