Heavy back squats I miss you!

Before I knew I was pregnant I had already started sucking at the gym. The first signal was a lack of oxygen but put it down to being a bit out of sorts having just come back from a 2 week overseas trip that didn’t involve a lot of training.  I started to take twice as long as the fastest person to finish a workout that should have been easy for me. It was frustrating but I just wasn’t feeling right and looking back I'm glad I had the good sense to pull out of the crossfit regionals. I was only 5 weeks when I was supposed to compete having qualified as the 47^th fittest woman in Australia.  I was still lifting heavy in my training and feeling ok just out of breath. I remember doing a 100kg back squat and I’m still here. Obviously I’m not doing that now. Heavy back squats I miss you!

I found out at about 6 weeks and obviously started to scale back.  It was hard. Really hard. I was madly trying to find out info on what I could and couldn’t do, quizzed my doctor all through my first appointment, like a woman obsessed.  I had no morning sickness just felt a constant lack of energy. I didn’t look pregnant yet except for a thickening around the middle. I was losing my waistline. Bugger. My ego was taking a bashing in the gym and it seemed everything I had worked so hard to achieve were diminishing. My waistline, my lungs, my body fat, the loads I could lift, the speed I could run etc even the food I usually loved had no appeal. I couldn’t cope with the smell or taste of meat, my usual dietary staple. Cravings were leaning towards starchy carbs. Oh no! What is this about? Usually when you have cravings the mind can override the body but it felt different this time. I think I was craving sugar and bread to get some energy back, although mentally I knew this is not the case and it doesn’t work like this.  So my diet during the 1^st trimester took a bit of a bashing. Not ideal I know and I became frustrated in myself giving myself a hard time over it. I’m not perfect and stressing over the fact isn’t going to help anything. So I kept up the movement and did my best. My training routine stayed the same just with less intensity.

I took a 2 week holiday at about 10 weeks to the US to see my friend compete in the Crossfit games. Still got my training in but I admit to eating way too many Hershey Kisses whilst there J A group of us winded up doing a workout at Muscle Beach which was awesome fun and visited a few gyms to get some workouts in. All felt good.

I did an Olympic lifting course at 18 weeks preggers which had a large practical component. I just kept my lifts light and stayed hydrated. I hope to still keep working on my technique so that lifting doesn’t feel too foreign when I finally get back into full swing.

Here's a few pics of me at 12 weeks preggers...and I thought I had a gut then! 

So why exercise?

So, let’s start with some fairly conventional facts. No surprises here really, just lots of reasons to stay fit and healthy through pregnancy.

Benefits to you of exercising during pregnancy;

·         More energy

·         Fewer problems with backache, bloating and constipation

·         Reduced risk of gestational diabetes

·         Better sleep

·         Easier labour and childbirth

·         Quicker recovery

·         Boosts your mood

·         Reduced birth weight for baby, which may reduce his or her risk of obesity later in life

·         Tend to have easier and less complicated labours

·         Have less need for pain relief during labour (hmmm we’ll see about that)

·         Increase their aerobic capacity

·         Have more stamina during labour

·         Report a more rapid physical and emotional recovery from delivery

Benefits to the baby of exercising mums;

·         Have significantly lower heart rates than babies of non exercising mums

·         Are better able to cope with the stress of birth

·         Have a greater ability to adapt to life outside the uterus

·         Are more healthy at birth

·         Are leaner at birth and tend to stay lean as they grow

·         Sleep through the night sooner (yes please!)

·         Are better able to self calm

·         Score higher on tests of general intelligence and oral language skills

·         Have decreased risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases later in life

Why wouldn’t you keep up the training!

So I’ll try to do a bit of back tracking and highlight any key issues I experienced throughout the different trimesters. Forgive me if I jump all over the place with this blog. There's a bit of catching up to do.

1st trimester 1-13 weeks

Ok so back to my research on the internet… I was curious to see what the experts said I could and couldn’t do during my pregnancy — and I really didn’t like what I found! Here are some examples of conventional pregnancy diet and fitness recommendations:

- Increase your carbohydrate intake
- Don’t bench press more than 20kgs
- Don’t squat below parallel
- Don’t let your heart rate get beyond 140 beats per minute
- Don’t lie on your back after the first trimester
- Eat lots of grains
- Eat constantly throughout the day to make sure the baby is always supplied with nutrients

Now to anyone that hasn’t experienced the full benefits of primal nutrition along with optimal training this might all sound very logical. Over the next few months I will talk about some of the common pregnancy guidelines I have encountered and why I have chosen an alternate path. I’m not suggesting that my pregnancy will be a perfect one, far from it I’m sure, but I want to be able to make educated decisions not just follow the masses especially when something doesn’t ‘seem right’ to me.