Hey! You’re pregnant! Congratulations! (Or maybe you’re a trainer/coach with a pregnant client). Either way, I’m guessing you’re googling a ton of things right now, including, if you’re reading this, how on earth to train your core during pregnancy (and if you even should).
There’s a lot of information out there, some good, some bad. (Shoot, I was reading an old article I wrote on training while pregnant on another site YEARS ago at the start of my career in training and I sort of cringe at it now). Training in general has come a long way in a few years as the science keeps evolving, and it’s no different with training during pregnancy. Feel free to skip down to the bottom if you just want the exercises and not the anatomy lesson, but it’s worth reading to understand why we do this.
Let’s start with SHOULD you train your core during pregnancy.
Short answer: YES, but talk to your doctor first (and if they tell you no working out, ask why; some OB’s stick to the old school don’t-workout advice, some just tell you to “keep doing what you’re doing”–but sometimes you really do have a reason not to work out).
Long answer? Training in general throughout your pregnancy is highly beneficial for a number of reasons, including making the pregnancy AND the delivery easier on you, and potentially making your recovery easier as well. Giving birth is ABSOLUTELY the hardest workout you will ever go through in your life–it doesn’t hurt to prepare for it. Core work, when integrated properly, can help with posture (and thus back pain), as well as appropriate tone (as in, your muscles engaging and relaxing appropriately, not being “toned”–you need to be able to relax as well as engage during labor).
Before we get to “what’s appropriate,” let’s talk about what your core is and what it does.
Your core is more than your abs. It also includes your hip musculature (booty included), your pelvic muscles, and your thorax (back included). Your abdomen consists of your rectus abdominus (your “six pack abs” muscle), your internal obliques, your external obliques, and your transverse abdominus (the “corset” muscle). Your diaphragm is in there under your ribs, and your pelvic floor muscles are (duh) in your pelvis; together those regulate intraabdominal pressure.
Ultimately, the core is designed to provide us stability, as well as to transfer movement between our lower and upper halves. A lot of coaches have moved away from a TON of rotational ab exercises over the years because of this (and I’m one of them–if we’re going to do rotational ab work, it’s about moving power from our hips to our shoulders, not mindlessly twisting our abs around). The focus has moved into doing anti-extension, anti-rotation, and anti-lateral flexion movements. (We’re also moving away from a lot of flexion aka sit ups; the research and work done by Dr. Stuart McGill goes into much more depth on why, and please feel free to do the research yourself if you want to, but it essentially comes down to sparing the spine from constant wear and tear on the facets, disks, and nerves).
During pregnancy, our body changes pretty drastically to make room for this tiny human we’re growing. Our ligaments and tendons get a little looser, our hips shift a bit, our pelvis tips forward as the tiny human grows out in front of us, and our abdomen has to make space for them (not to mention our insides literally get pushed out of the way–you’re welcome, kid). This NATURALLY means our abdominal muscles are put under a bit more pressure and are stretched out. It ALSO means the linea alba (the ligament running down the middle of our “six pack”) may stretch a bit–what we know of as diastasis recti. This is a pretty normal response to making room for our babies–and by normal I mean we all experience it to some extent. Some only have a small one, some have a larger one, and there’s no guarantee that training during pregnancy will prevent one from occurring. Don’t worry about that. Core training is about more than DR prevention.
Now that we have the spark notes version of what the core does, let’s chat about how to train it, and what modifications we need to make, when, and why, during pregnancy.
One of the big things to start doing early in pregnancy is working on connective breathing, to learn how to engage and relax ALL of your core musculature, your pelvic floor included. The jury is out on whether kegels help or hurt (your pelvic floor gets worked all day long with every breath you take, and there’s some debate over whether overworking the muscles makes them tire more easily or forget how to relax), but these aren’t quite kegels. This is more about learning about your core, and breathing, when done properly, is wildly important.
How do you do connective breathing? You can do it sitting, standing, laying on your back–however you’re most comfortable. As you inhale, relax everything. Let your belly expand. As you exhale, imagine drawing four corners of a diamond between your legs up and in together (like with a Kegel–trying to stop the flow of pee). Repeat for 6-8 slow, long breaths. Do them when you’re brushing your teeth, or at the start of a workout, or whenever you’ll remember them.
During your first trimester, you don’t need to change much. Planks are fine. Deadbugs are fine. It’s all fine. The biggest thing is to make sure you are hitting all three of those earlier categories. Some examples include:
Anti Extension:
-Planks
-Deadbugs, Leg Lowering
-Roll outs (with TRX, stability ball, ab wheel, barbell–wherever you’re at, really)
-Hollow Holds
-Reverse Crunches (not sit ups, amigas)
-Bird Dogs
Anti Rotation:
-Pallof Presses
-Wide Stance Anti Rotation Chops
-Cable lifts
-Cable chops
-Landmine abs/rainbow/arc
Anti Lateral Flexion:
-Suitcase carries
-Side Planks
-Oblique holds off Bench
There are a lot of ways to do this, but if you’re doing three total body workouts a week, it doesn’t hurt to do one from each category during a workout. For a full body workout, I like to write them in with a lower and upper movement as part of a tri set, and I typically work my way through them in the order they’re in above. Three sets of 8-12 reps is plenty.
Once you get into your second trimester and that baby is starting to grow and put pressure on you, it’s time to start considering some modifications. Some women find that planks (and pushups along with them) put too much pressure on their already-stretching linea alba. While some may be fine with them through to the end of their pregnancy, it’s one of those risk/reward things–there are so many other exercises to choose from, that you really don’t NEED to do planks.
Another thing to start moving away from in your second trimester is any exercise that has you laying on your back. As baby grows, they can put pressure on your vena cava, which is a major vein in your body. It supplies both you and baby with blood flow. While you’re likely never going to be doing exercises on your back long enough for it to be an issue, it can still make mama dizzy, nauseous, and uncomfortable, and potentially be a disruption for baby, so it’s worth it to move away from dead bugs and leg lowers. (This is also why moms are recommended to stop sleeping on their backs in their second trimester).
If you notice doming/coning, it’s a sign that your abdomen is under too much unregulated pressure, and perhaps it’s time to move away from that particular exercise during your pregnancy. 
For me, personally, I scaled back all of my anti-extension movements to essentially just bird dog variations by the end of my pregnancy, largely out of comfort factors (everything else was just wildly uncomfortable). I relied heavily on other movements instead–chops, lifts, carries, side planks, and Pallof presses specifically, and that worked for me.
The biggest key in all of this is to listen to your body. Some women do GREAT with one movement during pregnancy, while others feel terrible doing the same exercise.
Questions for me? Drop them below 💛
The Fit Witt 