Exercise Program for Pregnant Women

After many requests, here is at last a list of exercises designed specifically for pregnant women who wish to stay in shape by training safely. With this in mind, it would be more advisable to perform the exercises from a sitting position, or at least to make sure you are stable throughout each exercise in order to avoid falling.

I suggest you perform a few exercises aimed at improving muscle tone. Remember that while pregnant, our training objective must be only to maintain what we have acquired or to slightly improve strength, rather than radically improving power, strength or speed. Sound judgment will be your guide during the execution of each movement. The poundage of the weights you use should vary between 3 and 10 pounds, depending on the exercises and your current physical condition. The important thing is to keep your breathing flowing, and to avoid blocking it. Most of the exercises can be performed until the end of your pregnancy without any concern. Of course, make sure you have the consent of your doctor or midwife before starting an exercise program.

Aim for 12 repetitions of each exercise, and make sure you take pauses as long as you need to bring your heart rate back down and hydrate before switching to the next exercise. Perform 3 to 5 minutes of dynamic stretching before starting… such as walking on the spot with your knees high.

 Lunges:

 Hip extensions:

 Lateral raises:

Curls:

 Triceps extensions:

By Karine Larose

Exercise Program for Pregnant Women is a post from Nautilus Plus. The Nautilus Plus blog aims to help people in their journey to fitness through articles on training, nutrition, motivation, exercise and healthy recipes.
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