Monday, June 16, 2008

Pregnancy Training

Yesterday was Fathers Day and I hope everyone had a great day. In January I will be blessed with another child. So today is about basic training for pregnant females. Most of the items listed below are guidelines from doctors and for the general population. My wife is able to get away with more due to her past training. Make sure any female who is going to workout while pregnant follow all her doctors orders.


Training


Keep your heart rate under 140 bpm.

The doc says no squats. (Julia still does them but lowers the intensity quite a bit). This is due to the softening of connective tissue to prepare for delivery.

Lying on the back to do exercise is also a no-no. Certain positions can restict blood flow to the fetus. Do more incline and overhead pressing or dumbell press on a stability ball.

As far as exercise goes there is not much to avoid. Listening to your body is key. Julia actually improved her bench press and within three months of delivery was setting personal bests.


Nutrition


For this Julia consulted with John Berardi. He had alot of good information and I think it made all the difference. Julia gained only 22 pounds and after giving birth, was actually down about six pounds from where she started. I think most women are fooling themselves when they get pregnant and think it's a free pass to eat whatever they want. This makes it much harder after delivery and also sets up the baby for problems in the future.

No caffine

No artificial sweetners

15 servings of fruits and vegetable (10 veggies and 5 fruits). John said this would be difficult, so get a juicer. Making juice each day with fruit that is close to going bad and alot of greens made it much easier for her to get all the recommended servings everyday.

Avoid processed food. This was a little tougher for Julia. For about six weeks she could not stand the smell or sight of meat. Finding things to eat during this time is a little difficult but soon passes.

A pregnant woman only needs an extra 250 calories a day. Not much - just a snickers.

A woman who is breast feeding will need almost 500 more calories a day.

A fetus will drain away DHA and ARA from the mother. A premium fish oil will help the mother to not feel so tired and drained.


There you have it. The nutrition is much the same as you might recommend to a normal person trying to lose weight but with a few more calories. The training is the same with less intensity and a few positions to avoid.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Excellent advice. I agree that most women look at pregnancy as a free pass to each whatever...and I hear some of those cravings can be extremely hard to ignore! But, if you approach pregnancy looking at it from the little baby's perspective, it should be a little easier to get the veggies in and say no to the Haagen Daz.