Kickboxing Chic’s BodyBlog

I’m now into my 17^th week and both baby and Mom are doing well. When I go in for my check-ups, the nurses and other maternal medicine staff all say things like “baby is really moving around” or “baby is kicking.” So it looks like another active, high energy child is on the way. At least now this one will have a sibling to chase around to help expend all that energy. Here I am at 17 weeks:

I’m starting to make some adjustments to my training. However, I generally follow the same routine, minus core work and lower intensity cardio (still high by many people’s standards). I’m finding that cutting out core work also involves cutting out exercises that engage a lot of core, such as chin-ups and pull-ups. Also, no push-ups with feet elevated on a bench or stability ball. And I often drop to my knees for the remaining 5 reps. It’s not so much that I can’t do them, as much as paying the price later with painful cramping from my ligaments and muscles trying to relax while I’m making them work! I’m such a preacher of compound exercises, but in some cases I’ve had to resort to more isolated or single muscle group exercises. For example, I rarely do bicep only exercise (such as bicep curls), instead I do chin-ups which have lots of bicep emphasis but also hit my lats. But to keep my biceps strong for all the kid carrying I’m about to do (well, still do), I started incorporating bicep exercises into my routine. While I prefer the more ‘hard core’ exercises such as chin-ups, pull-ups, dips, and decline push-ups, I guess doing the more targeted exercises has been a nice change up. I’m still doing an outdoor ‘boot camp’ style workout at a local, neighborhood park once a week. I put together the training agenda for each workout and invite some recruits to join me, but soon I may need to play more of a Drill Sergeant role pushing my recruits to their limits. I hope to keep my boot camp workout as part of my weekly routine at least through the early fall while the weather is still good.

Here’s a workout I put together earlier this week. It took me 70 minutes, which included a 10 minute warm-up. It kicked my pregnant but pretty good. I burned 423 calories with this one… not bad considering it was all interval work.

1)      Warm-up: Elliptical and light BW exercises (prisoner squats, kneeling push-ups, stick-ups)

2)      Jump rope: 500 jumps

3)      Mini-circuit #1 – Repeat 3x

a)      Side-step lunges x15/side w/ 20lb DBs

b)      DB flies on stability ball x10 w/ 20lb DBs

c)       Tricep overhead press x10 w/ 25 lb DB

d)      Lateral hops over a bench x15 (over and back counts as 1 rep)

4)      Jump rope: 500 jumps

5)      Mini-circuit #2 – Repeat 3x

a)      Plie squats x15 w/ 20lb DBs

b)      1-arm DB clean-press x9-10 w/20lb DB

c)       1-arm DB swings x12-15 w/ 15-20lb DB

d)      Burpee push-ups x10

Give it a try… change it up if you like… let me know what you think.

I just closed out week 15 and now my bump in the front is starting to be a more obvious “baby” bump. At least in my workout clothes. Most would not know I was pregnant in my normal clothes. At this point, I’m using RPE to monitor my intensity levels but still trying not to go over 160 bpm. Many would say that is high, but I’m pretty well conditioned so I would rate this about a 7 or 8 (out of 10) based on RPE. I try to stay in 150 range, which is ~75% of my max HR. I’ve also cut-out abdominal work (started that about 3 weeks ago). During pregnancy, your abdominal muscles and ligaments stretch out and relax to make room for the baby (in a basis sense). This has been somewhat of a painful process for me because my abdominal muscles are stronger and tighter than most. So I get these sharp pains/cramps every now and then. They usually occur at night when I’m tossing/turning, so they jolt me awake. I’ve cut-out the abdominal work and am being careful of doing exercises that have heavy core engagement. Other than watching my intensity and cutting out the abdominal work, it is business as usual in the gym. I’ll soon be cutting out exercises that involve lying in a supine position. Lying in this position is not optimal for the baby to get good blood flow from Mom. Pregnant women should not sleep on their backs for the same reason. If there is a substitute exercise for a supine position one, I’ve already started implementing the substitute. Such as with DB chest press; instead of lying flat on a bench or ball, I’ve been using an incline bench. As you can see, all it takes is some minor changes.

Here’s a good, quick leg workout I did the other day. I was sore the next day, but not so sore that I couldn’t walk up the stair in my house. And the soreness started to subside by the second day. As you can see, pregnancy hasn’t held me back too much.

Warm-up:

·         Jump rope x500 jumps

·         BW prisoner squats x50 (you could also do some alternating lunges)

Set 1:

·         DB squats x15 (30 lb DBs)

·         Jump squats x15 (holding 10 lb DBs)

·         1-arm DB swings x20/arm (15 lb DB)

·         Repeat for a total of 3 sets

·         Jump rope x500 jumps

Set 2:

·         Elevated split squats (1 foot on a low bench w/ all BW forward) x15/leg (20 lb DBs)

·         Jump lunges x10 (holding 10 lb DBs)

·         Burpee push-ups x15

·         Repeat for a total of 3 sets

·         Jump rope x500 jumps

Set 3:

·         Stability ball hamstring curls

o   Single leg x20/leg

o   Both legs x20