Exercising While Pregnant

Slap a warning sticker on me... "CAUTION: EWP" Or, like the title of this post, Exercising While Pregnant. This is a whole new world, and I'm not even hugely pregnant yet.

The first bit of strangeness is my workout routine in general. My minimum goal each week is 4 days of exercise - 2 aerobic (usually swimming, occasionally walking when I can't make the pool), 1 yoga class and 1 pilates class with a prenatal focus. That seems all well and good, but it's amazing how things have changed already.

First of all, the swimming. Although swimming is billed as the "perfect pregnancy workout," I'm finding that even here I need to make changes. Over the past few weeks, I've found that if I try to swim more than 100 yards or so freestyle, my back twinges up so badly that I have to cut the workout short RIGHT THEN. So I'm doing a lot of alternating - 50 free, 50 breast, running through kicking drills going 25 on my back, 25 on my right, 25 on my front, 25 on my left. Anything to slightly shift the orientation of my body in the water and stop me from keeping my back arched. That's fine. I'm also swimming as slow as molasses, but that's nothing new for me. My focus is really on form, and I have found that this is a great chance to focus on the smaller points of form - where my hands are, keeping my body straight and tall in the water, rolling as one piece to the side to breathe.

So that's great, right? Yeah, but here's what no one told me. At about 16 weeks? I stopped being able to pop out of the pool when I'm done swimming. Now, I watch 70 year old men push themselves out of the end of their lane and climb out like it's nothing, and I duck under the lane lines and slosh past the kids in free swim to the stairs. I fear that even getting IN The pool is going to require the stairs or a ladder soon enough - with all the stretching that my poor abs are going through right now, it just feels like too much strain on them to support my body as I drop into the water. Also, my bathing suit barely fits and the options for maternity FITNESS suits are few and far between.

Yoga? More of the same. Despite being in a "gentle" yoga class, my body is just resisting exercising in the old, "normal" way. Thankfully, my teacher is not only willing to provide suggestions for adaptations, she's extremely excited to do so. But I still can't help but feel like a ticking time bomb; like every time we move to a new pose someone glances at me like the baby might actually burst forth from my womb like that old Barbie doll... the one with the removable belly and the baby inside? (That doll was creepy, but I kinda wish it was that easy in real life. Okay, here, I'll just snap off my stomach skin and... heeere's Baby!)

But, despite all the whining here, I feel great that I'm keeping up any sort of exercise routine. I definitely notice the difference - I went on travel last week and missed all my workouts, and felt far worse as a result. Like so many things, it's not the same as my workouts used to be, but I'm learning new things, meeting new people, and keeping my body in the new shape it needs to be in right now. Also, since this is PREGNANCY fitness, I've linked successful weeks to food-splurge rewards. This is called "controlling my cravings." So today, after a good week of working out, I am due a chai milkshake. Which I hope to consume after running some fun errands later.

Two more things to add to a marathon post. So far the baby seems pretty soothed by my workouts - I thought I might get some activity during swimming or yoga, when my heart rate tends to come up a bit. But instead, my little peanut is totally calm and quiet while I'm getting through the workout, then peps up when we're in the car with the radio on. So far, based on active periods, this baby seems to like it when I eat and when there's music on. (Or else the baby DOESN'T like it when I eat or when there's music on. But without additional evidence, I prefer the former.)

AND! I've been pondering a Big Goal for 2010 - I do hope to get a sprint tri in, but learned recently that TNT Washington-Alaska includes the Seattle-to-Portland (STP) ride as one of their events. If I can con one or more grandparents to come tote their (by then) 1-year old grandbaby along the route, this may be my true comeback event. No promises, but the idea definitely intrigues me.