Sunday 24 August 2014

24 Weeks

Yup, I've officially "popped" :)
I've said it before and I'll say it again: one of the greatest benefits of being healthy and active is the relationship and understanding you build with your own body.  Under normal circumstances, I'm able to pinpoint any trouble spots in my body, figure out (somewhat accurately) what I did wrong, and then develop a suitable action plan for recovery. The problem with pregnancy is that there's a whole new component to your body that you are not in control of - or sometimes even aware of.  For me, relinquishing some control over my body is the part that I'm most frustrated by, but the process I'm most in awe of.

Last week, a few odd things happened:
1) I lost almost all interest in going to the gym
2) My usual recovery time of 1-3 days per body part was dragged out to 4-6!
3) I got SUPER tired and nauseous for no apparent reason for a couple days (though, my mother suggested that this was probably due to baby having a little growth spurt.  Makes total sense. Leave it to the woman who's had 7 pregnancies to know what's up with my body lol).

Still, what these things signaled to me was that it was time to change up my gym routine; not just a simple change of exercises... a complete overhaul!

At the centre of my new program is a 90-day yoga challenge, which should absolutely help with my recovery time. Some days will be in-studio, but most will be at home, and I'm committing to at least 45 minutes per session. I'm also moving into a functional style training program.  I find after a few months of training all my body parts separately that my body starts to feel disconnected - like it's not operating cohesively. This functional phase will have lots of full-body movements, which totally revs the metabolism, but more importantly will generate some interest in workouts again. *Part of the reason trainers recommend changing your program every few weeks/months isn't just to make you pay them more money... it's to ensure you don't lose interest in, and thus bail on, your workouts.*

Some of the exercises I did this week and will be doing for the next month or two include:
-KB swings
-KB windmills
-Med ball throws and slams
-Walking lunges with front kicks
-Walking plie squats with side kicks
-Single-leg squats and deadlifts
-Shadow boxing, katas, and weapon training (if my gym will allow me to bring in weapons lol)
-Battle ropes
-Burpee chinups
-Inverted rows
-Renegade rows with pushups
-Cable wood chops
-Cable squat & strike
-Cable power punch
-Cable pull-throughs 
-Bear crawl
-Clean & snatch (light weight)
-Split jerk (light weight)
-Dynamic prone plank
-Planks and any kind of plank variation you can think of!
-Box lateral shuffle
-Frog jumps
-Box jumps (low box)

Please note that this is simply my own personal list of exercises, not an exercise prescription for pregnant women. If you'd like more information about functional exercises during pregnancy, I HIGHLY recommend this website/article which is full of practical, helpful, reliable information for preconception, pregnancy, and postpartum. It is absolutely worth a very thorough read-through.


Don't forget your kegels and pelvic tilts, ladies! 

-Tess

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