Is it absolutely not advisable to train abdominal muscles during pregnancy? Before pregnant mothers exercise, understand these things first

Many pregnant women seem to think that the baby grows inside our belly between the outer abdominal muscles and the belly. Some even think that our belly is completely filled with babies during pregnancy, and the abdominal muscles may have melted into the uterus. They even think that exercising the abdominal muscles during pregnancy will harm our uterus and baby...

In fact, babies grow "under our abdominal muscles," and our abdominal muscles, like our bellies, continue to stretch as the baby grows. During pregnancy, your abdominal circumference may increase by as much as 50 cm, and your abdominal muscles can stretch up to 20 cm. Since the abdominal muscles are located between the uterus and the skin, strong abdominal muscles can help hold the baby securely in your belly.

Pregnant girls can do more "transverse abdominal muscle" exercises during pregnancy. The transverse abdominal muscle is like a belt that wraps horizontally around the deep part of our abdomen. A strong transverse abdominal muscle can help you tie your big belly to your body more powerfully, and a strong core muscle group can also help with childbirth.

In addition, it is worth noting that pregnant women must pay special attention to exercises that will compress the back when exercising their abdominal muscles after the first trimester, such as sit-ups, crunches while lying on the ground, etc., because the growing and heavier uterus is likely to compress the veins, causing blood to flow back to the heart, causing symptoms such as dizziness or nausea. It is best to use basic core training methods, or standing abdominal muscle exercises to replace supine abdominal muscle exercises.

Another issue regarding abdominal muscles is the condition of rectus abdominis separation. Because during pregnancy, the belly will continue to grow, the belly and abdominal muscles will continue to stretch, causing our two rectus abdominis muscles to gradually separate to the sides, as shown below:

This is a natural phenomenon and will gradually recover after giving birth, but a small number of women will not be able to recover well and must rely on exercise or even surgery to adjust the symptoms of rectus abdominis separation. Therefore, during pregnancy, in order to prevent the rectus abdominis from separating too severely, we can avoid doing exercises related to the "oblique abdominal muscles". As can be seen from the picture above, the oblique abdominal muscles are on both sides of our rectus abdominis. If we over-exercise the oblique abdominal muscles, the muscles on both sides will be developed and tight, which will pull our rectus abdominis to the sides, causing the rectus abdominis separation to become more and more severe during pregnancy.

Pregnant girls should pay attention to the following when doing abdominal muscle training during pregnancy:

1. After the first trimester, avoid exercising with your back lying directly on the ground.

2. You can do abdominal exercises while standing, or do more basic core exercises instead of abdominal exercises.

3. Try to avoid exercising your oblique abdominal muscles.

4. You can exercise your transverse abdominal muscles more.

This article is from the book "STAY FIT WITH MI: A popular fitness coach's complete plan for healthy exercise, nutritious eating, and keeping the fetus healthy without gaining weight during pregnancy" published by Chunguang Publishing