Pregnancy & Lifting: The Strong Mom Series S14E2

<p><span style="font-weight: 300;">Anna Marie & Rebekah tackle pregnancy and lifting.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 300;">There’s lots of bad information and poor choices people can make in this arena. Recommendations generally used to be against any exercise during pregnancy. Luckily, it’s much more common and acceptable to exercise while pregnant. Modifications and listening to your body will help. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 300;">Anna Marie became pregnant after 4 years of consistent training. Anna Marie’s personality is one where she’ll push things too far and not back off when she should sometimes, whereas others may back off too much. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 300;">She deadlifted and squatted up until the middle of her last week, and used RPE to modify intensity when needed. One important note for her is that she had trained for 4 years consistently and is a coach, so she was well conditioned and in shape and knew how to make intelligent modifications when needed. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 300;">Some recommend against starting lifting when pregnant. While it depends on health, previous exercise and activity, and the stage of pregnancy, women can in fact begin training when pregnant, but things will need to be progressed more conservatively. The biggest thing for novices--and pregnant women in general--is managing stress.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 300;">When it comes to managing stress, consider that every pregnancy is different, so you don’t want to judge yourself against a previous pregnancy. You also don’t want to judge yourself against other women and their pregnancy: it’s ultimately about your body now. What are you capable of doing today?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 300;">Different lifts may prevent pain and discomfort for different people. Some common modifications that you may use include the following: high bar squats, bodyweight squats, rack pulls, feet up on bench press, seated press, tempo squat.</span></p> <p><span