– Pregnancy exercises for muscle tone: https://app.convertkit.com/landing_pages/441940?v=7
– Pregnancy yoga postures: https://app.convertkit.com/landing_pages/441944?v=7
PREGNANCY YOGA POSTURES
The following postures are suitable throughout pregnancy for low risk, healthy individuals. However, please contact your midwife or lead maternity carer if you are unsure whether they are right for you.
All you will need is a mat, and if you have yoga blocks, or even just some cushions from the couch, these can also be handy.
A point to note is to please be mindful not to overstretch your joints during pregnancy. Listen to your body….if the postures don’t feel right on some days, take a rest from them. Please breathe continuously whilst doing the postures. We normally breathe in and out through the nose during yoga.
I have just included four main postures. These are the ones I have been consistent with doing throughout my full pregnancy. There were others I was doing earlier on, that became a bit too much in the later weeks! And as we need to conserve our energy for many other processes going on in our body during this time, less is often more when it comes to the exercise front.
Hold the postures for the length of time that feels right for you. These four would normally take me just over 10 minutes.
I hope this routine helps to keep your aches and pains at bay as much as it has for me.
1. EXTENDED CHILD’S POSE
Kneel on your mat and take your knees as wide as you can comfortably/as wide as you need to for your bump (i.e. you might need to go a bit wider towards the end of your pregnancy!).
Sit your buttocks back towards your heels. I have quite tight hips and knees myself, so my buttocks do not reach my heels — maybe yours do though!
Extend your arms in front and relax into the posture. Ensure your shoulders are drawn back and down (away from the ears), and let your armpits drop gently towards the ground if it feels good to do so.
2. CAT AND COW POSE
From extended child’s pose, come up onto hands and knees. Try and make your body into a ‘box’ position — with hands directly under shoulders, and knees directly under hips. Your hands should be shoulder distance apart, and your knees and feet should be hip distance apart. Head should be in ‘neutral’ (in line with spine), and shoulders drawn back and down.
From there, if it feels ok to do so, you can move into ‘cow’. Look up, and feel your lower back curve as your belly drops down. Note that this may not be appropriate if you have discomfort in your lower back. There was a period of time when I was unable to do this — around 15-18 weeks pregnant, when my abdominals were being severely stretched, and were going through their ‘separation’, so ‘cow’ posture was far too much of an additional stretch through my abdominals (ouch!). If you don’t think ‘cow’ is right for you, you will just move from neutral spine to ‘cat’.
From either ‘neutral’ or ‘cow’, round up through your spine and tuck your chin down towards your chest so that you move into cat posture. Alternate between ‘neutral’ or ‘cow’ and ‘cat’ using timing that feels right for your body.
3. HALF PIGEON POSE
Start on hands and knees (as in ‘cat and cow’ posture). Start by sliding the right knee forward and out towards the right pinky finger. The right foot should just tuck underneath the body. If you are more flexible through the hips, you can move the right foot forward, close to the left hand, so that there is more like a 90 degree angle at the right knee, rather than a 45 degree angle.
As you do this, ensure that the hips stay square to the front — i.e. avoid rolling onto one butt cheek. Slide the left leg back, as straight as possible behind you. Keep the spine long, shoulders back and down, and neck in line with spine. As your bump gets bigger, you might need to do a slight reposition of baby, just so that he/she is not sitting on top of your leg!
4. BUTTERFLY POSE
Place the soles of the feet together, and hold onto your feet with your hands. Let the knees drop gently to the sides, as far as they want to go. Keep an upright posture as you do so.
To work into the stretch more, you can gently lean forward from the hips — keep the spine long to start with, and then gently fold forward, letting the spine curve naturally, and relax the head and neck. You can also use your elbows to create downward pressure on your thighs, thus helping them to lower further towards the floor.
You can find out more about what I do at https://www.ellymcguinness.com/