How to keep fit during pregnancy
Movement is a characteristic of the human body and, at the same time, a necessity. Moving every day helps to improve our quality of life, whether it is about children, young people, adults or elderly people. It is important to keep moving during the particular stages of life. That is why today we will deepen the topic of physical activity in pregnancy.
The first move to make is always to consult your doctor and make all the appropriate check-ups to see if you needed any special precautions or specific interventions. Having done this, we are ready to start the exercises that suit your needs.
Workout during pregnancy
There are many ways to be active: walking, biking, swimming, doing yoga, low-impact exercises or dancing. You can also workout at home without the use of special tools. Here are three simple exercises for arms, legs, and back:
1. To train your arms just using two bottles of water as weights. Hold the bottles in your hands and stretch your arms along your hips. Lift your arms up to your shoulders and slowly back down (three sets of ten reps). Arms and shoulders will be strengthened.
2. To train your legs and buttocks you can use a chair or sofa as a support; squat getting up and down slowly. Make three series of ten repetitions.
3. To train your back and make it more flexible we can do the exercise of the “cat”: in quadruped position, inhale deeply bending your back upwards, exhaling by throwing the air with your mouth and bending your back down in the opposite way than before. Repeat the exercise six times.
The three basic rules to keep in mind are prudence, graduation, and moderation.
You just have to do small and simple physical activities to find out the benefits to you as a future mom, to your baby, and those around you.
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The benefits of physical activity during pregnancy
Here are six benefits of working out during pregnancy:
- It improves your mood and reduces stress. During a physical activity, our body releases endorphins that, once in our system, give a general euphoria and well-being feelings, often able to act as a pain reliever. It is a set of true antistress and natural painkillers.
- It prevents and reduces back pain. During the months of pregnancy, the body goes into structural changes and inevitably has to adopt a posture other than the usual, concomitant pain or back pain. Training the core muscles (troche, back, abdomen, pelvic floor) since the beginning of pregnancy helps to prepare our bodies for such modifications.
- It brings benefits to the respiratory and cardiocirculatory system. Workouts boost respiratory and cardiac capacity, allowing the baby to receive a blood richer in oxygen and nutrients and more effectively turn away carbon dioxide. For the future mom, it also improves blood circulation, avoiding annoying swelling in the legs.
- It helps prevent gestational diabetes. During a physical exercise, there is an increase in insulin release and an increase in glucose consumption allowing the normalization of the blood glucose control system.
- It helps maintain an adequate weight. A proper dose of physical activity helps not to accumulate the much-dreaded additional fat, favoring a simpler delivery and allowing the return to normal physical fitness.
- It brings considerable benefits to childbirth. Healthy heart and lungs allow you to cope better with this last stage of pregnancy, without forgetting that having a well trained abdominal muscle facilitates the passage of the baby into the delivery channel. Even pains of labor seem to decrease: regular physical activity during pregnancy stimulates the production of beta-endorphins that increase the threshold of pain perception.
Pregnancy is an unbeatable and wonderful experience. As future mothers, start immediately to take care of your baby’s health, with an eye for yours too: keeping moving is a great start!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Valentina Migliore – Trainer
“I have been working for several years with children in the basic motor activities. Over time I learned to observe them in times of freedom and creativity. No training has taught me as much as they did. I like to arrange for them stimulant exercises that lead them to discover their abilities they can train and then turn into real life skills eventually”
