The last thing you need to do when you're pregnant is worry yourself right out of a fitness routine. Sure, you want to keep yourself and your growing baby as safe as possible, but there's no need to put your gym membership on hold while your bun is baking. Plus, daily exercise is beneficial for both you and your baby—as long as you don't overdo it.
Barring medical conditions that prevent you from exercising and with approval from your health care provider, you can and should maintain a prenatal fitness routine for the duration of your pregnancy. And there's no easier piece of equipment to use or customize to your fitness level than the treadmill.
Here are some pregnancy treadmill workout tips for getting the most from your cardio during your pregnancy.
Use the Talk Test
Say a few words out loud to measure your exertion while using the treadmill. You may feel a little silly, but people will probably just assume you're singing along with your music. The important thing is that you'll be monitoring your safety.
"The best way to figure out if you aren't working hard enough, or if you are working too hard, is to imagine someone running or walking next to you," says Erica Ziel, a personal trainer and founder of Knocked-Up Fitness prenatal DVDs. "Ask yourself if you would be able to converse with a few words."
If you can't, then you are short of oxygen, which means your baby is too. On the other hand, if you can stroll around and converse with ease, then you can pick up the pace a bit if you'd like. The results of this type of assessment vary from day to day for every person, so always check in with yourself when doing a pregnancy treadmill workout.
Choose Incline Over Speed
Boost your intensity by increasing strength, not endurance. If you are that runner or walker who misses the intensity of your pre-pregnancy workouts, try increasing the incline of the treadmill instead of the speed.
Ziel says that by using incline you will not only be getting cardiovascular benefits, but you will also be strengthening your legs. Even better, you shouldn't feel as much of a pull on your ligaments around the hip flexor area if you use the incline more.
Support Your Bump
When aches and pains ensue, turn to the pregnancy belt solution. "Wear a belly band to help take some weight off around the ligaments and give the back and belly more support," Ziel says. The bands may not be the most fashionable items, but your body will thank you.
Scale Back Your Workout
Because treadmill exercise is different for every pregnant person, it helps to use your past fitness levels to gauge your new plan. You may not want to power through a long treadmill session the way you used to now that you're pregnant, so it's best to recalibrate how you use your time.
Ziel recommends scaling back the length of your actual workout while increasing your warm-up and cool-down time. That way, you can fit in a good amount of movement, but without the exhaustion of too much intensity.
Hold the Railings
Incline is fine as long as you hold on to the railings of the treadmill, says Samantha Barrionuevo, a personal trainer at Miami Total Fitness. The combination of the front-loading baby weight and the incline could lead to imbalances while walking or running.
The bars are meant to help keep your stead, but if you're hanging on for dear life, it's time to lower the incline and speed to safer levels.
Use the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE)
Rate different levels of exertion on a scale to keep yourself on track. "If you have a scale from one to 20 with 20 being the most intense and one being nothing at all, you want to be between 12 to 14," Barrioneuvo says. You have to know yourself and how your body feels at each stage for the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) to work correctly.
Keep Water Handy
Hydrate throughout your workout to avoid overheating. It's important to keep your body temperature cool during pregnancy, and water definitely helps accomplish this goal.
"Dehydration is the number one cause of premature labor, so make sure to keep drinking while you're on the treadmill," Barrioneuvo says. "If you can't walk while you drink (no shame there), then just step off the treadmill or slow down your pace."
Stretch Gently
It's always a good idea to stretch but do so with care and awareness. While you are pregnant, your system produces a hormone called relaxin, whose job is to prepare your body for birth by loosening some of your muscles, ligaments, and joints. This can make it easy to overstretch, so be aware of your limits.
Incorporate Breathing Exercises
Strengthen your abs with a simple breathing exercise. Take your hands to your belly and exhale deeply and "hug" the baby with your abs (transverse abdominis).
Kirsten Higgins, a personal trainer and group instructor specializing in prenatal fitness at Prestige Fitness in Chicago, says you can literally say "Ha!" to feel the muscle contracting up and in. "See if you can find that hug with baby while you are walking. Simultaneously strengthening the core will make for an easier delivery with less back pain."
Try an Interval Treadmill Workout
Barrionuevo says that the focus of this workout is on overall health, not pushing yourself to lose weight or train for an athletic competition. The key is to start slow and avoid injury. Here's a workout she recommends:
Warm-up (minutes 0 to 5)
Set the pace at 2.5 to 3 mph and a 0–3% incline, depending on your fitness level.
First half of workout (minutes 5 to 15)
Change the speed of the workout while keeping the incline fairly consistent.
- Minutes 5 to 8: Increase the speed by 1 mph and increase the incline by 2–3%
- Minutes 8 to 10: Decrease the speed by 1 mph
- Minutes 10 to 13: Increase the speed by 1.5 mph
- Minutes 13 to 15: Decrease the speed by 1 mph
Second half of the workout (minutes 15 to 25)
Change the incline and keep the speed fairly consistent.
- Minutes 15 to 18: Decrease the speed to starting mph and increase the incline by 2%.
- Minutes 18 to 20: Decrease the incline by 2%.
- Minutes 20 to 23: Increase the incline by 3%.
- Minutes 23 to 25: Decrease the incline by 2%.
Cool down (minutes 25 to 30)
Decrease the incline to ground level.
