Second Trimester Workouts

If you’ve been reading, you know I’m in my second trimester and that my workouts are going great! (Knock on wood, right?!)

My first trimester workouts were generally shorter. I stuck to strength OR conditioning on any given day and I wasn’t lifting much weight, at least not for me. I was TIRED. I stayed as active as possible, but my nutrition was far from spot on and I just wasn’t feeling it.

Thankfully, my second trimester workouts much more closely resemble my pre-pregnancy workouts. I’ve been feeling really good overall (minus some bad headaches during this last week). Honestly, some days I have more energy than I did before I got pregnant!

Let’s look at what a week of training in the second trimester currently looks like for me.

Monday – Strength Train and leisure walk

Tuesday – Off

Wednesday – Strength Train with a 10 minute conditioning circuit at the end

Thursday – Sweat day

Friday – Strength Train and leisure walk

Saturday – Leisure walk

Sunday – Kettlebell training

I generally take two days off from training, but sometimes I’ll fit in a walk on one of those days just to get some fresh air and move my legs! I find that when I am too sedentary I feel much worse! I fit in leisure walks as much as possible with all of the snow and craziness that is life lately. I finally realized that getting outside for 10 or 20 minutes is not that hard and that’s all it takes to feel good from fresh air and movement!

I usually aim for 3 strength training sessions (sometimes with a quick conditioning circuit at the end) and 2 random sweat/kettlebell sessions each week.

Here are a few examples of workouts I’ve been doing in my second trimester.

Strength Workout – Second Trimester

Turkish Get Up 2R/2L

Sumo Deadift 8, 8, 6, 6

Military Press (one kettlebell) 5x2R/L

Chinups 10×2

Sweat Day – Second Trimester

After looking at my training schedule you might be wondering what I mean by a “sweat day.” Usually on Thursdays I write out a whole bunch of exercises and complete them all in whatever order I feel like doing them.

Here’s an example.

100 Kettlebell Swings

6 Sled Pushes (20 yards)

2 Mile bike

300 Slides on the slideboard

80 yards walking lunges

125 Medicine ball slams

With this type of workout, I break everything down into reasonable “sets” and check them off in my notebook as I do them. For example I would probably do 10 sets of 10 swings, 6 sled pushes, 4 half miles on the bike, 3 sets of 100 slides on the slideboard,  4 sets of 20 yards waking lunges, 5 sets of 25 medball slams, etc. Usually these workouts take me about 40 minutes. I rest when necessary and stop if it feels like too much!

Just like in my first trimester, I aim to finish each workout feeling better than when I started. I listen to my body and stop when something doesn’t feel right. I’m definitely still not jumping or running and I’m not trying to hit any PRs. 🙂

It’s been nice to WANT to train again. Most exercises feel good and some days I feel really strong.

Exercises I am Avoiding or Modifying During Second Trimester:

• Anything that has me lying on my back for a long period of time. I still do Turkish Get Ups from this position, but I avoid things like deadbugs or chest press. For chest press I simply use an incline bench.
• Barbell bridges for (hopefully) obvious reasons. I have been doing single leg hip thrusts instead.
• Running and jumping. Ouch.
• Super duper heavy lifting. I still lift heavy-ish, but nothing like a one-rep max number. For example, I deadlift 155lb at the most right now when my max is just over 200lb. In the next month or so I may end up removing deadlifts again and going back to something like a single leg RDL as my belly gets bigger and I don’t want to put as much pressure on my abdominals.

Exercises I’m doing a lot of in the second trimester:

• Overhead walks
• Farmers carries
• Squats. I’ve been doing double kettlebell front squats, but they are starting to feel a bit uncomfortable so I may try switching to some barbell back squats this week.
• Pullups and chinups. As the second trimester goes along, I’m feeling heavier and bigger – because I am both of those things! Somedays exercises like pull-ups just feel really hard, but I’m finding that I can still do them if I break them into lots of sets of 2 or 3 reps.
• Inverted rows
• Kettlebell swings and snatches
• Sled pushes and drags
• Medball slams
• Walking

I’m also finding that my food intake is really important right now. There are days I have the hungry horrors and other days when I don’t feel good after eating anything. I’m trying my best to listen to my body so I have more even-keeled days instead of leaning one way and then the other. I always make sure to eat after workouts.

I usually have a cup of coffee each day before I train and I savor that cup like you wouldn’t believe!

I am still rocking the overnight oats post-workout. There is nothing better than waking up, having a coffee, training, taking a nice warm shower and then sitting down to those oats. I feel so good and strong after a morning like that! Pregnancy is amazing and I remind myself every single day that I am truly blessed to be able to grow a baby and stay strong while doing it.

Please note: I am not a doctor. You should get clearance from your doctor before beginning any exercise program. Additionally, what feels “light” or like an “easy workout” for me may be one of the toughest ones you’ve done in a long time so please use caution and use your head. What I am doing isn’t necessarily right for you.