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Whether you’re a fitness buff or someone who occasionally works out, if you’re pregnant, you might be seeking ways to stay active while also maintaining a safe pregnancy. In fact, exercising while pregnant is actually recommended by the Mayo Clinic, as it can reduce backaches, improve mood, aid sleep, and prevent excess weight gain.
But if lifting weights is your exercise of choice, is it safe to do while pregnant?
The benefits of weight lifting during pregnancy
While many women might feel comfortable walking or taking a prenatal yoga class, weight lifting is another workout that can actually benefit pregnant women.
As with all exercising women during pregnancy, the benefits of weight lifting can be vast, said Brooke Cates, founder of The Bloom Method and Studio Bloom, which offers live on-demand pre- and postnatal workouts. Weight-lifting workouts help women in a number of ways “from managing common discomforts, to strengthening the body in ways that help prepare the individual for the physicality of child birth, to healing better and more rapidly during the early postpartum,” Cates told Mom.com.
What are the risks of weight lifting while pregnant?
While weight lifting is safe during pregnancy — if an individual adheres to proper form and adjusts the amount of weight they are lifting — pregnancy is not the time to increase weight or adopt a strenuous workout.
According to Cates, a safe or effective pregnancy weight-lifting routine is going to completely depend on how the individual is training prior to getting pregnant. “It’s more about understanding how to incorporate your core and pelvic floor during all lifting moves to decrease the risk of pregnancy related injuries,” she advised.
Pregnant women also have to be careful to modify moves to accommodate their evolving body.
“The changes to a woman’s pregnant body means the center of gravity shifts forward, and there is ligamentous laxity due to hormonal changes, so exercise that strains the low back should be limited or modified,” Dr. Judith Meer told Aaptiv.com. “Think bent over rows, using a bench support, and dumbells instead of a barbell and bending at the hips.” As with sleeping, it’s important to avoid any weight training that places you flat on your back, as well.
How long can you lift weights while pregnant?
While there’s not a set time frame during which you can lift weights during pregnancy, it’s important to listen to your body, Cates said. She recommends stopping if you experience any pain, discomfort, cramping, or bleeding, and to seek a doctor’s recommendation if you’re unsure about a particular workout.
“As long as the individual hasn’t been given other recommendations by their doctors or health care providers, continuing to lift weights up until the end of their pregnancy is completely safe and often proves to be better for the individual, versus someone halting their exercise in the final month of pregnancy,” Cates said.
Workouts will likely need to be adjusted as the body changes, and it’s important no pregnant woman “push through” if they experience discomfort.
In general, too, pregnancy is not a time to kick workouts up a notch but to slow down a bit and listen to your body, Cates said.
“While pregnancy is not a time to increase intensity with exercise, it is a time when women can implement a new understanding of core connection to better support them throughout pregnancy and for life,” Cates said. “The majority of women will often find that a level of scaling back on exercises, weight, range of motion, and the like begins to take place around the second trimester.”
Can weight lifting cause a miscarriage?
Cates said that pregnant women can safely lift weights without the threat of miscarriage or a pregnancy loss. “As long as the individual is scaling back and listening to their body — if it shows an uncommon symptoms like sporadic spotting or bleeding after a workout — it is extremely rare that any type of healthy movement would be the cause of a loss,” she said.
