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*****Sometimes exercise during pregnancy is strictly forbidden to protect the health of the mother, the baby, or both. Check with your healthcare provider before starting, continuing, or changing an exercise regimen.
If you have any of the following symptoms while exercising, stop immediately and contact your healthcare provider:
vaginal bleeding, dizziness or feeling faint, shortness of breath, headache, chest pain, muscle weakness, calf pain or swelling (which could indicate a blood clot), back or pelvic pain, contractions/preterm labor, decreased fetal movement (learn how to monitor your baby's movements, but bear in mind that the baby's often most quiet when you're most active), fluid leaking from your vagina, rapid heartbeat or palpitations, even while at rest.*****
Transversus Contraction
Quite possibly the most important exercise during and after pregnancy. This exercise will help you “find” your Transversus Abdominus Muscle. This muscle is integral in maintaining and regaining strength during and after pregnancy.
Begin seated with your legs crossed in front of you. Your back is straight, shoulders are down and relaxed. Inhale, allowing your stomach to expand as your diaphragm domes down. Forcefully exhale, as though you were trying to fog a mirror in front of your face, pulling your belly button to your spine, contracting all of your abdominal muscles. The deepest contraction that you feel is your Transversus Abdominus. If you can’t “find” it, laugh. That muscle that gets sore when you laugh really hard? That is your transversus.
This exercise can be done seated, laying on your back, kneeling on all fours, standing, and pretty much any other position you can think of.
Transversus Contraction with Pelvic Tilt
Now that you know where your tranversus is, let’s begin to mobilize your lower back. This will help alleviate some of the pain you may feel towards the end of your pregnancy.
Lay down with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor (if you cannot lay on your back, this exercise can also be done up on all fours). Inhale, exhale and pull your belly button to your spine. Inhale again, maintaining your abdominal contraction, and as you exhale, pull your belly button even lower, pressing your lower back into the mat.
Bridging
Not only does it work your glutes and hamstrings, Bridging keeps helps keep mobility in your low back and combat the extreme lordosis that plagues many women after they have had children.
Lie on your back with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor hip width apart. Now scoot your feet together two or three inches- women always think their hips are wider than they really are. Your back should be in a neutral position with your natural arch underneath your low back, hip bones and pubic bone in a flat plane to the floor.
Beginning with your tail bone, roll you low back into the mat and raise your hips, peeling your vertebrae off the mat one at a time. Raise your hips until you can draw a diagonal line from your shoulders to your knees through your hips, inhale, and exhale as you begin to roll back down, again, one vertebrae t a time.
Repeat 4-5 times.
To make it harder: With your hips high, raise one leg straight up to the ceiling without letting your hips shift. Hold for count of 2, lower down and switch legs.
