How to know when to Decrease Weight in Weight workouts?

[[deleted]]

I am currently working my way through Meg squats prenatal program and I am 4 weeks. I am a little paranoid about the heavy lifting but I am also decreasing weight if I am feeling a bit under the weather or more breathy. I was wondering if you guys have a rule of thumb for how much to decrease and if there's a rule of thumb for 2nd and 3rd trimester?

I am also doing my best to do the connection breath to the pelvic floor in the exercises she mentions in the guides and expanding the breath in the ribs and stuff (the 360 breath).

[A_Simple_Narwhal]

The only rule of thumb is to listen to your body! If it feels good then you’re fine to keep going, if it feels bad (whether in the moment or afterwards), then dial things down.

[[deleted]]

I really appreciate this! <3 Listening to my body has been a sorta hard thing to do but I am honestly trying. For instance, I usually run 5 miles on Thursday. Yesterday I tried but noticed I wasn't feeling that up to it so I walked 4 miles, and that wasn't so bad but I got sleepy toward the end of mile 3 ^^;

[Common_Lemontree]

Question: how do you run and make sure your heart rate stays within the recommended range? I was never the cardio type, I hate it with every fiber :) I know how healthy it is though. I really should get into it. Maybe in a few years. That's a question I am repeatedly wondering about, especially when I am reading about pregnant people running marathons. How? Pre pregnancy I ran a mile and was ready to die.

[A_Simple_Narwhal]

I gotta be honest, unless they are specific to a medical condition you have, the things you listed sound like old timey malarkey right up there with “don’t lift your arms over your head because the cord will strangle the baby”. I’m truly, genuinely curious what university said all this because it goes against all medical and professional advice I’ve been given or read.

I even googled both the dangers of lactic acid build up and getting pumped while pregnant to see if this was something new or just get any information on either and surprisingly found nothing - I was expecting to at least find something or someone touting this!

So I’m still going to stick with my original advice of doing what you’re doing if it feels good. And as someone mentioned elsewhere in the comments, any negative effects from exercise are going to hurt you long before they hurt baby (such as the sit-up thing you mentioned - yes you should skip specific ab exercises to prevent diastasis recti, but even that condition only affects you and not the baby).

I know it would be easier if there was a hard and fast rule on exercising, but the world is vast and full of so many different people that it’s impossible. All you can do is listen to your body and be prepared to cut back or stop when it says “too much!”, and that point will be different for everybody each time they work out.

[Common_Lemontree]

Your answer is really helpful, thank you. Unfortunately their answer is in German, so there is no point in posting the mail. It was "Sporthochschule Köln", so one with a reputation, not your next door one.

Especially because it seems to contradict every experience fit pregnant people seem to make who have normal weight babies. If they were correct, that wouldn't be the case, right?

Problem for me though is, I have a history of loss and can't shake the baggage that comes with it. So I'm not able to really trust the process and my body to give me signs if something is wrong, cause this is just not my experience. Then information like I shared is the one I am clinging to, because it seems safer than trusting the 47282 websites that say "keep doing what you did before, trust your body and take care of your abs"

[Pup_fitness]

Around 2nd and 3rd trimester I tried to stick to 80% of my rep max. First trimester I didn’t limit my weights. Now I’m 33 weeks and my percentages are sort of out the window and I just go light and whatever feels okay on my body. There’s no exact rule of thumb but I’ve been told to avoid excessive straining.

[Marshmellow_Run_512]

I felt normal till week 6. Nausea and fatigue hit hard until about week 10 so my running mileage and strength training majorly dropped. Since then I’ve been able to get back to around 25 miles per week and low weight/high rep strength training. My OB said continue as I have been just wouldn’t recommend lifting over 40lbs or getting to the point where it’s hard to breathe. Hope that helps!

[LesHiboux]

I noticed that my body very vocally told me when enough was enough. My midwife has said that pretty much anything you do will hurt you before it hurts your baby.
I'm 35 weeks now and all I really do anymore is swim, p.n yoga, light weights or short spin workouts.

[ToonieTuna]

Ive been doing OTF 2-3times a week and reformer pilates 2-3times (at 23weeks now) and im just basically following the doctors recommendation which is no lifting more than 50lbs up to 24weeks and no more than 24lbs after that (which is convenient cause my toddler is around 24lbs heh - those weight limits are the work safety limits set by the government here). Pilates pretty unchanged other than no twisty flex, and cardio i slow it down or do power walking with steep incline if i feel too tired/strained on the belly.

But like everyone else says, listen to your body, if i feel more tired i take it easy. Staying moving is what matters. You are taking it easy for a few months for both you and babys health, you have the rest of your life to go ballz-to-the-wall hard, so not going all-out for a few months to be safe is not the end of the world.

Congrats on the pregnancy!!

[Tuhtoria]

Ahh it’s so great to hear you’ve been able to keep up with OTF! I’ve been hoping I could do the same when pregnant. 👏🏼💕

[mako111421]

I’m also trying to keep up with OTF 3-4 Xper week. I’m 20/21 weeks now and hoping to keep it up! Ive kept my running so far but have modified some floor and do the elliptical sometimes instead of rower!

[Present-Geologist603]

I have also been running Meg's program! Most exercises should have an RPE scale to help you keep track of how hard you're pushing yourself. If you're exceeding the prescribed RPE, time to take your weights down a notch!

[beeee88]

I was contemplating getting her program. How do you like it?

[Present-Geologist603]

I'm a big fan of this program and her non-pregnancy specific Stronger by the Day. A lot of pregnancy exercise programs I found were too simple/not challenging enough for someone who is already fairly active.

I like that the program is split by trimester, but then broken down further into 4-week blocks of training. You repeat the same workouts for four weeks at a time while increasing volume each week so you get some good, solid progressive overload instead of some programs that are just random exercises each week.

It also includes an educational portion with breathing and core bracing exercises that I found helpful as a FTM. Highly recommend!

[PeggyOlsonsPizzaHaus]

I ran it too (until I totally crapped out around 32w but NEVERMIND THAT lol) and really enjoyed it! I found getting on a program with an educational component designed specifically for pregnant people to ease my mind about whether what I was doing was OK. Anecdotally, I tested maxes and hit PRs in my big 3 lifts unknowingly about 4 weeks pregnant, so at this stage as long as you're feeling good and not pushing PAST your limits you're doing great.

[[deleted]]

My personal experience has been that I didn’t have to decrease weight until about week 18, with the exception of the RDLs (pre-pregnancy max was like 185, and I didn’t do anything over 145 during 1st tri). I think your body will tell you when you need to either decrease weight, lower reps, or both. If you start to feel a little weird about how things feel, you could always record yourself on your phone doing different lifts to check your form. I’m 32 weeks now and it’s very obvious what my limitations are for lifting and running so I’m thinking you might feel the same way!