Exercise

[Rrrob]

I’m only 8 weeks and haven’t done any exercise since finding out I was pregnant a month ago. I feel like a lump but I’m scared of exercising and something going wrong. Any suggestions for good pregnancy exercise to help me stay in some sort of shape/ feel better about myself over the next few months?

Pretty much anything you were doing before...unless you're an MMA fighter, probably give that a miss.

But the usual suspects and easier ones as you get bigger are swimming, walking, yoga. I cycled till I was well into my third trimester. Whatever feels good.

YouTube has loads of pregnancy specific workouts. Lucy Wyndham Reed might be a good place to start as her videos are very short!

I normally run but 1st trimester and covid stopped that pretty quickly. Now I’m feeling a bit better in myself I’m doing parkrun every Saturday, swimming once a week and doing yoga every day (Adrienne has a new Jan 30 day thing which is good). Need to get another run/swim in. Just keep moving - even if it’s a walk!

Clinically speaking, the advice is to continue doing what you were doing before. So what exercise did you enjoy eight weeks ago?

You’ll want to stop contact sports when the bump appears, so bear that in mind if you’re a hockey or rugby player.

I didn't find the advice to just keep doing what you were doing before very helpful. What I was doing before pregnancy was HIIT circuit classes plus deadlifts, squats, bench press etc.

By about 6 weeks pregnant I was finding the HIIT classes really tough (heart rate going through the roof) and was often really tired and nauseous, which messed up my usual exercise routine even more. I basically did nothing for about 8 weeks because of that.

Now I'm in the second trimester, I'm doing some at home workouts with dumbbells, which is similar to what I would do in the gym but much lighter weights and less intense. I'm also modifying things so that I'm not twisting too much or lying flat on my stomach. It's going ok, but I wouldn't feel confident after that much time away to walk into the gym and pick up a barbell. My body has changed, ligaments are looser etc, and I've had quite a lot of time out. Just going back to my old routine feels like a recipe for injury.

I found I couldn’t move at all without terrible nausea from about the 6 week mark until 16 weeks. I felt like such a failure. I’d been doing half an hour of cardio in the mornings for a few months before finding out I was pregnant, but before that I’d only been walking. (Due to a previous miscarriage and large amounts of overtime at work that’s all I felt up to)

At 20 weeks I now go for long walks every evening. I walk for about an hour, sometimes quicker to get my heart rate up. I feel quite inadequate as everyone else always seems to be doing spin classes and marathons, but as I’d been so sedentary before I’m finding it hard to add more now.

I suppose I just wanted to add in that a long daily walk has been working well for me. I feel healthy even if it’s not as much as others are managing.
And try not to worry about not feeling up to much for the first few months, they can be so rough. My midwife at the time said ‘just potter around the house when you can’.

Try to get up at least every hour or so and make sure to drink plenty of fluids as it’s important to get your blood moving, but other than that just do what you can for now!

There's loads of prenatal workouts on YouTube. Some gentle yoga or pilates would be a great place to start, or even going on some walks. There's no need to worry unless you are lifting massive weights, throwing yourself about or running marathons all of a sudden. Gentle exercise is safe during pregnancy.