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| Me at 25 weeks after a workout! |
Well, here it is kids! The home stretch!!! This pregnancy has absolutely FLOWN by. Partly because I stay very busy with a job, a husband, 2 kids, 2 dogs and plenty of things to keep me busy! But also partly because I have felt so good! Throughout the first trimester, I almost took another pregnancy test just to make sure I was really pregnant… even after I had heard the heartbeat! I just felt so normal and healthy. I think that being in good shape helped me to overcome some of the fatigue and pregnancy symptoms that I have had in previous pregnancies. I have also heard some people say their third pregnancy is the easiest. As if your body recognizes all the hormones that come along with it, and it goes smoother because your body knows the drill and doesn’t respond as negatively to the surge in hormones. Whatever the reason, I am going into my third trimester and still working out 3-4 days a week and feeling good! :)
Here are some of the changes I have made in my routine in
order to accommodate my changing body and growing belly:
No more supersets (or just take longer breaks)
Before I got pregnant, I LIVED by
supersets! (A superset is going immediately from one exercise to the next with
no break in between. For example, doing a bicep curl immediately followed by a
tricep extension.) This helps you get more work done, quicker and it helps you
burn more calories while simultaneously putting on muscle. But while pregnant, I
have had to slow down my workouts significantly in order to prevent my heart
rate from getting to high. So basically, the reason I did them before (burning
more calories) is the reason I can’t do them now (burning TOO MANY calories). Another
option for me is to do one big superset with only 8 reps per exercise and then
taking a long 2-3 minute break.
I did a split squat in the squat rack with
my back leg up on a bench with ascending weight=
45
lbs X 8 reps, 55 lbs X 8 reps, 65 lbs X 8 reps and 75 lbs X 8 reps per leg
Then I immediately did Good Mornings=
45
lbs X 8 reps, 45 lbs X 8 reps, 55 lbs X 8 reps and 55 lbs X 8 reps
Then straight into one legged dead lift
with a 25 lb plate in my hand 8 reps each leg X 4 sets
After these big sets, I sat and rested
until my heart rate was down to about 55-60% of my maximum heart rate. I observe
this using a heart rate monitor that I wear during all of my workouts. Another
option is to simply take one exercise at a time, and do shorter 1-2 minute
rests in between sets.
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| 26 1/2 weeks doing the leg workout I mentioned above |
Lower my weight even further
I have been doing less weight in the last 6
months than I did before pregnancy, about 20% less depending on the exercise.
Now I have dropped this amount even more. For example, pre-pregnancy I squatted
between 155-175 lbs regularly on plié squats. Up until now, I have been
squatting 135 lbs and now I have dropped it further to about 115 lbs. As I get
closer to delivery, I will drop this weight even more, and at around 32-33
weeks, I will likely stop doing any squatting motions at all in order not to
induce early labor. I will likely just stick to doing machines and very light
weight movements in the last 4-6 weeks, basically just for maintenance of my
body and muscles and to keep my cardiovascular endurance up.
For upper body, I have lowered my weight, but
not quite as much. My main rule for upper body lifting is that it doesn’t pull
on the top of the uterus. As the uterus grows larger, it expands farther up,
more and more each week. This is especially inconvenient for short girls like
me! I can already feel her up to my ribs and I still have 11 weeks left :-/
So I determine my weight for muscle groups
like shoulders, back, triceps and biceps based on how comfortable it feels for
my upper body and how high my heart rate gets. Even if I’m capable of comfortably
doing a seated row at a high amount of weight, but it gets my heart rate too
high too fast, then I lower the weight and just add a few more reps.
500 calorie maximum
As I just mentioned, I am using a heart rate
monitor to keep an eye on my heart rate during exercise. Another handy reason
to use one of these is too make sure I am not burning excess calories. My goal
for my workouts is not to burn a ton of calories (as I am already small and
have a relatively low body fat), but to maintain my muscle mass and stay in
good cardiovascular shape. So in order to not let my body fat get too low, I made
a general rule of thumb for myself to not burn over 500 calories per workout. This
is my cue for when I’m done exercising. This usually takes me between an hour
and an hour and a half to achieve. My pre-pregnancy bf was around 16-17% and I am
trying to keep it around 20% during pregnancy. However, because I have a higher
metabolism during pregnancy, I stay very active, and don’t have a big appetite,
it is VERY important for me to try not to get too lean as this can negatively
affect a healthy pregnancy.
Don't workout on days I have to go to work
Another rule I have made for myself is to
not go to the gym on days I have to work, as my job has me standing on my feet
for 4-8 hours straight. I am so used to being a busy little bee and going
non-stop from sun up to sun down, I literally have to MAKE MYSELF sit down,
rest, take naps, etc… as that is not something that comes naturally to me!!! But
I have found, with the bigger I get, the more I am on my feet and active within
a day, the more uncomfortable I get and the more strain it puts on my belly, back,
feet, you name it! So in order for me to be able to stay working and stay lifting
weights as long as possible throughout this pregnancy, I must take care of me
and the baby first and foremost.
It’s not a sprint… it’s a marathon.
Miscellaneous
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| 26 weeks doing front, narrow squats with a box behind me to make sure I go down low enough to activate the glutes |
Some general rules of pregnancy that can
also be applied to exercise are things such as not laying on your back, and
clearly, not laying on your stomach. This especially applies to the third trimester
as the uterus is weighing more each week and lying on your back can cut off
oxygen and blood flow to the baby. Eliminating these two positions GREATLY
lowers the number of free weight exercises you can do! You basically only have
one position left… standing.
Another adjustment to be made is on
machines. Several free motion/ weight lifting machines have a pad in the front
that you would normally place your stomach against. In early stages of
pregnancy, many seats on these machines can be raised or lowered in order to accommodate
a growing belly, but in the third trimester, there’s reallllly no getting
around this bad boy!
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