Strength Training During Pregnancy – The Best Tips for Expectant Mothers

Exercise during pregnancy is often a controversial topic. Many people still believe that strength training during pregnancy should be taboo above all. Are you also one of the expectant mothers who question this view and don't understand why strength training during pregnancy should be a problem? You're absolutely right!

To say it upfront: exercise during pregnancy is healthy, and strength training is not harmful to you or your unborn child either. If you follow a few simple recommendations, you can continue training with weights during pregnancy.

What effect does exercise during pregnancy have on the child?

Naturally, you are mainly asking one question: whether strength training during pregnancy could possibly cause harm, and what actually happens to your little one when you train.
If you exercise during pregnancy, the child effectively does a cardio workout with every training session. This means that when your pulse rises due to the activity, the baby's heart rate also increases. A heart rate of about 140 beats per minute is normal for an embryo; during strength training or other physical exercise, this rate rises to 160 beats per minute. Once the training session is over, the baby's pulse returns to its normal rate within a very short time.

What benefits there are for the expectant mother

Exercise during pregnancy was frowned upon for a long time, and strength training during pregnancy in particular was practically forbidden by doctors and midwives. Today, however, we know that you as an expectant mother benefit from training. You burn calories and thus prevent excessive weight gain during pregnancy. Please note, though, that a weight gain of about 12 kilos over the nine months is normal and desired, so you should not obsessively try to train off calories.

Strength training during pregnancy can prepare you for the strenuous birth process. You have more stamina and also more strength for the pushing contractions. In addition, exercise during pregnancy reduces the risk of developing gestational diabetes. Exercise also prevents or eases back pain caused by the growing belly. Because many endorphins are released during exercise, depression also occurs less often when strength training during pregnancy is practiced.

Your general well-being is improved, circulation is increased, and tension in the neck is relieved. Exercise during pregnancy also prevents excessive water retention and is now explicitly recommended by gynecologists and midwives.

Strength training during pregnancy - Dos and Don'ts

Strength training during pregnancy is generally possible, but with some small restrictions. It is important that you do not push yourself to your limits. Sweat-inducing training sessions with the highest possible weights should be avoided, because they would put your baby at risk.
It is better to switch to endurance training or light strength training when you are expecting. This means lower weights, often your own body weight is enough, but with even slower repetitions.

Strength training during pregnancy should therefore be performed in a moderate way. No peak performances should be achieved, and a targeted increase in performance is also not advisable.
Exercises for the whole body, on the other hand, are very beneficial, and from about the 20th week of pregnancy you should no longer do isolated core exercises (flexion movements). Instead, exercise during pregnancy should now focus more on the arms and legs.
Strength training during pregnancy also helps you cope better with your constantly increasing body weight and your changing center of gravity. And last but not least, strength training also reduces the likelihood of complications during birth, because you are simply fitter and more resilient.

What should be trained?

The back muscles are heavily stressed during pregnancy, so exercise during pregnancy mainly aims to strengthen the neck, shoulders and back. By the way, training can be done both on machines and with free weights, and in addition to the back, strengthening the pelvic floor muscles is also very beneficial.

The pelvic floor holds the organs in place, and not least your uterus with the unborn child. The further the pregnancy progresses, the greater the performance of the pelvic floor muscles must be. With exercise during pregnancy and light strength training during pregnancy, you can strengthen your pelvic floor. This prevents pain and incontinence during and also after pregnancy. In addition, you again gain the advantage that your pelvic floor can help more effectively with the pushing contractions to move the child through the birth canal.

Strength training during pregnancy also includes abdominal exercises, a point about which many expectant mothers are unsure. Exercise during pregnancy is fine, but strength training during pregnancy, especially for the abdominal area? This is also possible, but the training should be limited to the oblique abdominal muscles. These should also not be isolated, but rather strengthened in a full-body exercise.

You should avoid fast, jerky movements, and the exercises should also be gentle on the joints. Because your body is preparing for the upcoming birth, it produces more progestogen. This causes joints and ligaments to become looser so that your pelvis becomes more adaptable and the birth process becomes easier. However, this can also make you more sensitive to injuries. Exercise during pregnancy and strength training during pregnancy should therefore also be practiced in a moderate way from a health perspective concerning the mother.

Individual strength training during pregnancy

You know best yourself what is good for you. If you already trained before, strength training during pregnancy is no problem for you. However, if you only start exercising during pregnancy, you should take it slowly, as your body is not used to physical strain.
Strength training during pregnancy also depends on the trimester you are in. In the first trimester, you do not yet have typical pregnancy complaints in terms of weight, but due to the hormonal changes you may feel sick. Some expectant mothers have to vomit several times a day and generally feel weak and drained. Exercise during pregnancy during the first twelve weeks is therefore too exhausting for most people.

In the second trimester, nothing stands in the way of strength training during pregnancy anymore. You feel fit, your belly is not yet too big, and the nausea has passed.

In the last trimester, however, exercise during pregnancy becomes difficult again. Your belly keeps getting bigger. You may also be tired. You can safely reduce strength training during pregnancy to a minimum. Do it just as much as is best for you.