Pregnancy & Exercise: Someone to Contact

Krista Edwards--I am a USAT level one coach and personal trainer, and i know how hard it is to find information on pregnant athletes, so feel free to email me at lifeguardkw@hotmail.com and I will do my best to answer any questions you may have.

recommendations there. as for the core conditioning, there are just a few guidelines to follow

• due to all of the relaxin that is being released in your body, your joints are pretty loose and therefore less stable. Because of this it is wise to limit your range of motion on some exercises, such as squats and leg extensions, as it is to much pressure on an unstable knee and hip joint.
• because of the instability, DO work the smaller core muscles of the hips by doing things such as single leg squats and single leg deadlifts. another easy way to incorporate this is to stand on one foot or in tree pose while doing upper body exercises such as lateral raises, curls, etc.
• Try to keep your weight load to thirty pounds or less. again, this is due to the instability of the joints. won't hurt the baby if you lift more, but there is a big risk to your structural integrity.
• Don't do exercises lying on your back after the first trimester. instead do them at a slight incline or tip your hips slightly to one side or the other, as the uterus compresses blood flow from the aorta
• DON'T do lunges, step ups etc. these exercises place to much opposing force on opposite sides of the pelvic girdle which is very lose. this may cause the symphisis pubis or the cartilage disc between the pubic bone to slip.
• as for planks, there is a lot of conflicting information about the safety of isometric holds, as they have been shown to spike blood pressure. i tend to steer clear of those with my clients, at least until they can prove more conclusively as to their safety.
• avoid overhead movements after the seventh month. same as above, haven't conclusively been found acceptable.

As for the back injury, i would suspect at this point in the pregnancy that it may be partially related to a previous injury, but it may also just be that time when the weight of the baby combined with the structural instability of the sacroilliac joint starts to rear its ugly head. there are several exercises such as the quadruped, a standing swimmer, and the low back extension machine that will help that. perhaps the one exercise that has helped me personally the most is ab holds where you draw your lower abdominals in, hold for ten seconds (remembering to breath) and release. I try to do twenty of those at least every other day. This keeps my Transverse Abs strong, which is the muscle group responsible for holding the belly up and still. just some food for thought. y address should be correct now if you have any other questions