This week’s blog is by Nicole Moneer
form the bodybuilding.com website. We often forget to talk about fitness and
pregnancy and how women can stay active and keep resistance training throughout
their pregnancy. This is a fantastic article taking you through Nicole’s
experience and how she adapted and modified her training to stay fit and active while pregnant.
ENJOY!
LIFTING FOR TWO
The weights don't always have to go
back on the rack when you find out you're pregnant. Here's how Bodybuilding.com
athlete Nicole Moneer modified her workouts and kept training into the third
trimester!
The difference between the first
trimester in a pregnancy and the second and third is, to say the least,
dramatic. As I detailed in my "Guide to a Fit
First Trimester," you experience a lot of mysterious and powerful
feelings for those initial 12 weeks—thirst, sleepiness, nausea, and bizarre
cravings in my case—but you don't necessarily feel like you've got a living,
wriggling person growing inside you. But then, at some point, that baby
announces his or her presence with authority!
This is when you start to feel really pregnant—especially
in a physical sense. How women respond to this change varies incredibly from
person to person. A number of people were shocked to see I was still lifting
weights halfway through my pregnancy. I had to remind them that every woman is
unique, just like every pregnancy is unique.
My hope is that I can help you get
the most benefit out of whatever training you can manage during the second and
third trimesters of your pregnancy. To be clear, not all women feel like they
can work out during this time, and in some cases, it's medically necessary for
them not to. So check in frequently with your health care provider.
But if you're up for it, join me as I
show the modifications that allowed me to keep training all the way through my
NOTES
§ Keep moving, keep active, and don't overdo it.
§ Focus on opening up posture with arm exercises.
§ Be confident, but reasonable. Every woman comes
into pregnancy from a different place, and has different challenges to overcome
and choices to make.
§ Rest! A huge part of taking care of yourself and
your child isn't working out—it's resting.
HOW TO HOLD ON TO FITNESS
During the second trimester, making
customizations and listening to my body became far more important than it had
seemed during the first trimester. If I felt the muscles in my abdomen
stretching, I immediately switched to a seated exercise, decreased the weight,
or stopped the exercise altogether. If something didn't feel good, I changed it
up or didn't do it.
You must take care, because reckless
movements can lead to bleeding or tightening of the uterus or stomach, among
other complications. If you are not a veteran lifter, hire a professional to
teach you training adjustments. I accepted that many of my former
"normal" activities would need modification, and I would probably
experience greater muscle soreness.
Here are some of the major
adjustments I made:
§ I kept teaching cardio-kickboxing classes, but I
took needed breaks and kept the class moving even when I wasn't.
§ I made the switch to push-ups from the knees.
Before, I repped single-arm push-ups!
§ I took Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off from the
gym. I eventually worked down to two workouts per week, and that was plenty!
§ I cut my cardio way back. Trust me, once you get
past Week 30, just getting around is enough of a battle!
§ No more crunches. I did a modified plank for a while,
but eventually, core work ceased to really be feasible or advisable.
As a special reward for all of this
work—and because it just felt great—I got deep-tissue pregnancy massages once a
week, with special focus on my TFL [tensor fasciae latae], IT, sartorius, and
glutes. I highly recommend this, but make sure your practitioner is trained in
pregnancy massage specifically! I would always feel great after my massage, but
the next day I was usually tight again from sleeping on my side.
Squatting isn't just the best lift in
weight training; it is also one of 12 natural positions for birth. I wasn't
sure if I was going to give birth squatting, but I definitely kept doing squats
throughout my pregnancy. This is one of my major messages to pregnant women:
Just because you can't do what you used to doesn't mean you can't do anything!
We can all benefit from using our muscles in some way.
In the second half of my pregnancy, I
was doing sets of 12 of unweighted Smith machine squats.
It's the reverse of normal lifting,
where you exercise, get progressively stronger, and increase the challenge. I
lowered the weight, did more reps, and once I couldn't do a lift anymore, I
just let it go.
Even with just a few weeks to go,
squats felt so good to do. I did multiple variations: sumo, hip-width, and
sometimes narrow to strengthen all the muscles around my hips. I also did a lot
of lunges. I knew I'd benefit from having a strong and flexible lower body,
both during my birth and in those crucial post-partum recovery weeks.
In the third trimester I felt the
weight pulling as I carried dumbbells, so I carried them by my shoulders. For
this reason, I also began relying on the Smith machine. It was safer with the
weight, giving me stability and balance so there was little chance of me
falling. If you are at home, squat into a chair, sit up, and stand up. Dial
things back however you need.
SOME NUMBERS GO DOWN, OTHERS GO
UP
Yeah, about the weight: I allowed
myself to gain 20 pounds through 30 weeks without freaking out the slightest
bit. Moms need to have a healthy weight to have a healthy baby weight, and the
amount that women gain can be widely variable. If you were underweight to begin
with, you actually might gain more. It's not unheard of for women to gain 40 or
even 50 pounds over the course of a pregnancy, and that's OK.
With those crazy first-trimester
cravings out of the way, I put my focus on eating quality food and didn't worry
about counting calories precisely. I ate lots of protein, vegetables, and
healthy fats—sound familiar?
Supplement-wise, I kept taking my
whole food-based prenatal, and since I avoid store-bought dairy, I got extracalcium from leafy
greens and supplements. I also started drinking Rejuvalec, a fermented
wheatberry drink high in vitamin B, which I felt helped with nausea, my energy
levels, and clear skin.
SLEEP GET IT WHEN AND HOW
YOU CAN
Sure, working out when you're
pregnant is hard. But it's not nearly as hard as sleeping. Getting quality rest
was the ultimate challenge!
Unfortunately, sleeping doesn't get
any less important as your pregnancy progresses. In fact, it becomes more
precious, especially because you know some seriously sleepless nights are right
around the corner once that baby is born.
It got to the point where I sometimes
needed a hand getting up and getting out of bed. In time, even the simple act
of lying on my side became difficult because of all that weight. I slept on my
back a lot, but propped upright with pillows. Sitting up helped me sleep
slightly better. If I slept on either hip, my muscles would tighten up.
My recommendation: Get pillows and a
Snoogle. A Snoogle is a pregnancy pillow that helps prop up your legs so you
can sleep in the fetal position. I hated sleeping on my side until I got one.
If this doesn't work for you, well, keep looking until you find what does!
FINDING THE PERFECT LINEUP
The day I became pregnant, I became
part of a club—the mommy club. I heard all the stories—the good and the bad,
the danger and the joy. I saw that labor and delivery, while scary and
overwhelming in many ways, could also be wonderful!
I knew I wanted a healthy, natural
delivery. I wanted to avoid medical intervention. I wanted a midwife, rather
than a doctor. I had a vision and a plan, but also recognized that anything
could happen the day of the birth. Still, I planned ahead to have the right
team with me: my midwife, my doula, my partner, and my mom's best friend—she
was there in my late mother's absence. I know other women who only wanted their
partner there with them. That's their team, and it's fine, too. What's
important is that you make full use of yours.
It's like what do we do at
Bodybuilding.com. We surround ourselves with like-minded people who share our
goals, people who have overcome challenges and can help us do the same. I took
that mentality with my pregnancy and birthing: teamwork, community, support. As
the day got closer, I took great comfort in knowing who would be at my side.
Fitness can teach you a lot about
pregnancy, and vice versa. Set your own goals, then open yourself to others'
remarkable stories and use that to keep your mindset positive. Then fearlessly
transform your life!
