Is It Safe To Lift Weights During Pregnancy?
Should I workout during pregnancy? Is it safe to lift weights during pregnancy? These are questions we frequently see from our community.
The short answer is yes, most women should exercise while pregnant. Modified exercise is not only safe for most pregnant women, but it’s also recommended! The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends pregnant women with uncomplicated pregnancies engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity throughout the week.
Still, it doesn't help that there is a lot of conflicting information out there about exercising during pregnancy. You might see things like "don't lift too much weight," "no lunges," or "don't do any crunches"—the list goes on! So how do you know what to believe?
What are the benefits of exercising during pregnancy?
As a women's health orthopedic physical therapist and certified pregnancy and postpartum corrective exercise specialist, I'm always continuing my education to learn the latest research about exercise and pregnancy. And as more research comes out, there's even more evidence that exercising while pregnant not only benefits YOU as the mom, but it also benefits your baby!
Overall, exercising during pregnancy decreases both of your risks of chronic disease.
How exercise during pregnancy benefits you:
Reduces backaches, constipation, bloating, and swelling
Reduces common pregnancy aches and pains (including symphysis pubis dysfunction (SPD) and sciatica)
Boosts your mood and energy levels
Helps you sleep better
Promotes muscle tone, strength, and endurance
Helps you prepare for labor and delivery and the physicality of motherhood
How exercise during pregnancy benefits baby:
Boosts baby's brain development
Higher Apgar scores (a test that measures how the baby is doing after birth)
Improves heart health (baby's heart trains just as much as mama's, which benefits their cardiac autonomic nervous system before they're outside the womb!)
Improves Bayley Scale of Infant Development scores (one-year-old babies of exercising mamas perform significantly better on this child development test)
Leads to less body fat, higher general intelligence scores, and great oral language skills (shown in five-year-old children of active mamas)
How much exercise is OK during pregnancy?
With the amount of confusion around what is safe—combined with the exhaustion and sickness that often comes with pregnancy—many women don't workout while pregnant. Research discussing the results of a nationwide survey noted that in 2008, only 15% of pregnant women met the 150-minute-per-week national exercise recommendation.
Here's the truth: Exercising is a key component to a healthy pregnancy! Picking up weights is GOOD. Dynamic movements are GREAT. Doing smart core work during pregnancy helps reduce the impact of your abdominals after birth. And as I said earlier, it also reduces aches and pains, prepares your body for labor, and helps you build strength for the physicality of motherhood. WIN-WIN-WIN!
What kinds of exercises are safe during pregnancy?
So how do you know what exercises are safe? We've got two tips for you:
1. You MUST follow a safe, expert-backed program. Expecting and Empowered was created by myself—a women's health PT and certified prenatal and postnatal exercise specialist—and my sister Amy—a certified personal trainer. We've helped thousands of women have an empowered and safe pregnancy! Inside the Expecting and Empowered app, you’ll find a prenatal yoga and strength training program that modifies all the exercises for you and works on areas that need help during pregnancy.
2. You have to be realistic with what YOU can do. That first trimester is incredibly rough for a lot of moms! So lifting weights might not be in the cards for you—and that's OK! If you can, take a short walk that also honors your body. We see from our app users that the most frequently used pregnancy app program is the Second Trimester Program, which makes sense! That's when you're typically feeling the best and are able to workout. Give yourself grace and know that ANY movement is great!
What are the most important exercises during pregnancy?
Once you're following your pregnancy-safe program, specific things you want to do while working out include:
Connecting your breath to your pelvic floor. That means getting into positions that make you breathe better into your bottom, such as:
Squat With Diaphragmatic Back Body Breathing
Doorway Stretch With Breath
Child's Pose With Angles (the baby is squishing your diaphragm, making it harder to breathe properly)
Keeping your feet happy! Your feet are your body's shock absorbers and take pressure away from the rest of your body. But the feet don't work well if they're stiff, tight, or swollen. It's also common for women with pelvic floor issues to have less optimal feet function. To show your feet some love, try these moves:
DB Hip Opener With Ankle Mobilization
Calf Raises
Improving upper back mobility and strength. This area supplies nerves to your core and parasympathetic nervous system—which helps keep the body calm. If you have stiffness in the ribs and upper back during pregnancy, you're not protecting your core. Exercises to try include:
Side Lying Thoracic Rotation With Circles
Standing Lower Cervical And Upper Thoracic Stretch
Modified Side Plank With Thoracic Rotation
What exercises are safe during the third trimester?
During the third trimester, your expert-backed program should emphasize these areas during your workouts:
Hip mobility. Your hips will get tight and sore if you're not working them at different angles. Most exercise programs keep heading in one direction with exercises like squats or lunges. Instead, you want to work the hip joints at multiple angles with moves like:
3-way Chair Squats
Speedskaters
CB Lateral Step
CB Hip Internal And External Rotation
Pelvic floor relaxation. The pelvic floor muscles are part of your core and help support your bladder, uterus, and bowels. During the third trimester, these moves can help relax the pelvic floor and prepare you for birth:
Wide Leg Child's Pose
Happy Baby
Side Lying Pelvic Lift
Deep Squat With Block
Upper back mobility and strength. Keep doing your upper back exercises! You're getting ready for the physical job of being a mama! Strength takes 4-6 weeks to gain, so your postpartum self will thank you.
Again, doing these exercises with the guidance of a pregnancy-safe program is key! With easy-to-follow workouts that meet you exactly where you are in pregnancy, you'll never have to wonder if your exercise is safe for you and your baby. Hopefully, this is the encouragement you need to take care of yourself during pregnancy and make a commitment to physical fitness!
YOUR PREGNANCY FITNESS STARTS HERE
Never wonder what workouts are safe to do again with the Expecting and Empowered App. Every week of your pregnancy, you can know you’re building strength for labor AND motherhood. All you have to do is push play.
Sources
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (2023). Exercise during pregnancy. https://www.acog.org/womens-health/faqs/exercise-during-pregnancy
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). Healthy pregnant or postpartum women. https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/pregnancy/index.htm
Downs DS, et al. (2012). Physical activity and pregnancy: Past and present evidence and future recommendations. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3563105
Moyer C, et al. (2016). The influence of prenatal exercise on offspring health: A review. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5075987/
Piper TJ, et al. (2012). Core Training Exercise Selection During Pregnancy. https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Fulltext/2012/02000/Core_Training_Exercise_Selection_During_Pregnancy.9.aspx
Ribeiro MM, et al. (2021). Physical exercise in pregnancy: benefits, risks and prescription. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jpm-2021-0315/html
Wang Y, et al. (2022). The association between physical exercise during pregnancy and maternal and neonatal health outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9420626/