Pregnancy and exercising

Coach Foreign Guy Fitness Correspondent

hether you are a workout fanatic, or didn’t exercise at all, you may be wondering if exercise is even safe during pregnancy and what movements you can and cannot do.

Between conflicting advice from family and friends and influencers touting unsafe prenatal exercise practices online, it can be difficult to sort past the prenatal exercise misinformation and find evidence-based guidelines but today I will be guiding you through the whole process.

Avoid jerky and bouncy movements

Hormones that are made during pregnancy cause the ligaments that support your joints to become relaxed, which can increase the risk of injury

Avoid exercising in high-heat environments: ACOG advises pregnant women to avoid exercising in high heat and humidity to protect against heat stress, particularly in the first trimester. It’s also important to stay hydrated during exercise and throughout the day, and if possible exercise in a temperature-controlled room. Hot yoga classes and the like should be avoided.

Avoid performing exercises flat on your back: Exercising flat on your back (also known as the supine position) puts pressure from your growing uterus on a large vein that returns blood to the heart. Vicario says that you can prop yourself up on pillows or use a prenatal wedge if you’re doing anything on your back.

It’s also important to avoid exercises that require you to lie on your belly, as well as uncontrolled twisting motions of the torso. You can try exercises in the side-lying position, such as side-lying lower body Pilates work and side-lying savasana. “Side-lying also helps for comfort as to keep blood flow circulating toward the baby,” Vicario adds.

Avoid abdominal crunches: Core exercises like crunches should be avoided to allow for flexibility in the rectus abdominis, the outermost layer of the abdominal wall, but there is no need to completely avoid core work during pregnancy Vicario explains. “Gentle abdominal work is important and can help keep the baby from weighing down on the bladder!”

Avoid contact sports: Activities that put you at risk of getting hit in the abdomen, like basketball, soccer, boxing and ice hockey should be avoided during pregnancy.

Do this in the First Trimester

P-sit to stand

Stand tall with feet, knees, and thighs together, and turn your palms forward. Hinge back at your hips into a P-sit, keeping knees over ankles and spine long and straight to stretch the glutes while sweeping the arms overhead. Drive up through the floor, pressing your feet down to come back to stand with the arms by your side. Add the pelvic floor contraction as you stand back up.

Diaphragmatic Breath with Pelvic Floor Activation

Stand with feet wide, knees soft, eyes closed, and hands-on belly. Take deep breaths into the belly allowing it to expand and contract fully. As you exhale, think of stopping the flow of urine, contracting vaginally, rectally, and feeling how the tailbone naturally flexes without adding any movement there. As you exhale and contract the pelvic floor, add pulling the abdominals in and up as if you were riding an elevator from the basement to the top floor of a building. All of these sensations account for a properly executed Kegel.

Standing abs

Tap one toe straight forward, angling your hip bones up toward the ceiling and squeezing into your glutes while leaning back. Be sure to keep your ribcage hugged together in the front so you don’t sink into the lower back. Reach your arms overhead with palms facing forward. Lift your front leg up while pressing your arms down, recruiting your abdominals as you do in your everyday life and working on stability. If needed, feel free to hold onto the back of a chair.

Pelvis Articulation

Step one foot back as if you are mid-step and lower your back heel down. Front knee is slightly bent. Start to open and close your hips, rotating your pelvis while keeping your feet pointing straight forward to get some movement in the hips. For an added challenge for the upper body, grab onto light weights and pull one elbow back at a time, moving the arms as you twist your hips.

Butt press

Start on all fours stacked with a neutral spine, hands in line with shoulders and hips over knees. Keep your abdominals lifting to the ceiling so your back stays neutral, feeling the sensation of hugging your baby in. Bend one knee up to the ceiling, pressing through a flexed foot and return to start position, pumping through the glutes.

Second Trimester

Step back

Step one foot back as if you are mid-step and lower your back heel down, leaning your body forward to create one long diagonal line through the crown of your head and down through the back heel, arms reaching back behind you. Keeping your back leg straight, lift the heel high, squeeze the back glute, and push through the ball of the foot to engage your glutes while reaching your arms overhead. Feel a huge stretch on the hip flexor which tends to get very tight from pregnancy. From there, return to the start position.

Stagger row

Holding onto light hand weights or water bottles, sit your hips back into a P-sit, hinging at your hips with both knees deeply bent and weights reaching on a low diagonal. Keeping your knees in line, bring one foot back behind you pressing through the ball of the foot. Drive up through both feet to come to full hip extension and squeeze your weights in by your ribs, engaging the glutes and postural muscles.

Rotating stagger

From your stagger position, keep your standing foot forward and pivot your hips and torso toward your front leg, rotating on a 45-degree angle out to the side. Extend the weights in this internal stagger position. Come back to center, rowing your arms back.

Internal 45 with Side Stretch

From your internal stagger position, drop the hand weights and stretch your back leg. Reach the arm of your extended back leg straight forward in line with your shoulder and bend the other elbow out to the side at a 90 degree angle. Reach your bent arm up overhead while allowing your hips to shift to the side, feeling an elongation from your hip all the way up through your fingertips, allowing breath to move into the sides of your body.

Leg lift

Start on all fours with a neutral spine, hands in line with shoulders and hips over knees. Keep your abdominals lifting to the ceiling so your back stays neutral. Extend one leg straight back behind you, tapping your toes to the floor. Lift and lower the leg while keeping your baby hugged into your spine, pumping through the glutes.

Third trimester

Fire hydrant

Lean your upper body forward with a soft bend in your knees and stagger one foot back behind you, interlacing your hands. Begin to lift and lower the back leg out to the side, squeezing the outer glute and engaging through the pelvic floor as you come back to stagger. Feel free to hold onto something for balance if needed

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Kneeling hip flexor stretch

From a kneeling position, step one foot directly out in front of you and reach your arms forward at shoulder height. Squeezing your back glute, shift your hips forward and stretch the arm of the kneeling leg up to the ceiling for a deep hip flexor stretch. Always maintain a squeeze on the kneeling glute. Come back to start position

Intercoastal kneeling stretch

From your kneeling inner thigh stretch, step your front leg out to the side, keeping knee in line with second toe and W the arms. Shift your weight into the foot on the floor, stretching open your inner thighs. Reach the arm of your kneeling leg up and over to corner of the room, breathing into all the muscles between your ribs that may not have full excursion of the breath due to your growing belly.

Hamstring press

Come to a side-lying position on a prenatal wedge or a stack of pillows to keep your heart above your baby. Bend your knees so they are in 90-degree angles, knees in line with hips and feet in line with knees. Lift your top leg and flex your foot and then extend the leg straight back behind you, working into the back of the leg and glute.

Bridge

Come to lay on your back on a wedge with your knees bent, feet pressing into the floor. Relax your arms down by your sides. Press your hips up to the ceiling then lower down to a hover.

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