About Our Squatting Exercise During Pregnancy Exercise Video
Senior Oh Baby! Fitness instructor Kathleen Donahoe leads us through modified squats using a stability ball for support. It takes the pressure off the knees.
One of the best exercises you can do when you’re pregnant is a squat. Think about squats when you’re pregnant though, it can be hard as a baby grows to find the right form. It can be hard to keep your weight in your heels, still keep your chest open and wide.
There’s a really simple modification we can use using the stability ball to still get your squats in, but take the pressure off of your knees. Really important, especially when you’re pregnant. I’ll show you how it works here.
You want to take your stability ball and place it on the wall right where your belly button is. You’ll place it there and then turn around so your back is on the ball. Perfect. In this position here, then what you want to do is step your feet out in front of you. You want to get a pretty nice steep angle. Then what you’re going to do is just bend your hips drop down and then come up. This looks very different than a normal squat, obviously. By leaning back into the ball you’re taking the pressure off the knees. And exhale come up. At the bottom of the squat you want to get to 90 degrees in the hips, 90 degrees in the knees. Perfect, and exhale up. Take two more like that here. Inhale down, exhale up. You feel it in your quads? Yeah. Good. And big exhale up.
You make it even more difficult by adding some pulses in at the bottom of the exercise. So what you’re going to do is drop down to the bottom of the squat. You’ll pulse one and two and three and then big exhale and press all the way up. Perfect. Taking that again here. Drop it nice and low. That’s so great. And two, and three and exhale and press. We’ll take one more like that. Coming down. And one and two and three and big press up. That’s how those work.
Squat is really great to prepare you for labor if you’re having a vaginal labor. If you know you’re having a c-section, they are really great to do too. Your abdominals are gonna be out of commission for a little bit, so you want really strong legs to help you get in and out of bed and in and out of chairs.
If you have any questions about any of this you can find us at ohbabyfitness.com
