A new kind of endurance event

Now that I'm in the second trimester, I'm starting to feel "actually" pregnant, rather than just "nervously early pregnant".  Which means gradually coming to terms with two things that I almost believe are true:

• first, that I am almost certainly going to be delivering this baby sometime in February or March; and
• secondly, that once that's happened, we're going to have an actual baby.

And THAT means that instead of reading the first few chapters of my pregnancy books religiously, I'm starting to branch out into the later chapters and (eek) childbirth books (the ones about actual babies can wait a bit more).

Which has taught me that although I'm not going to be doing any triathlons this season, I am still training for an endurance event.  Quite a tough one, from what I can tell!

And that means that although I have a long way to go, I'm trying to think about how I can best train for the big event.  It's not my only goal with exercise- it's also important to me to stay as fit as possible so that I feel healthy, and so that I can bounce back as quickly as possible afterwards.  But thinking about how my training will help me prepare for labour is helping to bring a bit of structure to my strength workouts- it's not just about kegels.

Here's what I'm focussing on so far:

• keeping strong all over- it's an endurance event, after all
• working on my balance, by incorporating single legged squats and plenty of bosu work (both for late pregnancy, and for labour)
• staying off my back as much as possible, and away from seated positions as much as possible.  It's not super necessary yet, but it's supposed to help the baby face the right way later on, and I'd like to get into the habits and routines now.
• keeping my legs strong, with plenty of squats, including lots of wide squats (I'm saving the deep squats for at home, though!)
• adding extra core exercises in- pregnancy is hell on the abs, apparently, and I want my back to be good and strong.

And here's what it looks like at the moment:

• Narrow squats with barbell pulley
• Wide squats with barbell pulley
• Chest press
• Dead lifts/dead row (or seated row on a bench or swiss ball)
• Shoulder press and shoulder raises on bosu board
• Single leg squats 
• Bicep curls on bosu or swiss ball
• Tricep dips or kickbacks
• Planks
• Swiss ball crunches or knee raises

I'm loving being back in the gym- I've missed it a lot, and I can tell the return is much needed (I'm weak as!), and I've enjoyed working on inventing my own pregnancy weights workout (with plenty of research, of course!)  Hopefully it helps in some small way but, if not, at least I'll be lovely and toned ;)

And for Casie, here's the bump at 16 weeks on the nose.  It felt a lot bigger that day than it looks in the mirror shot!