9 Good Working Out During Pregnancy

If you’re pregnant, you should regularly engage in aerobic exercise and  physical activities, such as walking, swimming, dancing and cycling, to keep the body fit and ensure a healthy pregnancy. Exercise does wonders during pregnancy. It boosts mood, improves sleep, and reduces pregnancy aches and pains. It helps prevent and treat gestational diabetes and may keep preeclampsia at bay.

But during that time, you’ll need to discuss your exercise plans with your doctor or other health care provider early on and make a few adjustments to your normal exercise routine. Read on to discover our top tips for working out during pregnancy, and what you can do to make your workouts go smoothly!

The Best Working Out During Pregnancy

  1. Pregnancy is a great time to discover yoga. The gentle stretches can improve muscle tone and flexibility and help you to feel relaxed.
  2. Many experts recommend walking. It’s easy to vary the pace, add hills, and add distance. If you’re just starting, begin with a moderately brisk pace for a mile, 3 days a week. Add a couple of minutes every week, pick up the pace a bit, and eventually add hills to your route.
  3. After the first trimester of pregnancy, it is advisable to avoid lying flat on your back, and especially while exercising. As the uterus grows and becomes heavier, it can cut off circulation to a main artery in your back if you lay down for long periods of time.
  4. Healthcare providers and fitness experts hail swimming as the best and safest exercise for pregnant women. Swimming is ideal because it exercises both large muscle groups (arms and legs), provides cardiovascular benefits, and allows expectant women to feel weightless despite the extra pounds of pregnancy.
  5. The risk of dehydration is increased during exercise in the pregnant women. It is therefore, advisable  to drink plenty of water, at least eight glasses a day and more when it’s hot.
  6. Cycling is a great aerobic exercise to practice during pregnancy. In this case, only use a stationary bike to avoid injuring yourself and the baby.
  7. You can get your heart pumping by dancing to your favorite tunes in the comfort of your own living room, with a DVD, or at a dance class, but steer clear of routines that call for leaps, jumps, or twirls.
  8. Being pregnant, you already need to consume 300-500 extra calories per day to support your baby! But if you are working out, you should add another couple hundred calories to that number! Working out burns calories, so you need to make sure that your weight gain is healthy, steady, and increasing.
  9. Stretching is wonderful for keeping your body limber and relaxed and preventing muscle strain. Add stretching to your cardiovascular exercises to get a complete workout.

While physical exercise is very essential during pregnancy, always consult your doctor or your health care provider before commencing  any exercise program. Do you know any great tips for working out during pregnancy? Please comment below, and thanks for reading!

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