Warm Up Exercises for Pregnant Women

Series Summary

Exercising and staying fit while pregnant is important for your health and for the baby’s health as well. Exercising is known to help with morning sickness and toned muscles can help with an easier delivery. Knowing exactly what you can and can’t do while pregnant is the tricky part to pregnancy fitness. The body cannot handle some of the strain that a typical workout presents. Prenatal muscle toning can be achieved in several different ways including Yoga, Pilates and basic strength training.

In this series of videos, you will get tips on exercises that are prefect for pregnant women. Watch as our expert introduces you to pregnancy exercises that will tone and build muscles essential for pregnant women. Learn how to do chest presses, bicep curls, triceps extensions and dumbbell rolls to build strength in your arms. Tone your abdominal muscles by doing pregnancy–safe crunches and front and lateral raises. Learn more about abdominal contractions and splinting from our prenatal exercise guru. Transform muscles with standing glute lifts, oblique twists, pelvic tilts, and supported ball squats. You will have no problem staying fit during your pregnancy after watching these videos.

Video Transcript

"My name is Ricketta Butler and I’m a fitness professional. I’ve been in the fitness industry for the past 10 and a half years. I’m certified through AFA and AAAI. I am a personal trainer, group fitness coordinator and a group fitness instructor. On behalf of ExpertVillage.com today I’ll be demonstrating exercises for prenatal women. Before you begin exercise program during your pregnancy, you must consult your physician first, just to go over a little bit of safety before we get started. Before beginning your exercise program you must warm up. Your warm up will be a little bit longer and less vigorous than usual. You want to warm up for about 8 to 12 minutes. During your exercise, you must monitor your heart rate at rest that means doing absolutely nothing, during your pregnancy your heart rate will be elevated about 15 beats per minute. So you want to check your heart rate every 5 to 7 minutes throughout your exercise program. If you’re a beginner you training heart rate zone should be between 60 and 70 percent of your max. For the more advanced exerciser, that is the person that exercised before pregnancy, 75 percent would be your max. No one should be over 144 beats per minute. Throughout your exercise I need you to stay hydrated, so grab a water bottle, and put it next to you. I need you to drink before, during and after the exercise program. Also be careful not to exercise in a hot and humid location because your core body temperature is slightly elevated during pregnancy as well, it’s very important to monitor your body temperature. Another thing I want to discuss is stretching after the exercise program. Your body releases certain hormones that soften the connective tissues around the joints so that you can ease the birthing process because of this you don’t want to stretch to your maximum resistance, just mild tension. With that being said, again you must consult your physician before you begin an exercise program. If you’ve already done so, we’re going to go ahead and get started. "