Strength training and pregnancy.

[PaulBeech]

One of my clients, actually two, have got pregnant. One has been told to just keep going and just watch out for feeling bad, overly worked and that type of thing. The other has been told to be way more cautious and that lifting may not be a great idea. Does anyone have any experience with this?

[Cody]

Yeah, my wife trained through the first two trimester of her first pregnancy, then the belly got in the way. You treat them like normal, except that any slight pain in the belly or crotch means stop immediately.

I would use extreme caution if the woman has any complications with her pregnancy, to the point of probably not taking the risk of causing any harm and getting sued to oblivion - might want a special waiver. If everything is perfect with her pregnancy, I wouldn't worry (and would speculate that the pregnancy will actually be easier for her).

Last thing to consider is that the body starts releasing a chemical that relaxes all the muscles, tendons, etc as the pregnancy continues, which makes it more difficult to train since it becomes harder to hold form together. For us, this was in synch with the belly so it was a non-issue, but just be aware.

[Nate7out]

My wife did everything up to about 20 weeks. Hitting PR's up to about 16 weeks. Then at 20 weeks stopped benching and deadlifting. She was still squatting pressing and chinning until about 30 weeks.

[Tennisgolfboll]

My wife does not train during pregnancy. We both agree that it is the best course of action.

She gets over flexible joints (foglossning, not sure what the English word is) when she gets pregnant.

[silachoo]

hahaha

[melody]

Common wisdom among lifters is if you've been training for a while continue on while paying attention to your body. You might shoot Gillian or Staci a message. I bet they'd have good advice.

[PaulBeech]

Yeah I put this in the ssc questions to see their answers and it got locked! Hmm. I got some answers anyway.

[jwagner]

My wife doesn't lift (I would love it if she did, but I know better than to push it). However, her doctor encouraged her to continue any exercise she was doing before pregnancy(he mentioned running, lifting, crossfit , aerobics and yoga) and just listen to her body.

He also stated that most pregnant women who had high abdominal strength had easier and quicker labors.