For all of you lovely ladies who are expecting I have a couple questions. When you are expecting do you still do cathe rotations? How do you modifiy? I know that your heart rate is not suppose to get up to no more than 140 BPM. Is that right? I also heard that after a certain trimester you can no longer do ab work. I'm just curious because although I'm not pregnant maybe one day I'll be. I have a 3 year old already and while I was pregnant I had that "I can eat whatever I want attitude". Needless to say I gained almost 80 pounds. Anyway thank goodness I discovered cathe 3months after I gave birth and was back to my oldself 6 months later. It was a miracle. Anyway my husband and I have been talking about having another baby and I promised myself I wouldnt do what I did for my first pregnancy. Can you still lift weights when pregnant or do you have to go down in weight? How many more calories do you have to eat? Sorry for all the questions just curious...
Questions about modifications
- Thread starter messyjess
- Start date
jenmgo
Cathlete
hi! lots of good questions, and i hope others will chime in to answer you. Im pregnant with my first, so i'm not as experienced. I can tell you about me and what i do though.
I do know you cant go crazy with eating. They say about 300 extra calories a day is what you need when pregnant, not 3 extra meals lol.
As far as abs, i think i've heard dont do them past five months. or sooner, dpending on how you are feeling. i've heard if you lie down you will feel like crap right away because your circulation (or something like that) gets cut off and you dont get the oxygen and circulation you need. thats probably off, but i've heard you will know it right away. I however, still do abs (i hope thats ok!) and im 28 weeks along, due in february.
as far as my workouts, i consider myself advnaced. i do lots of cathe, and i also enjoy tracey staehle, amy bento, kelly coffey meyer, jari love and more. so far i'm doing just about the same intensity as before. if i feel short of breath i tone it down. i think the old school way was 140 bpm but i think if u use common sense you will be ok. im sure soon i will have to lower my step height. so far, i can lift the same amount of weight, but im sure i'll have to lower that too evenutally. i only have three months to go, so i think i'm still doing pretty good.
the only thing that bothers me are my feet. my balance also isnt what it used to be. i dont know if my feet grew but my shoes are killing me after about 25-30 mins into my cardio (escpeically step!) and it really affects my performance.
I hope this helps a little! I'm by no means an expert, this whole pregnancy thing is so new to me
I do know you cant go crazy with eating. They say about 300 extra calories a day is what you need when pregnant, not 3 extra meals lol.
As far as abs, i think i've heard dont do them past five months. or sooner, dpending on how you are feeling. i've heard if you lie down you will feel like crap right away because your circulation (or something like that) gets cut off and you dont get the oxygen and circulation you need. thats probably off, but i've heard you will know it right away. I however, still do abs (i hope thats ok!) and im 28 weeks along, due in february.
as far as my workouts, i consider myself advnaced. i do lots of cathe, and i also enjoy tracey staehle, amy bento, kelly coffey meyer, jari love and more. so far i'm doing just about the same intensity as before. if i feel short of breath i tone it down. i think the old school way was 140 bpm but i think if u use common sense you will be ok. im sure soon i will have to lower my step height. so far, i can lift the same amount of weight, but im sure i'll have to lower that too evenutally. i only have three months to go, so i think i'm still doing pretty good.
the only thing that bothers me are my feet. my balance also isnt what it used to be. i dont know if my feet grew but my shoes are killing me after about 25-30 mins into my cardio (escpeically step!) and it really affects my performance.
I hope this helps a little! I'm by no means an expert, this whole pregnancy thing is so new to me
I think that most out here would tell you that you can keep doing what you've always done, as long as it feels good. Modify where you need to, if something is uncomfortable or hurts.
Different docs will give you differnet answers on what you can keep doing while pregnant. The short answer is that none of them really know what impact exercise has on pregnancy, other than that it aids in delivery and recovery.
For me, I kept doing what I always did. Some days were harder than others. For cardio, I found my heart rate already quite high, so doing Cathe's beginner DVDs like Basic step, and the origina LIS were enough for me. The heart rate stat is actually an old number, and one that arbitrarily created at that. The general rule of thumb is that if you can still talk, you're in a good range. Just don't go anaerobic or get so winded that you're gasping for breath.
I kept lifting as usual, including work done flat on my back the whole time. (bench press, flies, etc...)
I gave up ab work once I started showing becuase my abs had split, and I didn't want to make it worse. That said, I got my flat belly and muscle tone back very quickly after delivery, even with eliminating ab work for about 5 months.
Everyone is different, and everyone follows different rules, depending on how conservative or careful they need or want to be during pregnancy.
Go with what makes you comfortable.
Different docs will give you differnet answers on what you can keep doing while pregnant. The short answer is that none of them really know what impact exercise has on pregnancy, other than that it aids in delivery and recovery.
For me, I kept doing what I always did. Some days were harder than others. For cardio, I found my heart rate already quite high, so doing Cathe's beginner DVDs like Basic step, and the origina LIS were enough for me. The heart rate stat is actually an old number, and one that arbitrarily created at that. The general rule of thumb is that if you can still talk, you're in a good range. Just don't go anaerobic or get so winded that you're gasping for breath.
I kept lifting as usual, including work done flat on my back the whole time. (bench press, flies, etc...)
I gave up ab work once I started showing becuase my abs had split, and I didn't want to make it worse. That said, I got my flat belly and muscle tone back very quickly after delivery, even with eliminating ab work for about 5 months.
Everyone is different, and everyone follows different rules, depending on how conservative or careful they need or want to be during pregnancy.
Go with what makes you comfortable.
Jen I totally had this problem too! My feet would swell so much during a workout that I usually lost feeling in some or all of my toes! It really distracted me during workouts and was uncomfortable if not painful a lot of the time.
My feet are about a 1/2 size bigger now, at 5 months post partum.
Our bodies do such funny stuff during pregnancy!
You can do the diastasis test to see how large your split is.
Lie on the floor with your knees bent. Lift your head, and while you do, feel around your belly button.
Press down, and you should be able to feel the ridge of your abdominus rectus on either side of your belly button. You can measure how wide your split is depending on how many finger widths you have in there. Mine was 4 fingers by the end, and I was ALL belly.
Not every woman gets a split, but many do.
I didn't want mine to turn into a full blown diastasis, so I stopped all ab work.
After delivery, I started back 4 days pp, doing planks (on my knees at first, until I got strength back) and crunches with a scarf tied TIGHTLY around my waist to bring everything back together.
I kept the scarf on during all ab work for about 3 weeks. Everything has gone back together perfectly now.