Pregnancy Fitness | Pregnancy Exercises|Exercise During Pregnancy|Pregnancy Nutrition

The 7 Essential Elements of Pregnancy Fitness And Health

November 4, 2010 By Stephanie & Yudi Leave a Comment

One of the biggest downfalls of most health and fitness programs is that they zone in on only particular focus and ignore all others.

Often, you’ll see a program that just gives you workouts and doesn’t really mention anything about nutrition. Or you’ll see a diet book that talks a ton about what to eat but neglects to mention mindset or exercise. And while I understand why this happens from a marketing standpoint, from a health one it just doesn’t make any sense. You can’t have just exercise and no healthy eating…and you can’t have healthy eating and exercise without the right mindset and…you get the point.

So what I want to do today is lay out all the essential elements of an ideal pregnancy health and fitness program so that you know ALL of the components that you should be focusing on.

1) Resistance Training:

This is often one of the most neglected aspects of training in women in general – and especially in pregnant women – even though it is arguably the most important!

You have got to maintain your strength and strength endurance for when you have a baby, not to mention that you’ve got to keep your muscles strong to save your joints from bearing too much stress with the added weight of your baby.

I’m not talking crazy things like loaded barbell squats and bench presses here, rather I mean simple exercises (usually total body or multi-joint) that engage your muscle fibers and help you to at least maintain your muscle strength during your pregnancy.

2) Cardio:

Cardio is a very broad word and it can mean a lot of things. Many people think of walking on a treadmill or elliptical or riding an exercise bike, but this is a very limited view of what cardio really is. All that cardio means is movement that gets your heart working to pump blood and oxygen to your muscles. Anything that fulfills these criteria is cardio!

I personally am not a huge fan of endurance exercise because I think it’s boring and I have many clients who feel the same way. So what we will do instead of hopping on that annoying treadmill is we will do our resistance training back to back with little to no rest between exercises. Trust me, this gets your heart going better than any traditional cardio ever would!

If you want to do cardio but don’t have the energy to move around outside too much and don’t own any exercise equipment, try doing some of these metabolic resistance training workouts instead to boost your heart rate. And if you don’t know how to put together a metabolic resistance training circuit don’t worry as I’ll be posting some videos of ones that we use in the coming weeks.

3) Pelvic Floor Exercises:

Oh…er…gosh. This is a bit awkward. Only joking! While you may feel embarrassed about doing pelvic floor exercises and find them a little weird, they are a very important part of core strength both during and after pregnancy. The pelvic floor is an essential part of your core anatomy and is involved in so many important functions that improve your overall health. Make sure that you do your kegels!

4) Core Stability:

What’s the difference between core stability and just plain old core exercises, you ask? Well, core stability refers to focusing on activating the deep core muscles to really stabilize your entire torso and allow it to transfer force more efficiently to your arms and legs.

Though we have been taught to think of the abs as the muscles that bend us over forward, the truth is that their main function is actually to resist movement and stop the body from bending over forwards, backwards and sideways. They support our spine and help transfer force from the ground and other objects to our extremities, where most of our movement occurs. This topic really deserves a blog post in its own right to fully discuss all the intricacies of it but for now think of it this way – instead of exercises like situps and crunches, you need to start thinking exercises like planks, pallof presses, side planks and elevated mountain climbers.

5) Motivation/Mindset Training:

This is almost always neglected in every training program I see and yet it is vitally, vitally important. You will never stick with a workout program unless you are intrinsically motivated and that requires careful planning, accountability mechanisms and finding peace and enjoyment in what you do. This is a very broad topic and I plan to discuss it in much detail in upcoming posts.

6) Nutrition:

This is probably the area that most people are focused on and try their hardest at. The problem is that nutrition is one of those fields where just about every person you read seems to give you conflicting advice! One day you’ll read that fish oil is amazing, the next you’ll read that it should be avoided because of heavy metals in the fish. It’s maddening!

My approach to nutrition is very simple – eat whole natural foods that aren’t processed and don’t have tons of crap added to them. If you follow that, you don’t need to worry about counting calories or balancing your macronutrients or any of that kind of thing. The human body is a magnificent thing and if left to its own devices is pretty astute at determining the right amount of food intake that it needs.

The problem today is that we put so many chemicals and toxins into our bodies that they lose the ability to do their normal metabolic processes! Again, there is plenty to say on this topic and you can expect lots and lots of blog posts about it.

7) Supplementation:

Normally I’m not a huge fan of taking supplements and such – I’d rather that people get their needs taken care of through whole foods. However, during pregnancy there are certain important supplements that I do highly recommend, including Folic Acid, DHA, calcium and some others. Killer blog post on this coming up soon.

So there you have it! The 7 essential elements of pregnancy fitness and health. As you can see, it’s important to take a holistic view of your body when you’re having a baby to make sure that your health and your baby’s stay in tip top shape.

No doubt you have tons of questions so please, fire away in the comments section! And as always, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter on our home page so that you get notified when new posts are added. We will be adding more in depth posts for all of the above elements very soon so sign up now to make sure you don’t miss any of them!

Take care,

Yudi

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Important Fitness Goals During Pregnancy – Things You Should Aim For

November 2, 2010 By Stephanie & Yudi Leave a Comment

Hey! Before I get into today’s post I want to just take a moment to thank you for reading our blog – it means the world to us and we are really honored that you have taken time out of your day to care about what we say!

Now, today I want to talk about a couple of the most important fitness goals that you should be aiming for during your pregnancy. These are a bunch of seemingly random points that I thought about the other day, yet if you look closely they’re all somewhat related.

pregnancy exercise

It is vitally important that you keep your extremities – i.e. your arms and legs -strong throughout your pregnancy. A few decades back women were told crazy things like “if you put your arms above your head you can affect your milk production” and many people still hear these old wives tales today but they are simply not true!

Contrary to what you may have heard, you must be striving to work on your arms and legs because you’ll need them a great deal right after pregnancy when you have to move around carrying your baby! It is very easy and possible to work your extremities without straining your back and without overstressing yourself. We’ll be covering lots of great exercises that you can do on this blog so make sure you check back regularly and if you haven’t done so yet register yourself for our mailing list by putting your details in the boxes at the bottom of this post so that you get any new blog post updated mailed directly to your inbox.

One of the most critical things that you need to do is keep your core muscles strong during pregnancy. The problem is that for most women, their idea of core exercises includes crunches, situps, leg raises and other similar exercises, but these are not great choices for pregnant women.

For one, they are hard to logistically as you get bigger because there’s a big baby in the way in your stomach! And for another thing, they put too much strain on your back, which already has to deal with a lot. And let’s not forget that you probably don’t want to be constricting the space of the baby in your stomach. And finally and perhaps most importantly, all of these exercises only work the most superficial core muscle – the rectus abdominus – which does not address all the functions of core stability that you need.

There are other, deeper muscles run beneath the rectus abdominus that have a far greater role in keeping your core strong which in turn helps save your back and of course will help you push the baby out during your labor!

running while pregnant

Keep your general fitness levels as high as you can through general movement, cardio and exercise. While you may feel very tired and sluggish during your pregnancy and exercise may fall to the bottom of your priority list, exercising is so important for a multitude of reasons.

Firstly, getting exercise will actually give you more energy and vitality and will help you not feel tired and drained around the clock. It seems counterintuitive but try it and you’ll see it really is true – spending energy to exercise gives you more energy overall! Secondly, moving and getting some exercise helps clear your head and uplift your spirits. Many times, fitness trainers focus only on the technical aspects of fitness and forget that one of the greatest benefits is the mental release it gives you!

During your pregnancy, you may be feeling overwhelmed, underprepared, scared about the future, worried about your and your baby’s health and the truth is that all of this worrying is just counterproductive! It’s important to find ways to let go and fill yourself with positive energy, and few things are as good for achieving that goal as some quiet, internally focused exercise or movement.

exercise tranquility

That’s all for today. Hopefully these points have resonated with you and you realize that it’s very important to get started with your exercise plan now, before you have your baby. If you just chip away at things bit by bit it will make your pregnancy, your labor and your postnatal period so much easier. Of course, if you have any questions please post them below and I’ll do my best to answer.

Take care,

Yudi

P.P.S. Also make sure to sign up for our email newsletter at the top of our homepage if you haven’t done so yet. You’ll get all site updates mailed directly to you as well as a cool and informative FREE ebook on the most important pregnancy mistakes that you must avoid!

Filed Under: Pregnancy Fitness Tagged With: Exercise During pregnancy, is it safe to exercise during pregnancy, pregnancy exercises, pregnancy fitness, pregnancy workout, working our during pregnancy

Pregnancy Exercises – The Pallof Press

October 28, 2010 By Stephanie & Yudi Leave a Comment

Hey everyone! I hope you’re doing great and your pregnancy is going easily and without any hassles!

Today I have a great blog post for you that’s all about an absolutely awesome exercise that I mentioned in my blog post last week about 3 of the best pregnancy exercises that you should be doing. It’s called the pallof press and in my opinion it is one the best core exercises out there, especially for pregnant women.

pallof press

Ready for it? Let’s go!

Name:

Pallof Press

Which Body Parts Does It Work?

Your entire core, all the way from the hips up to the arms.

Why It’s Good For You:

One of the most important exercise objectives for pregnant women is to make sure that you keep the entire core area as strong as possible. There are a couple reasons for this.

Firstly, we want to try and minimize the negative effects of the drastic change in posture that you experience during your pregnancy. As your baby grows and you have an increasingly large weight around your stomach, it pulls your pelvis down and forward, which in turn creates a larger arch in your lower back and exposes it to much greater stress than it experienced before. This can cause low back pain which is something we definitely want to avoid. So the best way for us to minimize these negative effects is to get the core and glutes really strong so that they can hold your body in better posture and alleviate some of the strain off your hip flexors and low back.

Secondly, due to the fact that your core muscles get stretched and put at a position where they can’t optimally function throughout your pregnancy, they are more susceptible to get weak and lengthened. That’s something we want to minimize as much as possible, both during your pregnancy and afterwards! During your pregnancy we want to keep those muscles as strong as possible for the reasons mentioned above, and by reducing the harmful changes on these muscles during pregnancy we also make it easier for you to get them back in shape after your pregnancy.

The Pallof Press not only fulfils both of these needs but it does so in an easy position that anybody can assume – standing up (if you are late in your pregnancy and can’t stand up you can do it sitting on an exercise ball instead). And best of all, it doesn’t strain your back while you do it and keeps you in an upright posture that is the reverse of the sitting position that you probably spend most of your day in.

Equipment Needed:

For home workouts, you will need a resistance band that can be anchored in a door frame. Our favorite choice is the JC Predator Band which is extremely easy to use and can be adjusted in resistance for extra versatility (you can go with the pink resistance to start with). If you are doing this in the gym you can use the cable pulley machine adjusted to mid-torso height.

How To Do It:

Anchor your JC Predator Band in your door so that it’s as high as your mid-torso.
Stand facing perpendicular to the band (at 90 degrees to it). Refer to the video below if you are not sure how to do this. Basically, you are making your body and the band form an L-shape together.
Grab both handles together first with the hand that is furthest away from the door and then with the hand that is closest to the door on top of that.
1^st version: Move the band directly out in front of you and then back to your torso. Don’t let your hips or your arms be pulled to one side or the other. Keep them directly in the middle of your torso at all times.
2^nd version: Holding the band directly in the middle of your torso, push it out in front of you until your arms are fully extended and then hold in that position for time.

How Many Reps/Sets Should I Do?

Since this is likely an exercise you have never done before, make sure to start out with an easier progression and gradually work your way up.
For the 1^st version, start with 5-8 reps and gradually add more over time. Start with 1-2 sets and work your way up to 3-5 sets.
For the 2^nd version, start with a short hold of around 10-15 seconds and gradually add more time. Start with 1-2 sets and work your way up to 3-5 sets.

Demonstration Video:

Wrap Up:

The pallof press is an awesome exercise and should be one of your go-to exercises during your pregnancy and afterwards. Throw it in to any workout as your core movement or just do it for fun during your day!

As always, if you have any questions about this exercise then please post them in the comments section and I’ll do my best to answer! And if you’ve already tried the pallof press then post your thoughts and experiences – Was it easy? Harder than it looked? Let us know what you think!

Oh, and before I go, if you enjoyed this post then definitely make sure that you sign up for our free email newsletter by entering your name and email in the box below. Not only will you receive updates every time we add a new article to the site, but you’ll also get a FREE copy of our ebook – 5 Pregnancy Fitness & Nutrition Mistakes You Must Avoid.

Enter your details in the boxes below to get a FREE copy emailed instantly to your inbox:

Take care,

Yudi

Filed Under: Pregnancy Fitness Tagged With: Exercise During pregnancy, exercises for pregnant women, exercising while pregnant, pallof press, pregnancy exercises, pregnancy fitness, pregnancy workouts, safe exercises during pregnancy

3 Great Pregnancy Exercises That You Must Do (Including One You’ve Never Seen Before!)

October 26, 2010 By Stephanie & Yudi 1 Comment

Last week we spoke about 3 pregnancy exercises that you would be better off avoiding to make sure that you stay healthy and injury free during your pregnancy.

Hopefully you guys have now made sure to cut those out of your pregnancy workout programs, but now you’re probably wondering what exercises you should do instead, right? Well here I come to the rescue

Let’s talk about 3 great exercises that you should do during your pregnancy and why they’re so important:

1. Glute Bridges

You’ve probably done these before at yoga or in your regular workout program, but they’re even more important during pregnancy! The reason why they’re so essential is because during pregnancy you have so much weight pulling you down in front that it can throw your whole postural balance out of whack, causing back pain, knee pain and all other kinds of maladies.

So one of the most important areas that we need to work on is the muscles on the back of your body and your glutes are arguably the most important of all! Check out the video below to see how to do the easiest version of the glute bridge:

(Note that you don’t need to use an Airex Pad to do this exercise. You can just do it straight on the floor)

Now, once you get used to the glute bridge and can do it well you’re going to have to progress it to more advanced versions. And I’ll tell you about those in a future blog post coming later this week (you’re just going to have to keep reading this blog, won’t you? )

2. Bent Over Rows

Carrying on with our theme above, bent over rows are a really important exercise because once again they hit the muscles on the back of your body that are really important for keeping your posture upright and your joints healthy during pregnancy and beyond.

The most important thing when doing bent over rows is that you must be very particular about form so that you don’t stress your back. You must keep your low back arched and your knees a bit bent while sitting back at the hips, otherwise you will be placing too much load on your back. Here’s a video of the right way to do this exercise:

Note that the trajectory of the weights pretty much follows your thighs, going from your knee to outside your lower abdomen at a slight angle. Make sure you are not doing an upright row! If you have trouble with the above version and need to find a variation that is easier on the back then you can support one knee and hand on a bench, chair, table or any other surface while you do the exercise and instead make it look like this:

The main thing is that you do some form of upper back exercise to keep your shoulders healthy and your posture in good form!

3. Pallof Presses

Alright, here’s the one you’ve been waiting for! This exercise is one of my absolute favorite core exercises and is especially important for pregnant women because it doesn’t strain your low back in any way! Have a look at the video below to see how to do it:

Now, I know what you’re thinking! Firstly, how on earth is that a core exercise (it kinda looks like it works your arms or chest more, doesn’t it?) and secondly, how do I do it if I don’t have a big, expensive cable machine in my house? So here are your answers.

Firstly, this exercise is way harder than it looks and believe me it’s all core! The reason why it hits your core is because the cable is trying to pull you to the side and by resisting that motion you are using your core to stay upright. Secondly, you do not need any big fancy machines to do this exercise!

All you need is a simple exercise band that can you can slot in any door jamb and you’re good to go! My favorite band – the one that I believe offers the most versatility, the most durability and the most bang for your buck – is the JC Predator Band. It’s so easy to use because you just put it in your door and then close it and it’s fixed in place! Plus, it’s clever 3 band design allows you to adjust the resistance to 3 different levels so that you can keep using the band even as you get stronger and need more weight.

Really, this exercise deserves a blog post all of its own to really describe how to do it correctly and of course I will deliver! Make sure to keep checking back at the blog as I will put up a entire post just about the pallof press very soon. But that’s it for this post.

Hopefully you’ve learned some new tips about the right exercises to do during your pregnancy, but I’m guessing you also have some questions, so please feel free to post them in the comment section and I’ll be happy to answer!

Take care,

Yudi

Filed Under: Pregnancy Fitness Tagged With: Exercise During pregnancy, pregnancy bent over rows, pregnancy exercises, pregnancy fitness tips, pregnancy glute bridge, pregnancy pallof press

10 Exercise and Wellness Tips To Help You Beat Postpartum Depression

October 25, 2010 By Stephanie & Yudi Leave a Comment

Hey everyone! Hope you’re having a wonderful week! Hopefully you are having a wonderful time during your pregnancy and are enjoying the energy and glow that comes from creating another human being inside you.

But are you worried about what happens after the baby is born?

Maybe you’ve read about the difficulty of postpartum depression and are worried about whether it will affect you once your baby is here. Well, have no fear! Today I want to write a quick little blog post with some natural exercise and wellness tips for how to combat postpartum depression so that you are ready to nip it in the bud if it rears its ugly head.

Postpartum depression (PPD) affects up to 13 percent of new mothers, but the good news is that it can be treated with psychotherapy and medication. However, experts say that natural remedies such as exercise may help combat postpartum symptom just as effectively! In a recent study, researchers assigned some healthy new moms to an eight week parent education program and others to the same program with an added exercise component.

In the study, exercising in the eight weeks following childbirth cut the risk of PPD. And one month after the program ended the moms who exercised still felt better psychologically. Experts say exercising moderately 2 to 3 times a week for 20 – 30 minutes is enough to reap the psychological benefits (I.e. boost in mood, reduction in mood swings). So get moving! It could be providing way more benefit than you realize!

Here are some exercise and wellness tips to help you beat postpartum depression naturally:

Go for a walk with some friends
Try out a mommy and me exercise class
Go for a swim
Take a postnatal exercise class
Hire a qualified personal trainer to help you undertake a safe and effective postnatal exercise program
Ask for help from family or friends so you can take some time for yourself
Try taking a few minutes each day to practice some mindfulness, meditation or breathing exercises (look out for a blog post on this coming very soon!)
Pick up some books about dealing with postpartum depression (we will review some of these on the blog in the upcoming months)
Start supplementing important nutrients into your diet such as vitamin D and fish oil
Even though it’s very difficult to get in some sleep when you’re a new mom, make sure to take as many naps as you can while your baby is sleeping. Don’t use the down time to do the laundry, get someone else to do that for you and look after yourself by taking a rest!

So there you go! 10 tips to help you maintain your happiness and glow even after the pregnancy is over. Do you have any tips of your own that you plan on using to help combat postpartum depression? Share them in the comments section so that other readers can benefit from them too!

Take care,

Yudi

P.P.S. Also make sure to sign up for our email newsletter at the top of our homepage if you haven’t done so yet. You’ll get all site updates mailed directly to you as well as a cool and informative FREE ebook on the 5 Pregnancy Fitness & Nutrition Mistakes You Must Avoid!

Filed Under: Pregnancy Fitness, Pregnancy Nutrition Tagged With: beating postpartum depression, fighting postpartum depression, fighting ppd, Postnatal exercise, postpartum depression, postpartum exercise

3 Exercises To Avoid When You’re Pregnant

October 21, 2010 By Stephanie & Yudi 2 Comments

We all struggle enough to find the right exercises to do in every day life, but once you hit pregnancy it gets even harder to find the best ones to do. In a couple days, I’m going to talk about the best exercises to do when you’re pregnant, but today I want to talk about the 3 worst exercises that you should avoid when you’re pregnant.

Ready? Here goes:

1) Sit ups

As you may know if you’ve read my other blog Lose Fat At Work, I’m not a fan of sit ups for anybody, whether they’re pregnant or not. The main reason for this is because we all spend our days sitting hunched over in front of computers and in our cars so it makes no sense to do an exercise that replicates the sitting position when you’re working out! Rather, we want to try and reverse that effect in the gym.

This is extra specially important for you when you’re pregnant, since you’ll likely be spending less time on your feet and more time sitting down. So when you’re pregnant, sit ups is one exercise that you should not be doing.

2) Overhead shoulder presses

This one is a little controversial and doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone but for the majority of people, shoulder presses are something you want to avoid when you’re pregnant. The reason for this is that if you don’t do these with absolutely perfect form you can actually place a lot of stress on your low back – an area which is going to be under way too much stress already due to the added weight tugging your pelvis down during pregnancy.

The way to think about exercise in general during your pregnancy (and even when you’re not pregnant really) is that you want to make sure that the benefit you get from a given exercise must outweigh the risks by a large margin, otherwise it is just not worth it.

Shoulder presses are a classic example, since the benefit you get from them is some added strength and muscle in your shoulders but the risks include stressing your low back and injuring your shoulder girdle. It’s much better instead to do other exercises that work your shoulders while saving your back (we’ll discuss some of them later this week – make sure to check back in on the blog in a couple days!).

3) Forward lunges

Like with shoulder presses, this exercise in-and-of itself is not bad at all, it’s just that when you’re pregnant you have to always weigh risk vs reward, and forward lunges are the loser in that calculation.

You have to be careful when it comes to your knees since you’ve likely added a bunch of weight and your knees are not used to handling that kind of load. Additionally, most people don’t lunge correctly even without the added weight and put way too much stress on their knees, so we definitely don’t want to make it even worse by adding load to a bad movement pattern.

The reason why I specified forward lunges specifically is because out of all the lunging variations, they place the greatest load on your knees. However, there are other safer lunge variations that you can still do, which we’ll talk about in our follow up blog post later in the week!

Alright, so those are the 3 exercises that I want you to avoid during your pregnancy. They place too much risk on your joints and don’t give you enough reward in return, so they’re out! In a couple of days I will publish a follow up blog post that talks about some exercises you should do instead. Make sure to keep checking back so that you don’t miss that blog post when it comes out later this week! Meanwhile take care and make sure that the exercises you’re using are safe and offer way more reward than risk.

And if you have any questions about this blog post or other exercises that you should avoid, please post them in the comments section and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Take care,

Yudi

Filed Under: Pregnancy Fitness Tagged With: exercises during pregnancy, pregnancy exercises, pregnancy fitness

The 7 Essential Elements of Pregnancy Fitness And Health

1) Resistance Training:

2) Cardio:

3) Pelvic Floor Exercises:

4) Core Stability:

5) Motivation/Mindset Training:

6) Nutrition:

7) Supplementation:

Important Fitness Goals During Pregnancy – Things You Should Aim For

Pregnancy Exercises – The Pallof Press

Name:

Which Body Parts Does It Work?

Why It’s Good For You:

Equipment Needed:

How To Do It:

How Many Reps/Sets Should I Do?

Demonstration Video:

Wrap Up:

3 Great Pregnancy Exercises That You Must Do (Including One You’ve Never Seen Before!)

1. Glute Bridges

2. Bent Over Rows

3. Pallof Presses

10 Exercise and Wellness Tips To Help You Beat Postpartum Depression

3 Exercises To Avoid When You’re Pregnant

1) Sit ups

2) Overhead shoulder presses

3) Forward lunges

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