Recommendation for exercise during pregnancy

The National Institute of health, Center for Disease Control and Prevent along with U.S Department of health and human services all recommend that pregnant women get as least 150 minutes of moderate exercise in per week. But there are special considerations to take into account for each trimester of pregnancy.

Exercising safely in your first trimester

When training during your first trimester one of the most important things you can do is monitor your intensity

You’re no longer wanting to go for a 10, you don’t want your perceived intensity to get above an 8. 

This means that if you typically do HIIT or bootcamp workouts (Which are designed for our perceived exertion to be a 9.5 or 10) you may want to switch to HIT workouts (Which are designed to be about a 7 or 8 on the perceived exertion scale). 

If you are used to lifting heavy weight, you’re going to want to stay at or below 80% of your one rep max. If you haven’t done 1 rep max testing in the past and you’re not sure what your 1 rep max is, a good rule of thumb would be that you don’t want to lift weight that you can’t lift for least 8 reps. If your weight is so heavy that you can only lift it for 4, it’s time to drop the weight a bit.

Exercising Safely in your second trimester

Second trimester is where we may beed to begin adapting and modifying exercises for safety. 

Here we may need to lower our load, which may mean that we lower our weights, or we keep more reps “In the tank” so speak.

It’s also time to consider how to manage pressure in your pelvic floor.

You’re also going to want to begin adapting your barbell training. This doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to use the barbell, however, it’s time to consider leaving out any explosive movements to your abdomen. Though your may have never hit yourself in the stomach before, it may be harder for you to account for your growing belly during explosive movements and should you accidentally hit your belly, this could cause trauma to your unborn baby. Consider leaving those out of your workouts. 

Also consider leaving out exercises where you must extend a barbell over your head for similar reasons. As your growing more and more pregnant, your muscles, ligaments and connective tissues are all loosening and stretching and this include in your shoulder sockets. Your center of balance is also going to be changing the more your belly grows and it’s not worth the risk of dropping a barbell on your belly. 

It is however still safe to do dead lifts, back squats, etc if you really love barbell training. 

You also may need to increase your rest periods during your workouts and begin to tweak supine (on your back) exercises if you’re getting dizzy, light headed, out of breath or just generally feel weird.

During the 2nd trimester we’re going to want to keep our cardio on at or below a 7 or 8 on the perceived exertion scale too.

Exercising safely in your third trimester

It’s now time to adjust or remove those supine (On your back) exercises completely.

At this time, you’re going to want to begin minimizing the amount of times that you have to get on and off the floor. If you are getting off the floor, make sure you’re rolling to your side and pushing yourself up with your arms, not attempting to do a sit up. You want to get off the floor as safely as possible. 

This is also the time to take out core on the floor exercises and begin doing core exercises such as farmers carries and other standing core exercises. 

It’s also time to begin adjusting your load if you are continuing to exercise during pregnancy as your changing body is putting more and more pressure on your pelvic floor, you’re going to want to begin dropping your load. 

It’s also important to make sure that you’re breathing through the entirety of an exercise and not holding your breath. 

At this point, you should be able to carry on a comfortable conversation while completing your workouts. This is true for both weight lifting and cardio. Skip all exercises that have any sort of explosive movement to your abdomen, whether that be barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell what have you to ensure you don’t hit your stomach or fall do to your center of gravity shifting because of your growing belly. 

It may also be time to take out exercises such as push ups (How far are you really getting to the ground with that big ol’ bump) for similar reasons to that of core exercises and either replace them with elevated or wall push ups or leave them out all together. 

Begin incorporating birth prep exercises such as Connection breathing, the cat/cow with connection breath, hip circles on the exercise ball, butterfly stretch etc. There are a whole host birth prep exercises that could be incredible beneficial to labor and delivery. 

Bottom Line

It is generally considered safe to exercise during pregnancy with a few guidelines, but always listen to your doctor and take their advice. When they tell you it’s time to take a break from training, it’s time to take a break.

To get my complete 5 day email training on How to train safely during pregnancy, including contraindications to look out for, what to do if you’re starting a new exercise program and so much more, Click HERE.