Can You Work Your Core During Pregnancy?

One of the most common questions I get from my patients is, “What core exercises am I allowed to do? And until when do I do them?”. I think my answer surprises most expecting moms. There is such a lack of education about movement and exercise for pregnant women! So here I am trying to help change that.

Core work during pregnancy is essential to help reduce low back pain, pelvic and hip pain, and help you improve how you feel while lifting up groceries or your toddler. Not only can maintaining strong core musculature and recruitment help you with a more comfortable pregnancy, but it also prepares your body for labor & delivery and sets you up for a smoother postpartum recovery. 

How do we do this? With consistency and challenge! It's not enough for pregnancy exercises to be “safe”, but they must also be effective. We also have to adjust between trimesters in order to cater to the specific needs each week brings. As you progress in your pregnancy your exercise routine should ideally go from focusing on general strength to incorporating movements that prepare the body for childbirth.

If you’re expecting and wondering how the heck you’re going to enter the delivery room with confidence, I’m your girl. Here are 3 myths about core work during pregnancy:

Avoid all core exercises

Just no. This is a recipe for disaster. YES it's important to be aware of what you are doing and how you are modifying, but this does not mean to avoid core work!

If you have good form, appropriate exercise selection and load, and proper load management- core work can transform your pregnancy from bla to wow. 

Don't miss out on this gem! This is one of the reasons I created The Prepared Pelvis to help get you to the big deal feeling strong and empowered.

Avoid all rotation exercises

I’m sure you’ve seen some bloggers post about this on the gram. If you hear someone make a statement that includes “always” “all” or “never” - you should be aware that they are most likely not your best source of information. There is no all or nothing in this field.

Thoracic, or mid back rotation is huge during pregnancy. Hip rotation- HUGE. I have an entire chapter dedicated to this in my course, The Prepared Pelvis. 

The type of rotation you’ll eventually want to be careful with is anything that involves the low back (lumbar spine) and a heavy load. As baby grows and our tissues stretch, this can potentially contribute to worsening our naturally occurring diastasis recti.

You should consciously keep your core engaged throughout the day

I know, we all do it for the photo. Can we all agree how ridiculous it would be to walk around like this all day? Thank you. 

This can actually lead to symptoms like urinary leakage, pelvic heaviness, and a lower belly bulge. So much pressure on your poor ab muscles actually presses down on the pelvic floor muscles and causes them to become weak and dysfunctional. 

STOP GRIPPING YOUR ABS LADIES!

4 Things You Need To Know for Pregnancy Core Work

Hug the Baby!

Yes you read that right. This is one of the most important skills you can learn during your pregnancy. The earlier you learn it, the easier it will be to maintain later on. We have four layers of abdominal muscles. Our deepest is called the transverse abdominis. We can call it the TA for short. It’s basically a muscle that wraps around our spine to give us stability, it's like having a pair of built in Spanx! 

Here are some quick tips on how to do it:

Take a nice deep inhale through your nose, expanding the air 360° in your abdomen. You’re going to exhale like you’re blowing out candles while you imagine that you are bringing your belly button up to your head. Your deep core should be wrapping around the baby to give it a “hug” starting from the pubic bone and working its way up towards your head.   

The easiest way to practice this is lying on your back. Once that gets easier, you can try standing, lying on your side, on hands and knees, and the list goes on.  

It’s all about your breath! Many of my patients automatically hold their breath when they do an exercise without even thinking about it. Our diaphragm, or breathing muscle is at the top of our core system, and it works together with our pelvic floor, abdominals, and postural muscles. Learning how to use this muscle correctly will help us use our entire core better. 

To practice this deep breathing: Sit down and put your hands on your ribs. Inhale through your nose and bring the air 360° throughout your abdomen. Notice that your pelvic floor relaxes and your belly expands. As you exhale, you should feel like you’re blowing out candles and you will feel everything else fall. 

Make sure you're breathing like this, and not holding your breath when you lift up weights, your toddlers, or any heavy Amazon boxes around the house.

Watch out for coning. Coning is a completely normal part of pregnancy. It is our body‘s way of managing pressure throughout the abdomen. We do want to be aware of it though and make sure that we are not doing any repetitive motions that are causing it to over-stress our tissues. If you have not heard of coning, lie down on your back and sit up while looking at your belly. You may notice that your belly may create a triangle shape. This is totally OK and normal but you don’t want to be experiencing this while doing any strenuous exercise or repetitive activities like getting out of bed. If you notice coning, that means it’s time to either fix your breath or modify the exercise.

For more guidance on training your core during pregnancy check out my program The Prepared Pelvis where we will go into detail about what exercises to do, how many reps to do, how often to be doing it, and much more. 

Maintaining a strong core throughout your pregnancy, will help you feel better now, and have a smoother delivery and recovery.