My last blog spoke to the lack of research on training pregnant athletes and the difficulty such a population presents to researchers. Well, I found an article to put that to rest (now I just need 10 more for the paper:). In this study elite level athletes between 17 and 20 weeks of pregnancy, volunteered to participate in either the high volume exercise group or the medium volume group. Both groups participated in about one hour of light weight training two times per week. They also conducted two interval workouts with heart rates hitting between 170 and 180 beats per minute during the high intensity portion of the intervals. The interval workouts lasted approximately 30 minutes. Participants also conducted two aerobic endurance workouts per week at heart rates between 120 and 140 beats per minute. I was stunned to see the length of time for each workout. Those in the medium volume group did workouts for 90 minutes each while those in the high volume group did workouts for 150
minutes each.
I have never seen a study with such long workouts and was excited to see such a study had been conducted. Due to the high level of physical fitness prior to pregnancy it is not surprising that all subjects continued with the prescribed workouts up the week of delivery with a large number continuing until the day before labor. Results of the study show no adverse affects to the baby or mother. Moms were able to maintain their fitness level leading to a rapid return to competitive
activities.
So what can we take from this study? Most of us are not elite level athletes looking to make a quick return to the race circuit. Instead, I think we are hoping to return to our pre-pregnancy fitness levels not having lost too much ground. This study shows that we can. If, while pregnant, we are able to maintain the same amount of time exercising, as well as a similar level of intensity as we had before pregnancy, our bodies should be able to maintain something close to our pre-pregnancy level of fitness.
