Top Tip: Exercising While Pregnant

As a bit of a fitness buff prior to getting pregnant, I've not let up on the whole fitness thing. Granted, I have slowed down somewhat during these last months, but I think it's so important to keep fit and strong throughout your pregnancy - after all, labour looks as difficult as running a marathon and you wouldn't do that without any preparation, would you?

I still swim and go to the gym, although I do sometimes get funny looks while I'm lifting weights or on the cross-trainer. Yes! I'm pregnant, but it's OK, we're allowed to exercise within reason.

However, the bigger I'm getting, the more tired I'm getting so I'm supplementing my less-frequent gym trips now with fitness DVDs. I haven't actually used fitness DVDs since they were, well, videos! So it was with some trepidation and memories of dodgy callanetics videos from the '80s that I made a couple of purchases from Amazon.

After much research I settled on two. The first one I chose was Pregnancy Health Yoga. I used to do yoga regularly and have missed that flexibility (especially when bending over with a bump is twice as hard). I've also heard all the tales that yoga does help through labour so popped this one into my basket. Having now done it a few times, I can say it's really good, although I think it will help if you've already done some yoga moves. I do find the new age music and lovey-dovey comments to send golden lights of love to your baby slightly nauseous but the DVD has been a godsend at dealing with my ever increasing fatigue and SPD pain.


Second on the list is Complete Pregnancy Fitness. This one really jumped out at me as a lot of reveiwers said it really made them sweat - and I still want to do that! However, sometimes it can be scary knowing exactly what you can and cannot do in the gym, so I thought this would be a good compromise. And it is! It's funny (she tells you to pause when you need that inevitable wee break!), easy to follow, makes good use of household items such as chairs for squats and does really make you sweat! I really felt like I'd had a good workout after following this.

The plus point with both of these videos is that they are presented by pregnant women so you can't use that excuse that you can't do it because of your bump.

They also include workouts to do with your partner, but I've yet to encourage my dear hubby to take part in it yet - will report back if I ever persuade him...