Pregnancy Workout I - Weeks 24-27

Hey everyone,

This workout is a great addition to your workout repertoire for both regular exercisers and pregnant women.  We have adopted this workout from an App we discovered by Strong First.  Check out their great app to get many new workout ideas and video demonstrations of exercises.  Much of the content is free!   We found this free workout on the app and thought we would give it a try. 

This type of workout strings together multiple exercises that you perform consecutively, and for each set an increasing or decreasing number of repetitions is performed.  For your first set, perform one rep of each exercise on each side.  Take a short break, equivalent to the time it took you to perform your set.  Then perform two reps of each exercise in the chain, followed again by rest equivalent to the time to complete that set.  We generally try to ladder 1 rep up to 5 reps and then back down to 1 rep.  

Here is what we did for our circuit-ladder workout:

1. One-hand kettlebell swing
2. Kettlebell clean
3. Kettlebell press
4. Racked kettlebell squat
5. One-hand kettlebell swing 

Double Kettlebell Circuit Ladder

Single Kettlebell Circuit Ladder

You will find that it’s not too difficult to perform the low rep chains, but actually becomes surprisingly difficult to do 4 and 5 reps (especially for the pregnant ladies)!!  As the workout gets easier, try increasing the number of ladders or decrease your rest time.  Feel free to try to string other exercises together if you wish.  Give this workout (and the Strong First app) a try and let us know what you think! 

As always, if you are pregnant and exercising, you should already be performing these types of exercises at this intensity prior to your pregnancy AND have approval from your health care provider to exercise.

-Tannys & Alex

-Tannys