When I think of the first trimester, I think of morning sickness, extreme fatigue, and for many women uncertainty about what they should be doing that is safe in terms of exercise.

In my own experience, gentle exercise can help to improve both energy levels and morning sickness. When women feel empowered to move in a safe way, their experience in the early part of pregnancy is more positive.

However, the most important thing is to listen to your body, and if it is impractical and you don’t feel well enough to exercise in the first trimester of pregnancy, please don’t beat yourself up!

If you are able to be active, great news!

Try to stick to your usual routine (unless you are a professional athlete & training more than an hour a day of moderate-vigorous intensity. Athletes should seek guidance from their care provider about appropriate volume modification).

Try to listen to your body, make adequate time for rest, hydration and ensure you stay appropriately cooled.

Hot yoga is on the list of “not-to’s”, especially during the first trimester.

Luckily, the second trimester is dubbed the “feel good” trimester, and for most women morning sickness subsides or reduces.

Your bump is growing, but not big enough for you to be too uncomfortable. This is a great time to get back into a healthy exercise routine. Regardless of your pregnancy experience, it is always advisable to consult your doctor or caregiver with regards to exercise.

The most important thing if you haven’t been able to exercise during the first trimester is to take it easy, and slowly build up.

Start with 15 minutes of walking or other light familiar exercise and see how you feel. Prenatal pilates or yoga are fantastic to really get you in tune with our body, and breath, which is so important for labour and delivery.

Regular gym goers may get back into prior gym activities, but its best to work with a prenatal qualified instructor, or stick to basic, light weights and machine-based lifting. Reduce the mount you life to no more than 60% of your pre-pregnancy weights, and this will reduce as your body weight & size of your bump increase.

The hormone, Relaxin is circulating well in the body at this point, and means that there is more softness to your ligaments than usual, particularly around the pelvis. For this reason, I tend to recommend shorter and narrower stance (length apart front to back) and avoiding weighted single leg exercises.

For obvious reasons, early in the second trimester, you will reach the point where its no longer comfortable to lay on your stomach, and so finding alternative positions is important.

Movements that compress your abdomen (i.e. sit-ups) should be avoided from early in pregnancy, to avoid squashing your growing baby and overworking the large abdominal muscles which are prone to separating as your bump grows in pregnancy.

Running will become increasingly uncomfortable, and as much as its safe for you and your baby at low intensities, there are less straining cardio activities that are beneficial for both, your pelvic floor and your joints.

Avoid laying on your back if uncomfortable, as mentioned previously, as there is less blood flow to both yourself and your baby when back-lying and right-side lying.

Now is a great time to show off your bump in a maternity dress. It’s generally during this period that you’ll want extra bump support to fight pelvic discomfort and ab separation. Now’s a great time to invest in some supportive leggings, shorts or tights to aid this as well as wearing flattering cut tees and tanks with stretchy or loose fitting fabrics will retain its shape for your post baby body.

Take note, our bodies don’t magically snap back to the way they were before our bubs. By choosing maternity clothes well, garments can continue as wardrobe staples postpartum until you’re back to your pre-pregnancy self – be it in weeks or months.

So much about our bodies change as we go through the pregnancy journey. Back pain is common in pregnancy, due to weight gain, as well as the changing centre of gravity.

Our growing bump and breasts move our centre of gravity much further forward, which means more pressure on our spine.

Luckily, there are many ways that we can reduce or avoid back pain in pregnancy!

We know that staying active is key to avoiding unhealthy weight gain and maintaining good strength and range of motion in pregnancy. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that a pregnant woman exercise the same amount as a non-pregnant woman of the same age. This amounts to 300 minutes of low to moderate activity per week, or 150 minutes of moderate activity each and every week.

We often blame hormones, (particularly the hormone, Relaxin) for our niggles, but Relaxin actually peaks at around 12-16 weeks in pregnancy, and back pain is most commonly felt from week 18 onwards.

Relaxin is responsible for a degree of softening of our ligaments to allow for childbirth, but I want to reassure you that your pelvis isn’t “unstable”, and so we want to move away from thinking and talking about it in this way.

We also know that women of higher socio-economic status and have low job satisfaction have higher rates of lower back pain.

For a pregnant woman with general back pain, the type, intensity and duration of exercise may change. But, we still want to be active as much as we can each day; balancing with adequate rest, of course.

Yoga, swimming, prenatal pilates and light functional strengthening exercises, particularly for the butt and core are key to help prevent and relieve back pain in pregnancy, and should be included in your weekly routine.

Other ways to reduce back pain are:

• Wearing supportive shoes (and avoiding high heels)
• Avoiding prolonged sitting, changing from sitting to standing or taking regular standing. Walking breaks if you have a sedentary job
• Doing some simple postural + functional strengthening exercises to improve posture
• Wearing support garments + a supportive bra (like our gazelle + ultimate support)
• Sleeping with a pregnancy pillow, like the belly bean, or at least a pillow between your knees to assist in neutral pelvic and spinal alignment
• Addressing any concerns you have around work, returning to work + having a plan in place
• Addressing any concerns you have around childbirth, courses that encourage you to take control of your birth choices such as hypno-birthing and calm birthing can’t come highly enough recommended

Some discomfort is normal, as your body adapts and grows to housing another human being.

By staying positive, active, and making plans around work and birth, you actually can have an amazing back-pain-free pregnancy.

We hear a lot about how we should strengthen our pelvic floor AFTER having a baby, but what about during pregnancy?

Research suggests that pelvic floor strengthening during pregnancy can help with reduction in both incidence & symptoms of Stress Urinary Incontinence in early motherhood. So how do you correctly strengthen the pelvic floor?

The key to pelvic floor and core strengthening lies in understanding your anatomy, timing & coordination with the breath, as well as avoiding excessive load, beyond what you can control your pelvic floor and core.

On an inhale, release the pelvic floor, and on an exhale draw the muscles from your coccyx to pubis, and then add an additional lift. Think zipping up from front to back, and then up internally towards your spine. You can think of it like the muscles you would use to prevent passing wind, then urine, and then adding an additional lift. Release these muscles on an inhale breath and repeat.

You can build up to holding the pelvic floor contraction over several breaths (i.e. not releasing on the inhale, but holding for 2,3,4,8 breaths, and then releasing.

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It’s important to note, that overactive pelvic floor is just as common as under active, or weak – and so we also need to work on “down training” the pelvic floor, and especially in child birth – we want a strong, but not overactive, pelvic floor.

To work on down-training, exhale to engage pelvic floor, and then release on the inhale, and then continue to release on subsequent 3-4 breaths without the contraction on exhale. Each inhale try to soften and release this area more. Try one exhale per pelvic floor lift to 5-8 inhale &release breaths.

Once you have mastered the pelvic floor activation or “kegel”, it’s time to think about functionality, and how to implement such activation throughout your daily activities.

When going from sit to stand for example, using an exhale breath & pelvic floor lift, when squatting, when lifting anything, exhaling on exertion (not ever holding your breath though!), and carrying this breath pattern through into motherhood.

Watch Video on Pregnancy Safe Core Exercises