Pregnancy exercise rules/recommendations?

For those of you who have been pregnant before, what kind of exercise recommendations did your doctor/midwife/whoever else give you? Anything they advised to do or against doing? I’ve been working on getting into better shape, and I’m just wondering if the type of stuff I’ve been doing will be ok during pregnancy or if I should be branching out and finding other alternatives. I’m planning on exercising during pregnancy, if at all possible (we’ll see how motivated I am when it happens :slight_smile: ). I’ve mostly just been going to fitness classes at the gym on campus where I work, they do HIIT (high intensity interval training) twice a week and a “body blast” class that is kind of an aerobics/lifting class, but only with small weights (10 lbs max hand weights, 18 lbs max bar)… I also run/walk with my dog… I know my sister-in-law was told she’s not supposed to lift anything too heavy (to the point that her husband will only let her bowl with a 9 lb ball… not sure if that is actually the recommendation or if he’s just paranoid though), but I’m not sure if the stuff I’ve been doing would be too much. I’m sure the advice varies depending on the circumstances for each pregnancy and health care provider, I’m just interested in what advice you were given, and what kind of exercise worked for you while you were pregnant if you found anything!

Recommendations that I’ve heard, not sure how accurate any of them are:

  1. No heavy lifting (but I’ve also seen people do crossfit and other weight training, so I imagine that would depend on how fit you were previously and other things).
  2. No dieting to lose weight - but I’ve also heard of people losing weight because they ate healthier, not less…
  3. You should try to keep up the same fitness level you had prior to pregnancy for as long as you can.
  4. You should not do any strenuous exercise (seems to conflict with #3)
  5. Certain abdominal workouts aren’t recommended (makes sense!)
  6. Squats are good?

Can you confirm, discredit, or add anything to the list, based on your experience?

I’m not really an expert on this, but wanted to say that if you get pelvic pain later on in your pregnancy, I highly highly recommend ‘pregnancy swimming’. My pelvis really loosened up towards the third trimester, which made walking, getting up, turning over in bed, etc very uncomfortable. It was a right hassle, not to mention making any other sort of exercise basically impossible. My midwife suggested this class and it helped soooo much. It was not really swimming per se, more just exercises and stretches in the water. Because you’re in the water, you are lighter and everything is just easier and the stretches etc lessened my discomfort in daily life considerably. I did this for the last 4 months of my pregnancy, stopped just 2 weeks before I gave birth and only because I didn’t want to pay for another month when I was sure I’d have the baby before I could use it all. If you get this condition with your pelvis, this is the way to go!

I think to a certain extent, your body will tell you what it can and cannot handle, so just trust yourself. I got to a point where I realised that I could not handle walking any great distance, let alone any other kind of exercise out of water. If you feel good and there’s no chance you could fall on or take a blow to the abdomen, I’m pretty confident it would be OK. If you feel fatigued or uncomfortable, don’t push yourself.

First and foremost, check with your doctor for any exercises more brisk than walking. As for #3, you should not do workouts more strenuous than what you were doing pre pregnancy…don’t start new routines. I believe #2 is generally true. I think #3 as written poses an unrealistic goal…perhaps a better wording is to try and stay active so you can stay as fit as possible as long as possible…but I don’t think it’s a good idea to focus on how you compare to your previous fitness because it will inevitably decline. I’ve also heard #5 but don’t know specifics. As for cardio, I went by the rules of keeping the heart rate below 150 and making sure I could still talk while exercising. My personal advice is to focus on yoga Pilates to strengthen your core BEFORE pregnancy because that will delay pelvic and hip pain. You may even show less.

@jackal
I’ve heard that swimming definitely helps, especially when you’re huge! The post I read about it was from a mom of quads from my state, she said it was a life saver!! I need to look around and see what kind of indoor pools we have around here, the only one I’ve ever really gone to closes down for more than half the year, so it wouldn’t be super helpful when I was pregnant most likely…

@orchid_lover
I’m not sure that any of what I posted is accurate/realistic, they’re just things I’ve heard… I would definitely want to talk to my doctor but I was just looking for recommendations that others had received… thanks!

I’m not pregnant, but I at my last annual exam I mentioned we planned on trying and exercise was one of the questions I asked her. My doctor told me as long as I was healthy I could continue to do what I do, but did mention that running might be hard near the end and suggested swimming or just walking instead. She also suggested yoga (prenatal yoga) since it greatly helps with child birth, as well as kegels.

I think “strenuous” varies by person, so you’ll have to check with your doctor. But I think it’s a “if you never ran before, don’t start now” kind of thing and also to avoid lifting weights or intense workouts. From what I know work related wise, pregnant women aren’t supposed to lift more than 25 lbs (but I think this is more so later on in the pregnancy), so a 9 lb bowling ball is probably harmless.

I’m not sure about dieting, since my doctor said I was healthy and looked good to her. I didn’t think to ask since it’s not something I have to worry about.

I would be careful about actually swimming, though, not because it’s dangerous for the baby at all, but because it can actually aggravate pelvic pain if you’re not careful. Breaststroke in particular is not a good idea I’ve heard. I call it ‘pregnancy swimming’ because that’s the direct translation of what it is called in Icelandic, but as I say we weren’t swimming. It is probably called something else in English. We would walk/jog in the water, do other movements and stretches etc specially designed for pregnant women to strengthen your core and pelvic floor and ease the specific aches and pains that pregnant women tend to get (mostly back and pelvic issues).

If you get any problems I would probably not advise you to just get in a pool and swim about. But then again you might well be luckier than me and not have a pelvis that starts falling apart as you get heavier/bigger. I’m just speaking from my own experiences. If you make it to the end of your pregnancy and you can still walk down the road without things clicking about and shooting pains down your legs, this may not apply to you :wink: