Vigorous excercise can increase your heartrate and core body temperature, which is believed to cause brain damage to the baby. It is also why they don't recommend spas or baths too hot.
Fatigue to yourself is also something you should avoid if for no other reason but for your own comfort. Even though I had been attending regular pilates classes for well over a year before conceiving Caleb, I had to reudce the reps and weights because my muscles would be aching too much.
The general recommendation is to keep your heartrate below 140bpm which gets increasingly difficult the bigger you get. There are also a number of exercises you can't do while pregnant eg. sit ups. Some things that require balance are not recommended as you get bigger either as your centre of gravity shifts and you become unstable (Body step might be an issue in this regard) and more likely to injure yourself.
Having said that I exercised throughout my whole pregnancy last time and will again this time (once I get over this serious exhaustion). I had my gym do up a special program for me with cardio and weights. I also swam, did pregnancy pilates and pregnancy yoga. I also did Body Pump but had to modify many exercises as you can't do shoulders (lifting your arms above your head isn't recommended for some reason) or abs so I would do half a class and then go off to the bike or treadmill.
Speak to your GP and also your gym and they can help you. And I also always wore a heartrate monitor to make sure I wasn't overdoing things.
Nai the arms above head thing is a blood pressure precaution - if it's already low doing that can make you faint.
There have been studies which found that vigorous exercise (at 90-100% of your max heart rate for 10 or more minutes, the sort of things competative athletes do) can increase the likelihood of miscarriage but the studies themselves had NO women with BMI over 20 in them, and low BMI is also associated with increased miscarriage risks, so it's hard to know if the exercise was to blame.
Your body will work hard to protect your baby while you exercise. It might feel harder, you will be warm faster and sweat more easily and more profusely. Your body will keep your baby safe unless you do explosive anaerobic training (like sprinting). Even if you DO do that sort of thing, you're far far more likely to faint than miscarry.
There are women in Africa who walk 10 miles just to get water every day of their pregnancy, and they can do it, why? Because their body is used to it. So in general you can continue with what your body is used to and stick to the same effort level. As you get bigger your perception of effort will change - weights in pump that used to feel ok will be too heavy, you'll be exhausted after shorter runs or less time on the bike. Listen to your body.
Pregnancy is not a time to INCREASE fitness, but you can absolutely maintain it safely so long as you listen to your body. FWIW when i ran my half marathon last year a woman came in an HOUR before me, 7 months pregnant.
Thanks Bec - I wasn't sure why you couldn't lift your arms but that makes sense. My BP is still on the low side of normal so I will be avoiding doing that!
Another thing you can/should do in Pump, instead of sitting out the chest and tricep tracks (because you shouldn't lie flat on your back) just elevate the bench at one end. Put one riser under one side and three under the other. That way your body is not flat.
I did Pump and Combat till I was 8 months and the only thing I had a problem with was the clean and press once my stomach got bigger. So I just did single rows instead to keep time to the music.
I have seen pregnant women do Step but personally I wouldn't, I would worry about falling too much, esp with the speed step. As for Attack, the best thing about my pregnancy was I didn't have to do Attack anymore! Seriously though, if you take the lower options and make sure you are not out of breath then you should be fine. Make sure you talk to your Dr to make sure first though. Have fun!
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