About Our Pregnancy Safe Ab Workout Video & Exercises
These abdominal exercises are perfect for building core strength during pregnancy. Oh Baby! Fitness Senior Instructor Kathleen Donahoe leads us through rolling like a ball and a half roll up for pregnancy.
In terms of abdominal work what’s really great about it is that it can help correct what we call pregnancy posture. Pregnancy posture is how you see pregnant women on TV or in the movie stand. So their stomach is really stuck out, really short lower back. It’s actually not the most helpful way to stand when you’re pregnant.
Actually we want to pull the baby up and then you want a nice long lower back. That’s gonna protect your lower back and help alleviate any back pain that you’re having. One of the best exercises to do that is called rolling like a ball. This is a Pilates exercise. Why it’s great is that it’s gonna really lengthen your lower back as you work your abdominals. You also won’t be stuck on your back like you are for most pregnancy exercises so you don’t have to worry about that.
What you’re going to do is come to the front part of your mat. You’ll place your hands behind your knees. In this position here, what you want to do is come to what we call a C-shape in your spine. So as much as you can curve around that baby. Maggie here is 37 weeks pregnant. You see she can still really get a nice curve going around her back. That’s great. What you want to do here then is inhale as you roll back, exhale as you roll up. Inhale coming back and exhale up. It’s a great pace that she’s working here. Big inhale, roll back and exhale up.
If you take a look to as she comes back up in the exercise, her legs aren’t swinging out and away from her. She’s keeping them pulled in in a nice strong exhale. Take one more like that here. Big curve. And exhale up.
If you feel confident with that exercise what you’re going to do here now is plant your feet down on the floor. You want to think about planting the base of your toes and your heels down pressing really hard into the floor. Hands will stay behind your knees with your feet pressed into the floor. Everything else will stay the same. You’re going to curve around the baby. Inhale. Come back. That’s it, and then exhale and roll up. That’s perfect. Inhale coming back. Her abdominal is getting nice and hard here, I can see it happen. And then exhale up. Two more there, big curve and exhale. And one more. Come in nice and low. Perfect. And exhale up. One of the best abdominal exercises you can do while you’re pregnant.
If you have any questions, you can find us at ohbabyfitness.com.
