3 minute read
Pregnancy Fitness
eye Fitness
Here’s what you need to know!
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Keeping fit during pregnancy has many benefits, including a faster return to pre-pregnancy weight and fitness. It’s not just mums-tobe who benefit from exercise during pregnancy-babies do too! Babies born to mums who have exercised throughout their pregnancies tend to be leaner and have lower levels of foetal stress-very cool! Importantly, exercise makes you feel good and helps you to regain a sense of control over your body as it goes through changes during each trimester.
There are three important areas to focus on:
Low to moderate intensity resistance
training: The hormonal effects of pregnancy make your joints less stable, making them more prone to pain and injury. Resistance training keeps the muscles around the joints strong, which helps to support them. Muscular fitness also helps to make managing the physical changes of pregnancy less tiring. Cardio: Cardio is really useful for keeping your energy levels up. In order to avoid risk factors such as overheating and umbilical cord issues, it’s better that activities are kept low impact. Regular runners should reduce intensity as pregnancy progresses and should have reduced activity to brisk walking by their third trimester. TA and Pelvic floor exercises: As your baby grows, it stretches and weakens a muscle which stabilises your spine called the transverse abdominis (TA), which is why many women get back pain as pregnancy progresses. Very gentle exercises for the TA can keep it working well and keep back pain to a minimum. Pelvic floor muscles also get stretched by the growing baby, so it’s important to exercise them too as they play an important role in the delivery of the baby and help to prevent unwanted accidents. Please don’t do pelvic floor exercises while on the loo though, as it can increase risk of bladder infection!
There are a few things which should be avoided during pregnancy-sit ups, crunches, planks and similar exercises, and it’s important to not do any exercises lying on your back after week 16 because this can restrict the blood flow back to your heart! Exercise intensity is also reduced during each trimester, so I recommend people think about pregnancy fitness before they get pregnant! Having good fitness levels before pregnancy will mean you’re in a better place at each stage as intensity is reduced, and it’s not advised to do resistance work during pregnancy if you’ve never done it before so it’s important to get some experience beforehand. With over 17 years of experience in helping people to work towards their health and fitness related goals, Steve specialises in helping expectant women to maintain a fit and healthy pregnancy and beyond. To find out
more or for advisory chat, call steve in confidence on 07881 762644.
Steve Shreeve
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Personal PT Online Personal PT in Person Ante and Post Natal Training Weight Loss/Body Composition Improvement Sports Specific Training (SST) Nutrition Advice General Fitness & Wellness Basketball Coaching
07881 762644
www.shreevehandf.com
/ shreevehealthandfitness
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