A recent study conducted by the University of North Carolina, shows that women who were active and fit before their IVF fertility treatment, had much better odds at conceiving. Being fit, healthy and doing regular exercise helps to prepare you both mentally and physically for the challenges of pregnancy and labour. Exercising pre-pregnancy will help you to:

• Regulate and control your body weight during your pregnancy
• Build up your stamina which is important for pregnancy and labour
• Maintain a positive frame of mind and fight depression
• Sleep better
• It helps to fight stress and anxiety
• Helps to ensure that you have a regular BMI and aren’t classed as being overweight whilst you are trying to conceive. This will help ensure your baby is healthy and doesn’t have any increased risk of gestational diabetes.

Congratulations! You are pregnant and about to enter an exciting nine-month period, during which you will experience many physical changes.  We want to make sure you are comfortable and active throughout your pregnancy, and we will prepare you as best as we can. Below we look at important do’s and don’ts during your pregnancy, which will also help clear up any common misconceptions.

Don’t:

1. You don’t need to ‘eat for two’ and start overloading your plate with food that you know isn’t good for you or the baby. Continue with a healthy balanced diet throughout your pregnancy and don’t use your pregnancy as an excuse to overindulge. You only need to eat around 200 calories more during your pregnancy.
2. Don’t stop exercising. Exercise is not dangerous for your developing baby! Whilst pregnancy is certainly not the time to start training for a marathon, the old belief that pregnant women should put their feet up and adopt a sedentary lifestyle is long gone. It is now widely known that there are incredible health benefits of staying fit and healthy throughout pregnancy both for you and your baby. Inactivity poses a greater risk. We encourage women to continue a normal active life and continue with exercise that they were used to doing before getting pregnant i.e. running, yoga and aerobics. If you were not active before, then it is not advisable to suddenly pick up strenuous exercises now, but our personal trainers will ease you into a more gentle routine, which you can manage.
3. Don’t carry out exercises where you have to lie flat after 16 weeks. Our pre-natal personal trainers will teach you about proper technique and positioning during your pre-natal exercise classes. It is crucial that you work with an expert to avoid any dangerous positions, which could be harmful to you or the baby. For example, you shouldn’t be doing abdominal crunches and sit-ups, after your first trimester. The growing weight of the uterus can press down on a major vein called the vena cava, which returns blood to your heart. This can make you feel faint but also could also interfere with the flow of blood and nutrients to the placenta and your developing baby. But this doesn’t mean you can’t train your core. In fact, a strong core will help during childbirth. We will advise and guide you with alternative exercising positions that will help you build your core strength in a safe and equally effective way.

Do:

1. Listen to and acknowledge your bodily changes. Our personal trainers know you will be experiencing hormonal changes. You will have additional “relaxin hormones” entering your bloodstream in order to prepare your body for both carrying and delivering a baby. It is important you confide in them whilst training. They will understand that on certain days you may feel nauseous, have back pain, or feel tired, and they will find ways to motivate you throughout this challenging and exciting period.
2. Warm up and cool down afterwards. Simple stretching and breathing exercises at the start and end of your prenatal exercises classes will help to prepare you for childbirth. Our trainers will equip you with knowledge to make you feel as in control as possible throughout the nine months of your pregnancy.
3. Make sure that you can always speak in full sentences when you are exercising. If this is not the case then you may be overdoing your fitness training during your pregnancy.

Exercising throughout your pregnancy will help keep you energised, mobile and flexible and will help to prepare you for the next phase of your life as a mother. Our goal is to help you feel strong during your pregnancy. We also want to help you bounce back after pregnancy with our post-natal training course. You can carry out your prenatal and postnatal personal training with the same personal trainer. Clients build up a great amount of trust and comfort with our personal trainers during this pivotal time in their life and our trainers also feel a great connection with their clients.

As soon as you have received the go-ahead from your midwife or doctor at your six-week postpartum check-up you are ready to begin our postnatal personal training program.

If you experienced complications during childbirth, had a C-Section or forceps delivery and/or were not active before your pregnancy then six weeks may not be long enough. In this instance, you should seek advice from your GP and start our post-natal training course as and when they advise.

We understand that you will feel tired, have aches and pains and struggle to find time to exercise with a newborn. This is why our post-natal fitness classes can take place in your home, so you can keep your baby nearby and reduce the amount of worry and stress. Alternatively we can train close to home, in an outdoor park, if you can arrange childcare. We make sure your post-natal training program is as convenient as possible. Our online training means the baby can be in the same room and the efficiency of the session means it is really easy to fit into the day.

Specifically designed for postnatal women, our online and in-person programs incorporate a blend of resistance, stability, cardio and postural exercises proven to help burn unwanted body fat, improve aerobic fitness, boost metabolism, strengthen the lower back and tone the muscles in the stomach, bum, chest, thighs and arms.

As soon as you feel you are ready, we can begin to focus on the pelvic floor muscles. This is important because it will help prevent incontinence, which leads to leaking urine.  Typically, it takes up to four months for your pelvic muscles to recover. Once you feel they have recovered we can resume more typical workout exercises such as aerobics, sit-ups and ab-crunches. Other activities may include power walking, resistance training, rebounding, Pilates, boxercise, medicine ball and swiss ball work, low-impact circuits and full core conditioning.

Your body has experienced a surge of hormones during your pregnancy, which will lead to your muscles feeling more lax. You may experience this feeling in your joints for up to six months, and it is important to be aware of this. Our personal trainers will only introduce high impact activity when they feel you are ready.

Post-natal personal training is by far one of the most effective ways to regain your previous figure, and even improve on it. However, this change won’t necessarily happen quickly. We will set realistic goals for you, and increase your training gradually. It is important not to overload yourself with pressure. Nine months of carrying a baby is hard work!

Within just a few weeks of sessions with one of our personal trainers you will have more energy, greater stamina, less stress, greater flexibility, increased self-esteem and far greater body confidence. By combining specific techniques with correct eating habits, our postnatal personal trainers can help you to lose your baby weight, increase your energy and tone your body enabling you to better cope with the demands of motherhood.

All of our professional personal trainers hold nationally accredited postnatal fitness certifications and have many years of experience working with new mums. Most of our trainers also hold advanced academic degrees in health sciences, fitness and physical therapy. This means that our personal trainers are able to get you the real results you want whilst ensuring you adopt safe and proper technique at all times.