I'm pregnant! When & why do I need to modify my exercise?
Pregnancy is the perfect time to embrace a maintenance phase — a time to focus on sustaining your strength, mobility, and energy, rather than chasing personal bests or trying something new. In this blog, we’ll explain when to modify exercise during pregnancy and why it’s so important for your pelvic floor, core, and overall safety. We hope you find it helpful!
But when do you start to modify your exercise?
You can usually continue your normal exercise routine until around 16 weeks pregnant. After that point, it’s recommended to start making pregnancy-specific exercise modifications. However, this is just a general guideline — the timing can vary depending on your individual pregnancy, whether it’s your first or a subsequent pregnancy, and your overall fitness and wellbeing.
Everyone is different. Some women feel really sick and need to modify sooner, while others feel strong and are able to continue with their regular routine in the first trimester. The most important thing is listening to your body.
Here’s why you should modify your exercise:
To support your pelvic floor
Imagine your Pelvic Floor is a hammock, when more weight is added to the hammock it begins to drop and stretch. As your bump grows throughout your pregnancy, more and more weight is loaded on the pelvic floor muscles. Pregnancy makes these muscles more elastic and mobile, particularly around the pelvic organs (bladder, uterus and rectum).
A weak pelvic floor can lead to urine leakage, incontinence, lower back pain, difficulty emptying the bladder, painful sex or a prolapse. Safe pregnancy exercise includes regular pelvic floor activation. While you’re working out, focus on exhaling on the hardest part of the movement to avoid downward pressure.
2. To protect your core
As your bump grows the connective tissue (linear alba) begins to stretch. Direct core exercises working your six pack abs (rectus abdominus) and loaded twisting movements put too much pressure on the connective tissue which can enhance this risk of abdominal separation (diastasis recti).
While abdominal separation is a normal part of pregnancy, we do want to reduce any additional loading and do what we can to minimise the risk. That doesn’t mean you should stop doing core work — it just needs to be pregnancy-safe core exercise.
3. To keep you safe and strong
During pregnancy, your body produces relaxin, a hormone that increases ligament and joint elasticity to prepare for childbirth. While helpful, this also makes joints less stable, raising the risk of injuries like sprains or strains. Coupled with posture changes, a shifting center of gravity, balance and coordination are also affected. At She Moves our belief is that it’s best to stick to Low Impact workouts, avoid overstretching and focus on stability.
What about lying on your back?
We also recommended that you avoid lying flat on your back due to potential pressure on major blood vessels. While this can be a controversial topic in the fitness world at She Moves we will always lean on the side of caution with this. When lying flat on your back, the growing uterus can compress the inferior vena cava - a large vein that carries blood back to the heart from the lower body. This can reduce blood flow, potentially causing dizziness, shortness of breath, or a drop in blood pressure, there is also a small possibility that it may also reduce blood flow to the baby. We like to opt for side-lying positions or an incline to keep blood flowing and feel your best!
Remember, the goal of exercise during pregnancy is to maintain your strength, support your body through its changes, and stay mobile - not push for PBs! You’re already achieving something incredible by growing a tiny human! Embrace this maintenance phase, make those small exercise adjustments, and focus on feeling good. Your body is doing amazing work - celebrate it!
Helpful links
Join the She Moves membership and get access to our pregnancy safe workouts - Just $19 per month
Listen to the podcast: “Fit and Fabulous Pregnancy - Top 10 tips with Ren and Jen ”
