How To Stay Active While Pregnant
Few natural life events are surrounded by more anxiety than conception, pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood.
Pregnancy is not a time of illness and staying active is highly recommended. What's important, is that you listen to your body and do what you feel is best for yourself and your baby.
Pregnancy is not a time of illness and staying active is highly recommended. What's important, is that you listen to your body and do what you feel is best for yourself and your baby.
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00:00 Hi, I'm Michelle, Cycling Weekly's digital editor.
00:03 I head up the website and I host some videos as well.
00:07 I'm pretty into cycling as you'd probably expect.
00:10 And finally, as is probably abundantly clear
00:13 from both the title of this video
00:15 and probably myself today,
00:17 that I am gonna have a baby pretty soon.
00:20 Now this video is going to be quite different
00:22 to most of the videos that I present for Cycling Weekly.
00:26 Usually I'm presenting for at least 80% male audience
00:30 talking about aerodynamics and frame construction.
00:33 So this one is gonna be a bit more personal.
00:36 Few natural life events are surrounded by more anxiety
00:40 than conception, pregnancy, and motherhood.
00:43 That was certainly my reading of the situation
00:45 before seeing those two little pink lines myself.
00:48 However, 36 weeks later and the last nine months
00:50 have been better than I could possibly have imagined.
00:54 The answer to, would I be able to stay active
00:57 and keep cycling through pregnancy
00:59 has been a resounding yes.
01:01 However, every element of motherhood is really individual.
01:05 I'm keen to reassure the potential mums of the future
01:08 that my own experience was not nearly so filled
01:10 with the trials and tribulations
01:12 that my social media feed implied it would be.
01:15 However, every single one of those posts
01:17 would have been someone else sharing their truth
01:19 and their real experience.
01:21 And that's absolutely not to be undermined.
01:23 The individual experience and individual nature
01:26 of pregnancy is probably the reason
01:28 why so much of the advice feels a bit vague
01:30 and a bit woolly.
01:31 There are very few studies because no researchers
01:34 want to introduce any undue risk to an unborn child.
01:37 And you'd certainly be hard pressed to find a mother
01:39 that would be happy to do that as well.
01:41 Whilst early on in my pregnancy,
01:43 I found the advice that you listen to your body
01:45 and do as you feel right,
01:47 extremely confusing and not very helpful,
01:50 by the end, I actually found it really quite liberating.
01:54 Firstly, there isn't a medical expert out there,
01:56 certainly that I've found, that will dispute the fact
01:58 that in an uncomplicated pregnancy,
02:00 exercise is a healthy thing and it's to be advised.
02:04 The UK Health Service, the NHS,
02:06 advises that women continue activities
02:08 that they already do.
02:09 And if they're not active,
02:11 they actually suggest they take up activity.
02:13 Benefits of being active during pregnancy
02:16 include a lower risk of gestational diabetes,
02:19 lesser chance of problems during labour,
02:21 lesser chance of gaining more weight
02:23 than is perhaps necessary,
02:25 and also just a better overall mental
02:27 and physical wellbeing.
02:29 However, if you're already quite an active person,
02:31 certainly if you're training for competition,
02:34 or just training to hit goals,
02:35 some of the advice can seem really quite contradictory.
02:39 For example, continue doing the exercise you already do,
02:42 but don't become breathless.
02:44 There's advice such as you should be able
02:45 to hold a conversation whilst exercising
02:47 and do not exhaust yourself,
02:49 which leads to the obvious question of,
02:51 well, what do I consider exhausting?
02:53 And how long does that conversation need to be?
02:55 So here's my journey and the advice
02:57 I picked up along the way.
02:59 From the likes of pro rider from Trek Segafredo,
03:01 Lizzie Dignan on her second pregnancy,
03:04 as well as consultant Dr. Sarah Rollins,
03:06 who contributed to the guidelines
03:07 that are used by the Ministry of Defence.
03:09 The first trimester was the one where I struggled the most
03:12 with what felt like an information void.
03:14 Thankfully, I didn't need to worry.
03:16 I spoke to Dr. Sarah Rollins, the exercise physiologist
03:19 who worked with a team of experts
03:21 to write the guidelines used by trainers
03:23 at the Ministry of Defence to advise military staff
03:26 on what they should be doing during pregnancy
03:29 and also afterwards during recovery.
03:32 - The most questions I found came up in the first trimester
03:36 because partly you've got no one to speak to.
03:40 I think that's probably the biggest thing
03:42 is if you've not told anyone you're pregnant,
03:44 you can't ask someone how to do things
03:45 when you're pregnant.
03:47 And the main thing that I worried about was heart rate,
03:51 mainly because I think at about eight weeks,
03:54 I read a blog post by an athlete that had said
03:58 they've specifically been told
04:00 you mustn't let your heart rate go over this set rate.
04:02 I would be really keen to understand
04:03 from your point of view and your training and understanding,
04:07 how do women regulate heart rate?
04:11 How important is it?
04:12 Why is it?
04:14 And do we need to worry as much?
04:17 - So from the evidence that we've gathered,
04:20 I would suggest that,
04:22 so the heart rate is useful to understanding
04:25 what zone you might want to work in.
04:27 But from a danger point of view,
04:29 the main dangers that are perceived
04:33 and have been demonstrated in animal studies
04:36 is that you want to make sure you avoid hypothermia,
04:39 hyperthermia, so getting too hot, and dehydration.
04:43 And so the heart rate guidelines,
04:45 which are going to be really variable in different women,
04:48 particularly as you get pregnant,
04:51 as your vascular resistance goes down,
04:52 so all the blood moves from a kind of central location
04:55 and starts moving into your periphery instead,
04:58 you're going to have different heart rate zones.
05:01 And so I think that the thing to focus on
05:06 is not so much your heart rate,
05:08 but rather listening to your body
05:10 about how hard you're working
05:12 and avoiding that kind of, the generation of heat
05:16 that would potentially be risky around the time
05:18 when the fetus is, or the embryo is developing.
05:22 And so I suppose people might use heart rate
05:26 as a kind of surrogate measure of how hard you're working,
05:29 and therefore you would, perhaps,
05:31 they're suggesting that you steer clear
05:33 of the very high heart rate so that you don't get too hot.
05:36 But actually, if you are exercising in a dry environment
05:40 and you are not overstraining and it's cool,
05:45 then the risk to the embryo is going to be very low
05:51 because you're going to be able to,
05:52 as any other human being,
05:53 you're going to be able to dissipate heat.
05:55 - I think as well, a really nice mental tip I had
05:57 was that the reality is you're not going to be racing
06:01 any time soon, you're going to have a baby.
06:03 And so if you're not going to be racing for at least a year,
06:06 what are you training for?
06:08 You know, it makes more sense just to train to be healthy.
06:12 - Yeah, exactly.
06:13 - I read a lot around blood volume,
06:14 which I think you've probably already touched on,
06:17 can increase by 50%, which sounds absolutely huge.
06:20 What effect does that have?
06:22 And is there anything you need to do to,
06:26 like drinking more, to mitigate,
06:28 or not to mitigate it, to cater for it?
06:30 - So your body will naturally decide
06:32 how much fluid it needs,
06:33 and it's increased its plasma volume,
06:36 so the extra, the water content of the blood, essentially.
06:41 And that's why you get this relative,
06:43 apparent loss of red blood cells,
06:45 is just, they're just swimming around in a lot more water.
06:49 And yes, so your body will just,
06:52 instead of you peeing the water out,
06:55 it will just keep the water that it needs,
06:57 and the hormones will adjust that accordingly.
07:00 But it will want you to maintain that level,
07:01 so obviously you then need to make sure
07:03 that sweat loss is replaced, essentially.
07:07 But yes, there's nothing you need
07:11 to particularly worry about that,
07:12 your body will just do it naturally.
07:14 Certainly from a medical perspective,
07:15 the recommendations are quite firmly
07:18 that we shouldn't be bumping the bump,
07:19 because that is dangerous to the unborn baby,
07:22 and potentially to the mother.
07:24 And so, I guess, different ladies
07:27 will have different approaches to risk.
07:30 And so, certainly, while the womb
07:33 is still within the pelvis, it's going to be safe,
07:37 because it's still low enough
07:39 that it's not gonna be up in the abdomen and then affected.
07:41 So in your first trimester, up to about week 12.
07:44 But then after that, as the womb starts
07:47 to rise out of the pelvis, that's going to be a time
07:50 when you need to start thinking about,
07:52 I really shouldn't be falling off this bicycle.
07:54 We mustn't be frightened, we have to be very respectful
07:57 of the fact that yes, we're carrying a baby,
08:02 and we want to make sure that we protect that baby,
08:06 we don't want to bump the bump.
08:08 But at the same time, it's not a time of illness,
08:10 and we should be confident in our bodies
08:14 that we're gonna know the times when you feel at risk.
08:19 And there are lots of things that you can do
08:22 to stay active, 'cause it's so important
08:24 to be active during pregnancy,
08:27 because it's good for you, and it's good for the baby,
08:29 it's good for the mind, and it will mean
08:32 that you don't become deconditioned afterwards.
08:34 So it's about adjusting things.
08:38 So exercise during pregnancy is advised
08:40 as long as we avoid getting too hot,
08:42 respect the fact that we are now carrying
08:44 another very small human being,
08:46 and also listen to our bodies.
08:49 However, what happens if the symptoms of pregnancy
08:51 make exercise undesirable, or perhaps even impossible?
08:56 The first 12 weeks of pregnancy bring with them
08:58 nausea, bloating, tiredness, and a myriad of other
09:01 really bizarre symptoms.
09:03 Every single symptom that you Google,
09:05 followed by "and pregnancy,"
09:07 returns pretty much the same response.
09:10 This symptom during pregnancy is caused
09:12 by changing levels in hormones.
09:14 It's really quite incredible how quite so many
09:17 seemingly unrelated symptoms can be caused by hormones,
09:21 and it shows you quite how powerful they are.
09:23 To learn more about that,
09:25 I spoke to Dr. Georgie Brunvelds.
09:27 She's the lead scientist at Orico Health,
09:29 and also co-founder of women's health tracking app,
09:32 Fit a Woman.
09:34 I mean, my sort of take on the first trimester,
09:36 now looking back in my third,
09:38 was that it was effectively like a 12-week hangover.
09:41 That's pretty much how it felt.
09:43 It wasn't awful, but suddenly every time
09:45 that I felt really tired and I didn't want to exercise,
09:49 if I did it anyway, and you know,
09:52 with the kind of understanding of,
09:53 "I can do the first 10 minutes,
09:54 "and if I don't feel good, I will get off,"
09:57 consistently it made me feel better.
09:59 Is there, do we sort of understand why that might be?
10:03 - Yeah, I mean, I just love what you just said
10:05 about how I'd do it, I'd see how I was after 10 minutes,
10:09 and then I'd reevaluate, and I think firstly,
10:11 you've hit the nail on the head of how I believe,
10:14 and from the athletes I've worked with,
10:15 exercise should be approached through pregnancy.
10:18 It's all on that how are you feeling,
10:19 and being okay to be flexible.
10:22 If one day, actually, you felt really nauseous all morning,
10:25 and you're used to training in the morning,
10:27 well, train later on in the day,
10:28 or think, "Actually, I'll just train tomorrow,"
10:30 or, "I'll pull back a bit."
10:31 - Around this fatigue, what I found really frustrating
10:33 is so I wear a Garmin watch, so I can monitor my sleep,
10:37 and I mean, I was falling asleep at 9 p.m. every night,
10:40 so I was getting lots of hours of sleep,
10:42 but it was consistently saying poor quality,
10:45 and I can compare the difference,
10:47 because I was wearing it before,
10:49 so I was getting a lot of hours of sleep,
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15:02 and I was getting a lot of hours of sleep,
15:04 and I was getting a lot of hours of sleep.
15:09 that I dropped my caffeine intake from about 3 before 11am to 1 all day.
15:16 Morning, it is 4.30am.
15:19 I've been lying in bed for about half an hour
15:21 deciding whether I should get up and just make a piece of toast
15:25 or try to go back to sleep.
15:27 Finally opted for get up and make some toast,
15:30 which is what I've been doing,
15:32 not every night, pretty often for quite a while,
15:36 just seem to wake up really early morning,
15:41 starving hungry and can't go back to sleep
15:43 until I get up and eat something.
15:47 So that's a bit annoying,
15:49 but I guess it's probably decent prep
15:51 for when we've got a very small baby
15:53 that's also going to wake up easily at 4am.
15:56 So there we go.
16:01 The one person who is a big fan of the early morning wake-ups
16:05 is Alvin, although he's a little confused
16:08 as to whether it's breakfast time yet or not.
16:15 The experience is different for everyone
16:17 and can vary for different pregnancies as well,
16:19 as I found out when I spoke to Lizzie.
16:21 I can't tell you how reassuring it was to hear from her,
16:24 both in terms of how quickly she returned to fitness,
16:26 but also how balanced she was in her approach.
16:29 So I'm here with Lizzie Dagenin.
16:31 We were thrilled to hear that you're expecting your second child
16:34 in September.
16:36 How are you feeling for starters?
16:38 I can finally say I'm feeling good,
16:40 but it's taken a little while to get here.
16:42 I'm 19 weeks now,
16:43 but it's definitely been a much harder pregnancy
16:46 than with my daughter,
16:47 but I'm in the golden second trimester,
16:51 so I'm okay now.
16:52 Yeah, I somewhat missed that slightly.
16:54 The golden second trimester.
16:56 Yeah, it absolutely is the case though.
16:58 But I would love to hear about how you felt so far this time
17:02 and how that compares to the first time.
17:04 So starting with the first trimester,
17:06 what was it like with your daughter
17:08 and how is it compared this time?
17:11 So with my daughter,
17:12 I definitely had nausea for the first 12 weeks
17:15 and some tiredness,
17:17 but this time around I had nausea until last week,
17:21 so 18 weeks,
17:23 and I was just completely floored by fatigue.
17:26 I got much bigger, much quicker.
17:28 More quickly.
17:29 So, I mean, the size I am now is, you know,
17:32 I'm pregnant.
17:33 Whereas with all the, you know,
17:34 people at 20 weeks didn't know I was pregnant still.
17:36 So things like riding my bike have been much harder this time around.
17:41 And did you have any kind of coping strategies with the nausea that helped?
17:46 Eating crisps and chips and anything salty and fatty.
17:50 I really, that was, my mum said eat what you can to survive,
17:55 and I really just did that.
17:56 I mean, it wasn't a time to be sticking to any kind of nutritional plan or whatever.
18:00 It was all about just being flexible and doing what I could to get through the day,
18:03 to be honest.
18:04 And what was your riding like last time?
18:07 Did you ride predominantly indoors or you outdoors as well?
18:11 So in the beginning with Alla,
18:13 I rode predominantly indoors until my mental health needed to be outside.
18:18 I'm really a person that needs fresh air,
18:20 and I kind of made my own assessment,
18:22 my own risk assessments,
18:23 and I did start to ride outside.
18:25 So low traffic times and quiet roads,
18:28 stuff like that.
18:29 And I still do ride outside now, yeah.
18:32 I mean, have you had much advice?
18:34 The thing I struggled with a lot initially was I didn't really know anything about heart rate caps
18:39 or like overheating, things like that.
18:41 And I probably found that out a bit later,
18:43 which was obviously quite stressful because you think, oh God, what have I done?
18:47 Did you get much guidance on that?
18:49 And did you find it useful?
18:51 Have you decided to go with a heart rate cap or anything like that?
18:55 I very much go day by day, feeling by feeling.
18:58 And I think every pregnancy is different.
19:00 I know that now.
19:01 Every woman is different.
19:03 I'm very fortunate that I really have always been a rider,
19:06 even when I'm training professionally,
19:08 that I trust my body and the way it feels.
19:11 I'm very sensitive to how I feel,
19:12 so I trust my own instincts.
19:15 So like with Alla, I thought, oh, I'll try swimming.
19:18 I'll try a different sport.
19:20 And I just didn't know myself as a swimmer.
19:22 So I stopped swimming because I didn't know where my boundaries were.
19:25 But because I cycle so much, I feel that I really know my own limits and capabilities.
19:30 And I'm actually someone who quite enjoys the process of detraining
19:35 and letting my body take over and the baby be in charge.
19:39 I'm not someone who is desperately grabbing on to, keeping as much fitness as I can.
19:44 I kind of trust the process of letting it go.
19:48 And I'd love to know how you felt after you had Alla
19:53 because there's a sudden drop-off when you just can't produce the power you used to produce.
19:57 And once you'd had Alla, did that almost come back quite quickly,
20:02 or was it a really long, slow...
20:04 I had a full six weeks off after having Alla.
20:07 I had a natural delivery with Alla, and I'm lucky, no complications, healthy baby, etc.
20:15 But I still needed six weeks to adjust to becoming a new mum,
20:18 to feeling comfortable on the saddle and things like that.
20:20 And I had Alla on the 23rd of September,
20:23 and I didn't do any training as such until December.
20:26 So I was just riding my bike, but I was shocked how fast I got fit.
20:31 Really, really shocked how quickly it all came back,
20:33 considering I'd done as much as I could in pregnancy,
20:37 but I'd still had that solid six weeks off.
20:40 But yeah, it really surprised me. It really comes back quickly.
20:42 Yeah. I remember I spoke to you when you were pregnant with Alla,
20:46 that was a long time ago now, I suppose.
20:49 And you'd spoken about, previously you were doing about 20 hours a week,
20:53 and at the time you were doing about 10.
20:54 Has this been quite similar?
20:57 Probably less. Yeah, 10 weeks would be a good week this time around.
21:01 And I've just had to accept that. It's just simply not been possible for me.
21:05 And it's incredible to see how different it is for different women.
21:08 There are women who at 20 weeks can still do a 20-hour week, you know, but absolutely no way.
21:14 Perhaps it's because I also have to take care of Alla as well.
21:19 Or perhaps I'm just more comfortable taking a step back, you know.
21:23 I trust the process of regaining my fitness postpartum.
21:27 Yeah, I guess having done it once before, you've seen what that was like as a result.
21:32 Yeah, absolutely. And I'd love to hear, just if you have five tips for women
21:38 that are either thinking about getting pregnant or currently pregnant,
21:42 about how to keep moving or to stay, I guess, physically and mentally happy,
21:47 rather than pushing themselves to do more than maybe they want to.
21:51 But what would you say?
21:53 A massive thing that we all do anyway is comparison.
21:56 But I think particularly when you're pregnant and it's your first time,
21:59 you're desperate to know how big your bum should be, how big the baby is,
22:04 or, you know, the fruit, how big the baby is compared to fruit and all these different things.
22:09 And the point is that every pregnancy in every woman is different and it's just pointless comparing.
22:14 I mean, like scientifically, they say your first trimester, you don't need to put that much weight on.
22:20 Whereas for me, as a very lean athlete, in my first 12 weeks,
22:24 I put on most of the weight and I really slow down towards the end.
22:28 But if I read a book and, you know, I remember in my first pregnancy, oh my goodness,
22:33 I'm like putting on 300% more than they're telling me to.
22:37 What am I going to feel or look like by the end?
22:39 But it's just, it's pointless making comparisons.
22:44 I would also say it's really not a good idea to try and set goals
22:47 because you may feel great one week and completely flawed the next.
22:51 You just have to really be flexible, listen to your body, take it day by day.
22:57 I think it's important to express your feelings to the people around you
23:01 because it's a very emotional and hormonal time.
23:05 And I find that just being able to express myself, talk to my husband about the way I feel,
23:10 helps me kind of rationalise my internal thoughts a lot of the time.
23:15 And just try and enjoy the process.
23:17 I think it's hard for some people to let go.
23:20 But it is a pretty magical thing that your body is doing, powerful thing.
23:24 And it's okay to not be in charge because your body will come back to you eventually.
23:30 But right now, the most important thing it's doing is being a safe, healthy environment for your child.
23:35 So just go with the flow.
23:38 The second trimester is often referred to as the golden trimester.
23:42 Whilst it's not the case for everybody,
23:45 a lot of women find that nausea and fatigue of the first trimester have begun to subside.
23:50 We're not quite so round of stomach that day-to-day activities are difficult.
23:55 I can't say the entirety of the second trimester was entirely golden for me.
23:59 The first half was great.
24:00 I could still run for 90 minutes and ride a bike for about three hours with some friends if I wanted to.
24:06 I was slow, but I was really enjoying being active.
24:09 All right, so it is Thursday morning.
24:14 I was shooting video yesterday and got back quite late.
24:16 So I thought, well, I fell asleep on the sofa really early, which meant I woke up early.
24:21 So I thought I'd have a go at a morning run because I've been doing most of my training in the evening.
24:25 It was just really nice, but it's definitely starting to feel quite hard.
24:29 There's a couple of little hills that feel a lot harder than they used to.
24:35 But it was so nice and there was some lands in the field that was really cute.
24:40 And yeah, now I'm feeling pretty pumped for a day of work.
24:43 Although last time I went for a lunchtime swim, I did then feel knackered all afternoon.
24:48 So we'll see how productive I am when I actually get to my desk.
24:52 Wish me luck. The second half was a bit more of a roller coaster.
24:56 Firstly, I did a bit too much exercise in one week and gave myself quite a bit of pelvic pain,
25:01 which was far from ideal. And then I got COVID, which again was quite suboptimal.
25:07 However, I did decide that it was better to have COVID at 26 weeks than 36 weeks.
25:12 On the pelvic pain front, at around 22 weeks,
25:15 I was having a little bit of a meltdown and imagining that by week 30, I would be in a wheelchair.
25:21 Thankfully for me, that wasn't the case.
25:23 Once I removed a few exercises from my routine, it got an awful lot better.
25:28 However, pelvic girdle pain is something that a lot of women do really struggle with during pregnancy
25:34 and it can become quite severe.
25:36 I spoke to a physiotherapist, Nick Roberts, about this and all things pregnancy.
25:42 So thank you for making time to speak to me.
25:44 It's really great. We had a good chat at around 20 weeks and there were a few things there
25:50 that I wanted to sort of recap and then some more things have popped up since then.
25:54 The thing that we spoke about, it must have been, I think it was about 22 weeks
25:58 and I did have a bit of a meltdown because I just did really too much exercise,
26:03 I think in one week and really gave myself a lot of pelvic pain.
26:08 So it was all kind of along here to the point that just walking upstairs,
26:12 like closing the dishwasher with my foot, you know, as you do,
26:14 just like just anything that was really, really quite painful.
26:19 And we spoke a lot about what the cause of that was and, you know,
26:24 how I could avoid it because my fear was, okay, well, it's 22 weeks.
26:28 I've got another 18 weeks to go. Is this the beginning of the end for me and my active lifestyle?
26:35 And thankfully that wasn't the case.
26:37 So yeah, what would be kind of good to understand?
26:40 I mean that pain is usually called pelvic girdle pain.
26:44 What is that and what are the kind of triggers?
26:47 Okay, so pelvic girdle pain,
26:50 it's sort of a blanket term for any pain that you might get around the pelvis during pregnancy.
26:57 And the reason this happens is because of, well, there's different thoughts on it actually,
27:03 but one of the suggestions is because of the increase of hormone relaxin
27:07 that is in your system to allow movement of your pelvis
27:13 to increase the space for the birth canal for the baby to come out.
27:18 So because of that, there's more changes happening through the pelvis.
27:24 And it also means that the pelvis, which is normally really solid and strong,
27:28 has the potential to shift slightly.
27:31 And so this can cause pain. Pelvic girdle pain also covers exactly what you were describing.
27:36 So pain coming in through the groin and it can also be pain around the back.
27:41 So here you've got your sacroiliac joint,
27:45 so your sacrum and your iliums, and you can have pain running through the back here.
27:49 So it can be at the hips, it can be the back, the lower back,
27:53 it can be the front, and it can also be quite severe pain right over the front of your pubic bone.
27:59 One of the first things I'd say if you start to notice it would generally be to try
28:03 and rest from whatever activity you've been doing.
28:07 So try and give your body a chance to catch up.
28:10 Some of these changes happen in different stages and at different speeds.
28:14 So it's not that it happens very, very gradually.
28:17 Sometimes it can be, well, you know, it's changing and over those two weeks,
28:21 you might have to really limit your activity and then you can build back into it.
28:25 So a bit like for yourself, it was not that suddenly it changed and it stayed like that.
28:32 For some people it is, the pain comes and it doesn't go away.
28:35 So it's about balancing your activity.
28:38 One thing that can help is to wear a support belt.
28:41 So a belt that goes around the bottom of the pelvis and can also support the bump a little bit,
28:47 adds a bit of compression to the pelvis and makes it feel a bit more comfortable to do day-to-day activities.
28:53 Cycling is actually, by virtue of the fact you're on a saddle and it's fairly supported, is normally pretty good.
29:00 The only thing is with cycling is obviously as you get bigger, there's the baby.
29:06 So you have to change the bike fit a little bit to accommodate that,
29:09 which is where if you normally use a road bike, it would mean lifting the handlebars.
29:15 Some people have even tried, you can turn the handlebars around.
29:19 So rather than being on the drops, you can turn them up so you can use them in that direction.
29:23 And also using a mountain bike is good because you're in a more, or a hybrid bike,
29:27 you're in a more upright position.
29:29 So there's more space.
29:31 During pregnancy, you read a lot about pelvic floor exercises, how often you should be doing them.
29:37 My first question, we'll talk about postpartum as well,
29:40 but my first question is how often someone who's quite athletic should be doing them.
29:47 Or are there, I mean the standard kind of Kegel exercise that most people find anywhere,
29:55 is that the best thing to do?
29:57 Or are there kind of other exercises that perhaps we're already doing
30:01 that we're not aware of exercising the pelvic floor?
30:04 I think it is important to do pelvic floor exercises through pregnancy.
30:08 And yeah, the general sort of thing I would advise is, you know, the basic Kegels,
30:16 which is like, you know, feeling like you're holding onto a tampon,
30:19 or if you're sitting on a chair, feeling like you're lifting up away from the chair.
30:22 It's important that it's, to remind yourself it's a gentle exercise.
30:26 It's not squeezing the buttocks.
30:27 It's not using your abdominals.
30:29 It's a very gentle lift and then relax.
30:34 The best way to know that you're doing it correctly would be to see a women's health physio.
30:39 I think during pregnancy, particularly if you're quite athletic and exercising a lot,
30:44 it's important to not overdo it.
30:47 So not get hooked on it, to not do many of them throughout the day
30:50 because we don't want to increase, make it too hypertonic.
30:53 So important to do them, but don't get over overly hooked on them would be my advice.
30:59 And I have noticed in later stages, so really more of a third trimester thing,
31:03 that in some exercises I do get what I think is called sort of doming,
31:06 you know, when this centre of your stomach suddenly becomes domed,
31:11 which is very weird to look at.
31:14 But I mean, that would to me suggest that maybe there's just that bit too much stress
31:18 going through the abdomen and maybe those exercises are not the best thing.
31:22 Yeah, and I think, you know, as I was saying, that your normal six pack has changed.
31:27 Most of us have to imagine.
31:31 They're always there, they're just slightly hidden.
31:35 So your six pack has changed, it's given space for the baby.
31:38 So when we think, when exercises are designed,
31:42 they're designed to work along muscle fibres and work along the activity of that muscle.
31:48 That's why we do them.
31:49 So the rectus abdominis works in this position to create a curl.
31:55 But because the rectus abdominis has now changed, it's more in that position.
31:58 If you're doing a curl or a sit up or using your abdomen, it's working in a different way.
32:03 So it's not really, you're not really doing the exercise it's designed for.
32:06 And I suggest if you're getting that doming, that you're just putting too much load through
32:11 and the muscles aren't able to cope with that.
32:14 Things did get harder as the bump grows,
32:16 your organs are effectively forced to relocate slightly and that can result in breathlessness,
32:22 which is something that I noticed both on the bike
32:24 and just also going about daily activities like walking up the stairs.
32:29 So I just called you down after one of the baby on board workouts.
32:33 That one is called a gentle reminder and it is actually the last in the series.
32:38 I do wonder if it's meant to be the hardest.
32:40 Name clone implies it.
32:42 It's definitely feeling quite hard.
32:45 Yeah, it's a really great session.
32:46 And what I quite like is that towards the end of each sort of six minute interval,
32:51 I definitely just nudging the heart rate threshold that I've set myself.
32:54 So it shows that they're really well thought out because we get pretty much exactly there.
33:01 Means I'm pushing myself a lot overly hard and pretty hot.
33:06 Obviously got the fan on full blast, all the windows open.
33:10 But yeah, looking forward to a nice chilled out cool down and getting on with my day.
33:15 However, during the second trimester, I did find that I had a lot more energy.
33:19 So as well as the Zwift baby on board sessions,
33:22 which are designed specifically for pregnancy and are highly recommended
33:25 and really helped me out a lot during the first trimester,
33:28 I also started doing more of the Wahoo system Sufferfest sessions.
33:32 I just reduced my bias to 80 to 85%
33:35 and I found I could complete those sessions without going over the heart rate threshold that I'd set myself.
33:41 In the gym, I did find that anything lying on my back for some time was becoming a little bit uncomfortable.
33:47 So I just switch those exercises up.
33:48 For example, using incline benches.
33:51 And I also cut out a lot of the single leg exercises that I would usually do
33:55 and swap those for double leg versions of the same just to avoid flaring up that pelvic pain.
34:00 I was actually pretty amazed at how consistent I was able to be with exercise.
34:05 Yes, the volume was lower and intensity was definitely lower,
34:08 but I could still continue to do about an hour a day without really any problems.
34:13 During the second trimester, I started to find that my road bike wasn't really all that comfortable
34:17 and I made changes at about week 20.
34:20 That just meant simply flipping the stem which brought up the front end of the bike.
34:24 Most of my bikes are aggressive road racing frames
34:27 and generally I have cut the steerer and slammed the stem.
34:31 So I've made it really quite difficult for myself.
34:34 By week 27, I found that I was actually just much more comfortable on a mountain bike.
34:39 Finally, on to the third trimester or the home stretch.
34:43 This section is going to be a little bit shorter because I found not really an awful lot changed.
34:48 Physically, yes, the bump grew bigger and also kicks became a lot more frequent
34:53 and a little bit painful from time to time.
34:56 But in terms of being able to be physically active, not a lot changed.
35:00 I found that the pelvic pain from the second trimester really subsided and dramatically improved
35:06 and the amount of time I could sleep for increased as well,
35:10 albeit still rated poor quality thanks to Garmin.
35:14 This really surprised me because I'd always seen the third trimester as a time that it would sort of be all right to just give up.
35:20 But the fact is I wasn't inclined to and I didn't want to stop being active.
35:24 So we're now at week 31, well into the first trimester.
35:28 I had a week off work which has been pretty nice.
35:31 I actually got a fair amount of riding in, so a good 10 hours worth of exercise this week,
35:39 which has been quite nice to see that I can still do that because I suppose I haven't up until now,
35:46 but actually largely because work's getting in the way as opposed to necessarily physical capacity.
35:52 So a good, you know, some three-hour mountain bike rides.
35:55 Definitely felt like I had to keep fueling during that.
35:57 Definitely need more food.
36:00 But overall, it's been actually really quite easy.
36:03 No hard rides, they've all been pretty chill.
36:07 But a couple of little efforts, you know, there's always efforts required in a natural terrain.
36:11 It's all been on the mountain bike and actually the mountain bike has been worth its weight in gold,
36:16 which is actually not that much weight, but just that position is so much easier to adopt.
36:20 I think like the road bike, it really starts to kind of hurt around my stomach and my lower back as well after a couple of hours,
36:26 whereas on the mountain bike, it's just easy.
36:29 As well, I think the gear really helps a lot because certainly on a road bike,
36:33 as soon as there's a little hill, I'm kind of leg pressing, which kind of feels like,
36:37 I don't know, maybe that'll have some sort of helpful payoff in the legs one day.
36:42 I don't know. Probably not because I'm sort of a much lower capacity,
36:46 but on the mountain bike, I can just spin and it feels natural.
36:49 It's just nice to get out. So it's certainly not about fitness or about training or anything like that.
36:54 It's just nice to get outside and enjoy the things I usually enjoy.
36:59 And it's nice that I can still do that because I never anticipated that would be the case.
37:04 So, so far, so good. I did have some fun with Braxton Hicks contractions,
37:09 basically practice contractions, and life got pretty busy with midwife appointments every two weeks,
37:14 antenatal appointments every week, viewing nurseries, preparing our nursery at home.
37:19 It was a lot to have going on all at once, but not enough to stop me riding my bike.
37:25 Well, for now, that's all that I can share.
37:28 I hope that you found this video reassuring if you're looking to cycle and stay active during pregnancy.
37:33 However, it's important to remember that every pregnancy is unique.
37:37 Speak to your health care professional before deciding what exercise to undertake.
37:42 And of course, listen to your own body. After all, you know it best.
37:48 So we, nine weeks postpartum, our baby is nine weeks in just two days,
37:53 and we are settling into life as a family.
37:56 So it's been a gradual return back to exercise. I started off with a couple of the baby on board sessions.
38:01 I don't still have a baby on board, but I certainly have a baby very prevalent in my life,
38:07 and they just helped me to ease back in. And then I started on the Sufferfest sessions,
38:13 starting initially with the 4DP set to kind of 80%, then 85%.
38:17 And I did do a session with a few intervals at 100% yesterday.
38:21 And I certainly would have done a whole session at 100%.
38:24 And I've been able to get outside on the bike as well.
38:27 And on the days that I'm not outside on the bike, we've been doing an awful lot of sling walks.
38:33 For years in my 20s, I knew that I wanted to have children at some point,
38:37 but I was very nervous about the implication that would have.
38:42 And of course, I've got a long way to go and a lot to learn and find out.
38:45 But for me, pregnancy and those early weeks were not what I expected.
38:50 And yes, of course, there were stressful moments.
38:52 There were hard moments, I wouldn't sugarcoat that.
38:55 But equally, there have been so many beautiful moments that have far, far outweighed the difficulty.
39:01 And that is something that I just wanted to share and I guess make an audience aware of,
39:06 because for me, it looked like there was far greater amounts of anxiety and negativity.
39:15 But that's just not been my experience.
39:17 Hey, babe! And we have had a wonderful time.
39:22 So much joy and so much happiness.
39:25 And that's really where I wanted to end. We've got many future adventures ahead.
39:30 We are looking at some of those kind of top two baby seats.
39:33 So I hope you've enjoyed this video. I hope that it's shown that whilst pregnancy can be very difficult,
39:38 there can be instances where you won't be able to exercise.
39:41 It's certainly not always the case.
39:44 And you can have an active pregnancy and enjoy being active as your baby grows older.
39:50 So I think that's it. Over and out. And on to the future.
39:56 (baby crying)
39:59 (whooshing)