What is the best way to train someone who is pregnant?
Easy workouts, get the blood flowing.
Lots of pregnant women and people get the feeling they should stay sedentary, but there are plenty of documented cases of pregnant women staying active and still having healthy children.
Especially watch for the “eat for two” mentality. Good, but that doesnt mean they should splurge every single meal.
ACE Recommends staged progressions during pregnancy (like just about any other training routine). They base the periodization on the tri-mesters beginning with a maintenance of regular activity in the first tri-mester but minimizing running and high impact activities. Progression intensity reduces as women enter the 2nd and 3rd tri-mester with attention paid mostly to the comfort of the mother (including avoiding supine positions and irritating impact). There seems to be little potential damage to the developing baby during exercise…
… It has been my experience, however, having consulted a mother who chose to pursue minimal weight gain as part of her pregnancy, that high intensity exercise could have negative implications for the baby. There is no way to identify causality in this circumstance, but the child of this aggressive exerciser had early growth problems related to heart function and bone development. The mother, who was displeased with her weight prior to pregnancy, was determined to lose her existing weight and any weight gained from pregnancy throughout the whole process so she engaged in activities she had not pursued prior to conception.
Since that experience and with consultation from an OB, I now handle pregnancy as a continuation of existing health and activity for the mother. It is inappropriate for the mother to pursue personal physical changes during pregnancy – whether that be greater strength, fat loss, or other exercise related goals.
For pregnant women of course if she is a new client first they will need to fill out a par q assessment ,a medical history questionaire and most importantly …they will need a physicians release from there Primary care Physician ….once these are all in place the training for the most part will be of a maintenance nature,based on her fitness level at the begining of her pregnancy and I would keep the training program in a muscular endurance mode ,staying away from extremely heavy loads….with no contraidications I would not exceed 13 on RPE scale the( Rate of Perceived Exertion ) during the 2nd trimester ,I would avoid the supine position I would reccomend to add a 300 k calorie per day increase in daily intake and be sure to keep hydrated during workouts ,and avoid long periods of motionless standing ,3rd Trimester ,weight bearing excercises can be continued with caution however the best excercise in 3rd Trimester is swimming to relieve the joints .
