Pregnancy Exercises: What You Can Do And What To Avoid

Over the years, so many BBG girls have reached out to me wanting to know what pregnancy exercises they can do safely. I completely understand that you may want to continue being active during pregnancy to maintain your fitness. Of course, we all want to do it in the safest way possible. 

If you haven’t read my blog on modifying exercise during pregnancy, make sure you check it out too. There are some great tips on how you can make exercising while pregnant safer! 

Jump to: 

• Pregnancy exercises you can do 
• Modified pregnancy exercises
• Ab exercises during pregnancy
• Back exercises during pregnancy
• Pregnancy exercises to avoid
• Jumping exercises
• Advanced abdominal exercises
• Exercises on your back

For those of you who are looking for a list of which exercises you can do or that you should avoid during pregnancy, keep reading!

Pregnancy exercises you can do 

When you’re feeling up to it, there are a number of exercises suitable for pregnancy. So long as your doctor has given you the okay and you are exercising with caution, there is no reason to avoid exercise during pregnancy. Keep in mind, your routine should be focused on maintaining your fitness level or simply being active. During pregnancy, you should not be trying to lose weight. 

I’ve given a few examples of some of the exercises you can do that you might be concerned about, including modifications that you can make to feel more comfortable.

Modified pregnancy exercises

You’ve probably already guessed that you will need to make changes to your routine, particularly if you normally do a lot of core training or high-intensity training. Switch to moderate or low-intensity exercise instead — walking, swimming or cycling can be good substitutes. 

If you want to work out from home, take some inspiration from the exercises used in my pregnancy-friendly workout. You can also try doing some basic exercises to keep you moving, such as squats (so long as they aren’t deep squats) or push-ups. 

Push-up variations, like wall push-ups or incline push-ups, can help to reduce the amount of load going through the muscles. This also helps to minimise the amount of stress going through the body. 

Ab exercises during pregnancy 

Maintaining a strong core is important for supporting your body, particularly your spine. In pregnancy, it is important to have a strong core because remember, your body is going to be supporting another human! Back pain and pregnancy often go hand-in-hand, so doing some ab exercises during pregnancy can help to reduce this. 

Here are a few ab exercises I use in BBG workouts that can be performed in the first trimester of pregnancy:

Planks 

1. Start by placing your forearms (wrist to elbow) firmly on the mat, ensuring that your elbows are directly below your shoulders. Extend both legs behind you and elevate your hips off the mat, resting on the balls of your feet.
2. Brace your abdominals and ensure that your spine remains in a neutral position.
3. Hold this position, breathing deeply throughout.

Heel Slides

1. Start by lying flat on your back on a yoga mat. Bend your knees and position your feet firmly on the mat, ensuring that they are hip-width apart and your spine is in a neutral position. Allow your arms to rest by your sides on the mat. Inhale.
2. Exhale. While maintaining a neutral spine and drawing your ribs towards your hips, release your right leg, extend your knee and slide your heel along the mat.
3. Inhale. Bend your knee and slide your right heel along the mat to return to the starting position.
4. Exhale. While maintaining a neutral spine and drawing your ribs towards your hips, release your left leg, extend your knee and slide your heel along the mat.
5. Inhale. Bend your knee and slide your left heel along the mat to return to the starting position.

Bent-Knee Fall-Out 

1. Start by lying flat on your back on a yoga mat. Bend your knees and position your feet firmly on the mat, ensuring that they are hip-width apart and your spine is in a neutral position. Allow your arms to rest by your sides on the mat. This is your starting position.
2. Inhale. Slowly lower your right knee outwards towards the floor as far as you can, ensuring that your pelvis and left leg remains still.
3. Exhale. Raise your right knee to return to the starting position.
4. Inhale. Slowly lower your left knee outwards towards the floor, ensuring that your pelvis and right leg remains still.
5. Exhale. Raise your left knee to return to the starting position.

When doing any ab exercises during pregnancy, make sure you continue to breathe as smoothly as possible to avoid putting extra pressure on your abdomen. If you are feeling any abdominal pain while you are exercising, stop immediately. 

From the second trimester onwards, only complete core exercises that your physiotherapist or similar health professional has advised are suitable for you. 

Back exercises during pregnancy 

A number of pregnancy exercises focus on maintaining posture or increasing strength in key areas. Your back is one of them as there will be more pressure on your body to support the growing baby. Incorporating some back exercises for women carrying a child can allow for better posture and more room for the baby to grow!

These exercises all help to target your back, without the need for laying on the ground (more on that later). 

Single-Arm Rows

1. Place a bench in front of you.
2. Holding a dumbbell in your right hand, place your left hand and left knee on the bench. Reposition your right foot to ensure that both your shoulders and hips are parallel to (in line with) the floor. Extend your right arm directly below your chest. This is your starting position.
3. Inhale.
4. Exhale. Bend your right elbow to bring the dumbbell in towards your body, ensuring that your elbow remains in close contact with the right side of your body.
5. Inhale. Extend your right elbow to return to the starting position.

Band Pull-Aparts

1. Plant both feet on the floor slightly further than shoulder-width apart. Hold one hand on each end of the recovery band with an overhand grip (palms facing down) and extend your arms directly in front of your chest, ensuring that your elbows are completely locked. Inhale.
2. Exhale. Using the muscles in your shoulders and back, pull the recovery band ends outwards and backwards until your arms are in line with your shoulders. You should feel a small squeeze between your shoulder blades.
3. Inhale. Hold this position briefly before gently drawing the ends of the recovery band together to return to the starting position.

Seated Rows 

1. While seated on a yoga mat, extend both legs out in front of you. Wrap the recovery band around the bottom of your feet so that you are holding one end of the band in each hand with an overhand grip (palms facing the floor).
2. Sit up tall and draw your shoulder blades down and back to push your chest out. Extend your arms in front of you. Inhale. 
3. Exhale. Using the muscles in your shoulders and back, bend your elbows outwards and backwards to increase the tension in the band, ensuring that your elbows and forearms remain parallel to (in line with) the floor. You should feel a small squeeze between your shoulder blades.
4. Inhale. Extend your elbows to return to the starting position.

The added weight of the baby can cause your posture to change, so adding in some exercises to target your back can help draw your chest and shoulders open again.

Pregnancy exercises to avoid

If you’ve read my other blogs on exercise during pregnancy, you’ll know it can be beneficial and it is important for your overall health. It is even more important to make sure you are exercising safely — which means taking a few precautions and listening to your body while doing any pregnancy exercises. 

Here are a few exercises you should avoid during pregnancy:

Jumping exercises

Some of the key pregnancy exercises to avoid are those that may put you at risk of falling or losing your balance. Your balance is affected during pregnancy as your centre of gravity changes, so swap exercises like jump lunges or jump squats for static versions (the standard, no-jumping kind!) to minimise risk. Avoid exercises like step-ups, knee-ups or bench jumps too. 

High-impact exercises or training like step classes should also be avoided, as this places a lot of pressure on your joints. During pregnancy, your body releases the hormone relaxin, which causes your muscles and ligaments to become more flexible before birth. This changes the way you move and can affect your coordination, putting you at greater risk of a fall.    

As you may have guessed, training styles involving agility or extreme balance to complete are also not recommended during pregnancy. Plus, jumping exercises can also place an additional load on your pelvic floor, which is often weakened during pregnancy. 

Advanced abdominal exercises

If you were thinking of doing any BBG exercise during pregnancy, you might be happy to know you can say goodbye to jackknives and in-and-out planks for a while! These exercises can potentially increase any abdominal separation (known as diastasis recti, a common condition that can come from pregnancy) that you may experience.  

Avoid sit-ups or double-leg lift ab exercises during pregnancy as this can place a lot of pressure on your abdominals. 

Exercises on your back

While I’ve talked about back exercises for women during pregnancy being useful for your posture, the exercises I’ve suggested don’t require you to be flat on your back. This is because laying on your back for more than two minutes can place pressure on the blood flow in the vena cava, slowing the return of blood to your heart. Keep this in mind when you are sleeping, too. 

Staying safe with pregnancy exercises

Now you know which exercises are okay and which ones are off-limits during pregnancy. 

As I’ve already explained in this series of blogs, you should not be aiming to set new fitness goals or working out at a really high intensity. Being active is good for you but don’t go overboard and ALWAYS make sure your doctor is happy for you to continue exercising. 

Take it slowly and always make sure you are drinking water no matter what pregnancy exercises or workouts you are doing.