8 benefits of exercising during pregnancy
Naturally our relationship with fitness changes during pregnancy. Our energy levels are all over the place, our bodies are changing beyond recognition and we might feel like we just don't have the time or motivation we used to. Add onto that having to navigate all sorts of different advice and guidance on what we should be doing and it immediately feels like an uphill battle.
Today, I wanted to reassure that for most women, it is absolutely safe to exercise while you're pregnant and will be hugely beneficial not only for you, but also for your little one.
Exercising during your pregnancy can be an amazing opportunity to give you that much needed headspace to focus on yourself, moving in a way that makes you feel happier, calmer and more energised. It's also hugely beneficial in physically preparing your body for labour, birth and your post-delivery recovery.
Here are 8 reasons why exercising throughout pregnancy is amazing for you and your baby;
1. Boosting your mood and reducing stress and anxiety
Exercising releases endorphins which have such a positive impact on our mood and can help reduce stress and anxiety. Pregnancy might be a time where you're experiencing these kinds of feelings more than normal so those mental health benefits will be more important than ever.
2. An opportunity to focus on your breath
Taking the time to focus on breathwork is another amazing way of reducing stress and anxiety, taking ourselves out of fight or flight mode and calming our nervous system. Breathwork is also amazing for physically supporting our bodies through pregnancy and preparing for labour. We get a much stronger core engagement when we work with our breath which will allow us to keep moving in a way that feels good late into our pregnancies. That's exactly why this is the foundation of all the work we do in our prenatal movement series, Bump & Beyond.
3. Training your body for its biggest endurance challenge to date
Your pregnancy, labour, birth and post-delivery recovery is likely to be one of the biggest endurance challenges you'll ever put your body through. Would you take on other endurance challenges, like a marathon, without training for it? Probably not! Specifically designed prenatal exercises will help you build an amazing foundation to get you in the strongest place possible to support you throughout pregnancy, deliver your baby and recover once your little one is here. This means that not only will your pregnancy and recovery be as easy for you as possible but you'll also be able to continue with all your other workouts until late in your pregnancy and your journey back to them postpartum will be much easier.
4. Protect your posture as it adapts to your changing body
Movement practices like Barre and Pilates build strength in the muscles that experience the biggest change during pregnancy and have the biggest impact on your posture. A shift in weight distribution towards your tummy has a knock on effect on our head positioning, the curvature of our spine, how we engage our core, our pelvic positioning, our tendency to lock out our knees and misalignment in our feet. Bringing awareness to these postural changes is the first step in correcting them as much as we can.
5. Can help to reduce pregnancy related aches and pains
Postural changes can impact muscle groups and cause feelings of tightness in some areas. During pregnancy this might come up particularly in your lower back, upper back and hip flexors. Bringing awareness to our posture as well as ensuring we're staying mobile and moving the body in all its potential directions will help loosen off tight muscles.
6. Strengthening your pelvic floor
Our pelvic floor is an area of the body that experiences the most amount of change during pregnancy and labour and these changes can result in issues like prolapse or incontinence if we don't work on strengthening the muscles during pregnancy. Incorporating awareness of the pelvic floor and actively recruiting these muscles during exercise will help strengthen and prepare your pelvic floor for labour and beyond.
7. Possibly reduce the risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth
Studies have show that exercising during pregnancy can decrease the risk of giving birth to an excessively big baby (and the associated delivery risks that would come with that), reduce the risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, low back pain, pelvic girdle pain and urinary incontinence.
8. Supports your postpartum recovery journey
Working on strengthening your body in all right ways can help you experience a quicker recovery after you've delivered your baby. Functional, specifically designed prenatal exercise programmes help you build awareness of how to work through everyday movements in a way that doesn't add extra pressure to areas already going through the biggest change in pregnancy like your deep core muscles and your pelvic floor. Taking this awareness into your post-delivery journey will be so important in helping you recover and avoid issues like severe ab separation, hernias, prolapse and incontinence.
Exercise for you could be a walk in the local park, a gentle swim or a stretchy yoga flow. Whatever it is, I would 100% recommend supplementing it with a specifically designed prenatal movement programme. Taking the time to work your body in a way that allow you to stay strong throughout all your other workouts as well as physically preparing your body for labour is the best possible thing you could be doing.
Our Bump & Beyond Movement Series has been specifically designed for mummas-to-be and newly postpartum mums. Your journey with the series begins with a 1:1 session so we can assess where you are in your pregnancy or recovery and what you need most from movement at this time - be that specific workouts to destress and unwind, a need to build pelvic floor and core strength or challenging workouts that will make you feel strong and empowered. Join us for a free 7 day trial here.
Here's a list of exercise related points to take note of while pregnant;
Avoid contact sports and activities with a high risk of falling (like downhill skiing, horseback riding and gymnastics).
Stop a workout if you get light-headed or are unusually short of breath, feel contractions or decreased fetal movement, or have any vaginal bleeding or fluid leaking.
Skip hot yoga and avoid exercising in very hot weather.
Stay hydrated by drinking water before, during and after a workout.
Stay within your normal range of motion. Ligaments get looser in pregnancy so it's easier to sprain or strain a ligament.
