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Thread: Conditioning for a pregnant women

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
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    Default Conditioning for a pregnant women

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    Hi, my older sister is currently 24 weeks in her pregnancy, and I planned a simple FBW routine for her which she follows 3 times a week.
    Main focus would be to make her body stronger, especially the lumbar extensors as the entire center of gravity would shift slightly forward and lots of the stress for a working pregnant women would be there as I figured out.

    she currently does:
    -DB squats
    -OHP with 25lb bar
    -chinups-pullups in a "gravity machine"- type of machine that reduces ones own BW using weight
    -Dips in that same machine
    -Light, high rep(10) RDL
    -Isometric contraction, hands on a fitball legs on the floor, and holding the body straight like a plank- saw several sites recommending that.

    25 minutes walk on treadmill at 4MPH at the end of each session
    +10 minute stretching twice a week

    Would you direct special exercises for pregnant women? Strengthen certain muscles especially(back ext., certain ab muscles?) and is that kind of program good enough?

    Appreciate your time, I did try to search for info but there wasn't much available

  2. #2
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    My rule has always been to keep them pretty much at the activity level they're used to after the first trimester. Before then, and in the absence of any potential difficulties, they can train as though they were not pregnant, i.e. start a new program, lift heavy, condition hard. After this 3 months, it's probably unwise to introduce significant intensity or volume to her if she's not adapted to it already. A gal that's been training heavy for years will probably be fine training heavy up until 8+ months if her size does not significantly change her technique for squats and pulls. I've seen women PR the squat at 8+ months. This level of strength and conditioning also seems to shorten labor. Our own Sarah Kim was pushing the prowler in the heat up until 7 months.

  3. #3
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    So basically nothing in particular you would recommend for a pregnant female over any other female?
    I see so many bullshit about strengthening specific ab muscles before pregnancy as they go through a serious trauma while the kid pops out etc. etc. hard to tell what's right and what's wrong

    I hate it whenever the gym owner tells my sister to leave most of the basic exercises(-"don't squat!") and tells her to walk up the treadmill and swim as if she was an aging whale or idk what.

    I just received Starr's book and going to read it, already saved up some dollars for your next edition of SS, not sure if you have it all wrapped up, but 5-6 lines considering pregnant women going on SS would be awesome.

  4. #4
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    I am of the opinion that squats and deadlifts work the abs pretty thoroughly. Pregnancy is not a disease, and it is amazing that the species survived so long without treadmills and swimming pools. Perhaps Sullydog would offer his opinion of which speciality is more full of shit: obstetrics or pediatrics.

  5. #5
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    Our own Sarah Kim was pushing the prowler in the heat up until 7 months.
    She is also one of those who were doing her squats and deadlifts right up to delivery, and if I remember correctly she was more than a little annoyed that she wasn't lifting more weight. As a matter of fact, she was flipping tires three weeks postpartum. She proved that it's useful to be an independent thinker.

    jp

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe View Post
    I am of the opinion that squats and deadlifts work the abs pretty thoroughly. Pregnancy is not a disease, and it is amazing that the species survived so long without treadmills and swimming pools.
    Women all over the world squat in paddies, draw water, carry firewood, fuck their husbands, thatch their roofs, herd stock, and, in some parts, fire off AKs and mortars, as the situation demands. There never seems to be any shortage of babies in these less enlightened regions, although there are often tragic shortages of education, immunizations, and good nutrition after they're born.

    I haven't looked, but I bet if you did a MEDLINE or PubMed search of the literature on pregnancy and barbell training, you'd come up with...if you'll pardon me...squat.

    Actually, RIp's post above is the first data point on this question I've ever encountered, and it really got my attention. Honestly, I'd never thought about it--and quite frankly, no pregnant woman has ever asked me how late she can do barbell squats into pregnancy. Pregnancy is not a disease, true, but both pregnancy and parturition stress mother and fetus, and many things can go wrong. As a physician and a physiologist, I hypothesize that strength training during pregnancy is salutary for both mother and fetus. For example, when I read Rip's earlier post, I was thinking I'd bet my left nut that if you compared women who deadlift and squat to those who didn't, you'd find that the first group had far fewer labor-induced high-grade perineal lacerations (they are horrible).

    Good luck getting a grant to do that study.

    Perhaps Sullydog would offer his opinion of which speciality is more full of shit: obstetrics or pediatrics.
    Oh, tempt me not.

    If you're talking about actual, physical shit, as in fecal matter, then I would have to report that I got more shit (and other stuff) splattered on me doing obstetrics rotations than I ever got doing peds. If you're talking about practice bullshit, the stuff doctors do and advise based on bad evidence or no evidence at all, based on medical mythology and misunderstanding of what precious little good science is out there, I'd have to say Ob and Peds each have their own special flavors of shyte, but in terms of overall fecal bulk they are no better or worse than the rest of the OutHouse of Medicine.

    You have said a lot in your writings about medical bullshit, Rip. (SE? had some particularly sharp barbs.) But I have bad news: it's worse than you think. My own specialty is not exempt. I gave an orientation lecture on the emergency management of stroke and traumatic brain injury on Friday to a fresh crop of brand new, freckle-faced, highly dangerous interns. I give it every year. I spend two hours telling them all about standards of care for these two devastating entities, the things they are expected to do when these patients come in.

    I look forward all year to the moment when I can watch their faces as I then tell them that, based on the science, the "standard of care" is about 90% shit. Like everything else in the human condition. But at least I tell them. I have some pride.

    (Okay, fine. The answer is: Obstetrics. By a nose. There. I said it.)

  7. #7
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    Sully, I propose that me and you and Hurling get together some weekend and Drink.

  8. #8
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    Sounds like a plan. I'm a single-malt guy, myself.

  9. #9
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    I'll buy the food and do all the cooking to be able to listen in to that weekend's tales. (I'm a very good cook, you won't be sorry.)

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe View Post
    Sully, I propose that me and you and Hurling get together some weekend and Drink.
    Sully just told me about this a few hours ago. I have had some epic drunks in my life, one in West Frankfort with Paul Uraski one of the cops who decided to sort of adopt me as backward little brother in my early 20's. Then there was the one on Memorial Day in 1984 in Truckee after being a bitchin' white water rafter who was determined to party 'til he puked on the American River. We started with Long Island Ice Tea's that impaired my judgement enough to start downing shots of Everclear later. I'm damn lucky I didn't die from that night. I had lost my ability to differentiate red from green while playing Uno. Someone told me I still won the game the next day though. It took two days to recover completely from that although I sweat a lot of it out the next day on the drive through the Central Valley with a suddenly ineffective A/C in my car at 100+ temps. This one will also be memorable although at this point I will have restrain my weaknesses of old. But fun as Hell I have no doubt.

    It might be challenging in the near term given CA, TX, and MI as a near perfect triangle of North/South/West separation. I'm planning on retiring in Southern Illinois in a few more years. That is damn near a midway point. Then again, I'll have to scout Illinois for good housing, so this could be sooner than that. Add to that, I'm in the shit locker at work just now, so things could come to a head even sooner than I planned.

    Good grief, what with geezers like Sully, Mike, bob, Callador,in Wisconsin and Michigan and that pup tertius and a few of those other Hoosiers like Hamburgerfan and the Emaciated Freak, we have a quorum. We'll let the kids drive us home afterward.

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