Exercise during pregnancy helps keep you and your baby healthy, and prepares your body for labor.
The excuse that you are pregnant should not be the sufficient reason for not exercising. In fact this is one of those most important phase of your life when your body actually need to stretch and breathe more so as to remain healthy and flexible.
During pregnancy a hormone which promote flexibility in the body in order to facilitate the pregnancy process, is released inside the body, you should take care to not over perform your stretches to such extent that you get hurt by them. The basic checks signs of fatigue of faster heart beats should be sufficient enough for you to stop at that very moment and take some rest.
Pregnancy restricts your movement from place to place. It will not be possible always for you to go to gym or outdoors to exercise. Home exercise pregnancy workout routine can be beneficial for you to carry out the required exercises.
How can I get my home ready for the pregnancy workout routing?
Spot
Find some airy and inspiring spot in your house for doing the exercises. This might be near to the TV in your room so that you can watch your favorite TV cookery show or it might be near to the open window section or balcony where you can enjoy the fresh bouts of air in the morning hours. This spot should be spacious too so that you can stretch yourself there comfortably without getting hurt.
Equipment
You might also want to opt for an exercise video or even some home equipment like a treadmill or elliptical trainer. You can also make some musical arrangement at the spot so that you can have enough motivation and rhythm to carry out the exercise with joy & vigor.
Water
Keep some drinking water nearby so that you can hydrate yourself once you feel thirsty.
What is ideal duration of my exercise during pregnancy?
During pregnancy you should start from 15 minutes of weekly exercise routine with three times a week which then can be increased up to 30 minutes sessions from four times a week to daily.
What are the various exercises that I can do at home during pregnancy?
Stretching Exercises
They are best to give your body muscles the required warm up and flexibility they need. Below we are discussing them one by one for different body parts. This can also be used after you perform the slightly heavier exercise routine to get cooled down or to get warm up for the slightly strenuous routine.
Neck rotation
Relax and rotate your head in round direction starting from right till left and then back to the starting point. Do four such slow rotations to exercise your neck area.
Shoulder rotation
Rotate your shoulders starting from forward movement to backward movement and then again back to the starting point of the movements.
Swim
Pose like you are swimming and bring your right arm up and extend your body forward and twist to the side as in crawl stroke. Follow with the left arm and do this whole round ten times.
Thigh shift
Lean forward while standing with your weight on the forward thigh and then change the direction with the left foot, repeat four for each side.
Leg shake
Sit with your legs and feet extended. Move the legs up and down in a gentle shaking motion.
Ankle rotation
Rotate your feet from the ankle as its axis for four times in both clockwise as well as anticlockwise.
Tailor Exercises
Tailor exercises strengthen the pelvic, hip and thigh muscles and can help relieve low back pain.
Tailor sit
Sit on the floor with your knees bent and ankles crossed. Lean slightly forward and keep your back straight but relaxed. Use this position whenever possible throughout the day.
Pregnancy Workout Routine From Your Home
Tailor press
In this exercise you press the knees with your hands pressed under them. You do this while sitting at the floor and knees bent and the bottoms of your feet together. Hold this position of press for a count of five.
Kegel Exercise
They are the exercises in which you imagine to stop the flow of the urine or stool. They will help you to strengthen the bladder, uterus and bowels. Do these exercises daily for five sets with each set consisting of count of five holds of contraction of pelvic muscles.
Squats
They are the exercises in which you sit with your knees bend in position up to the point where they don’t get relaxed, remain in that position for some time to the count of five and then come back to the original position.
Push ups
During this exercise you pull your body up without touching the knees to the floor while facing towards the floor. Do some sets of five repetitions. You can relax this exercise slightly by allowing your knees to lie on the floor and then pulling the body upside.
