Training Through Pregnancy and Afterwards: What Actually Helps

The advice most women receive about exercise in pregnancy is vague to the point of being useless: *be careful, listen to your body, don't overdo it.* It is not wrong, but it answers none of the real questions. Here is a more useful version. ### During pregnancy: the guidance is more permissive than people expect Current guidance from major obstetric bodies recommends that women with uncomplicated pregnancies get around **150 minutes of moderate activity per week**, including strength work. For a previously active woman, continuing to train — with adjustments — is the recommendation, not the exception. The benefits are well documented: lower risk of gestational diabetes, better blood pressure control, less back pain, improved sleep and mood, and in several studies shorter labour and faster recovery. What genuinely changes: - **Relaxin increases joint laxity**, so end-range stretching and anything requiring extreme positions is a bad trade. Stability matters more than flexibility now. - **Lying flat on your back** becomes uncomfortable and is generally avoided after the first trimester. - **The centre of mass shifts forward**, which changes balance and loads the lower back differently. - **Intensity is managed by effort, not heart rate.** Talk test rather than a number. - **Core work changes shape.** Crunches and anything that makes the abdomen dome are out; breathing mechanics and deep core control are in. What stays: resistance training. Continuing to lift, sensibly loaded and properly coached, is one of the better things you can do through a pregnancy. ### The fourth trimester: what nobody prepares you for The six-week check is widely treated as a starting gun. It is not. It is a medical clearance that you are healing normally — it says nothing about whether your core and pelvic floor are ready to run, jump or lift heavy. Two things are extremely common and rarely explained properly. **Diastasis recti** — separation of the abdominal wall — occurs in most pregnancies to some degree. It often resolves on its own, but it can persist, and the traditional response of doing more abdominal work usually makes it worse. What helps is restoring the deep core's ability to manage pressure before adding load on top of it. **Pelvic floor dysfunction** is the other. Leaking when you sneeze, cough, run or jump is *common* after birth, but it is not something you simply live with, and it is not something to train through. It is a signal that the system managing intra-abdominal pressure is not yet doing its job. A pelvic health physiotherapist is the right first call, and in the UAE they are readily available. ### Why returning too fast is the most common mistake The pressure to get the body back is intense, and high-impact exercise is the usual response — running, HIIT classes, jumping. This is precisely the wrong order. Those activities demand exactly the pressure-management capability that pregnancy and birth have disrupted. Loading before that capability returns is what turns a temporary problem into a lasting one: persistent leaking, ongoing separation, back and hip pain that lingers for years. The right order is unglamorous and it works: breathing and deep core control first, then loaded strength through a full range, then impact once the system holds under pressure. Most women are pleasantly surprised by how quickly it moves once the foundation is genuinely there. ### What we do Our pre and postnatal coaching runs at your home, which for a mother of a newborn is usually the difference between training and not training at all. Sessions are built around the assessment rather than a template, and progressed only when your body is ready rather than on a calendar. Veronica, who leads most of our postpartum work in Abu Dhabi, has a caseload made up largely of postnatal women, and the thing her clients mention most often is the attention to detail — every exercise adapted, nothing progressed early. Where there is a diagnosed issue, we coach alongside your physiotherapist rather than in place of them. *This article is general information, not medical advice. Always get clearance from your doctor or midwife before starting or resuming exercise in pregnancy or after birth, and see a pelvic health physiotherapist if you are experiencing leaking, pain or a persistent abdominal separation.*