London female personal trainer on the how and what of exercising in late pregnancy

We trust you! If you feel up to training in your late pregnancy then we (and research) will support your training wishes and needs. Everyone is unique however, and if you do not feel up to exercising at all during pregnancy, this is absolutely OK too. The most important thing to do is to listen to your own body. 

Alison called Chelsea Personal Training when she was 35 weeks pregnant with her first baby. Alison wanted to be pushed and she was capable of a lot of exercising for the first four weeks and then it tappered off at 41 weeks. The key thing was that she listened to the needs of her body and mind. When it was time to slow down she did. 

The sessions included a five minutes warm up walk on the treadmill at a 2% incline and a speek of 5km/hour. After this, we did dynamic stretching and mobilisation of all the joints. This comprised of movement to warm up the muscles and ligaments ready for exercise for example arm and shoulder circles, straight leg kicks, squats, side lunges, lateral flexions of the spine etc. We would then do 2 sets of 12-20 repetitions with weights (dumbells, exercise balls etc which we would alter in weight according to the exercise and how Alison felt) of various functional training exercises. These functional exercises included squats on the swissball against the wall and bicep curls (or shoulder presses), lunges with left and right rotations, walk out push ups and walk back, split squats with rotations or lateral flexions or shoulder presses etc. We did some isolating work on her chest, bicep, upper back and tricep muscles using light weights. We then moved to the floor to work on lower back and glutes using the swiss ball or Alison lying on her side. We finished each session with a coulple minutes cool down on the treadmill with no incline and speed of 4.5km/hour and spent ten minutes assisted stretching (see previous article on this method of stretching!)

We wish Alison the best of luck with her birth experice and enjoying the first early precious moments with her new baby. We know she will be strong physically and mentally. Thank you for letting us in on your training journey in the later phase of your pregnancy. We look forward to being back to training with you when you feel ready post partum!

Give CPT a call if this has inspired you to move more during pregnancy. Or if you have any questions or just want a chat!

(*Client's name has been altered to uphold confidentiality)