I've been a competitive swimmer now for 18 years (makes me feel old just to say it) and I'm pregnant with my first child. I keep reading that you don't have to modify your swimming workouts when you're pregnant, but in those same websites, I see things like "Try doing *** stroke to eliminate the strain of torso rotation" so I know they haven't the slightest clue about competitive swimming or real training.
So my question is, does anyone have any good resource for how hard you can push yourself swimming while pregnant? And don't tell me to ask my doctor because I'm guessing she knows even less about swimming than "babycenter.com". My primary concern is with becoming slightly hypoxic while swimming (during flip turns and underwater pull outs). I often come up a little breathless, but am okay within a stroke or two. If I weren't pregnant, I wouldn't think anything about this, but it's hard to know if that's "bad" for the little one.
Any thoughts or direction would be greatly appreciated.:drown:
I had 4 pregnancies but only 1 kid. I swam during all of them but once problems arose, I was told to back off. With the 4th, I was at Nationals competing not knowing I was pregnant. Once I confirmed it, I was told to cut back a bit and no competing. Of course, I have a history of bad pregnancies so my doctors were more cautious.
One thing I noticed was that open turns, during the morning sickness (which for me was 6 months) was much better than flip turns. I did all the strokes and had no major issues until 3 weeks before my son was born. Sadly, then they put me on bed rest. Blah.
I have heard about the maximum heart rate. I want to say it's 120 or 130's. Watch it and just listen to your body. My coach told me not to do hypoxic at all and when we did 15 sec of vertical kicking with our arms over head, I kept mine in the water. Just small things to make it easier on my body.
Congratulations and I hope this is a smooth 9 months!
I had 4 pregnancies but only 1 kid. I swam during all of them but once problems arose, I was told to back off. With the 4th, I was at Nationals competing not knowing I was pregnant. Once I confirmed it, I was told to cut back a bit and no competing. Of course, I have a history of bad pregnancies so my doctors were more cautious.
One thing I noticed was that open turns, during the morning sickness (which for me was 6 months) was much better than flip turns. I did all the strokes and had no major issues until 3 weeks before my son was born. Sadly, then they put me on bed rest. Blah.
I have heard about the maximum heart rate. I want to say it's 120 or 130's. Watch it and just listen to your body. My coach told me not to do hypoxic at all and when we did 15 sec of vertical kicking with our arms over head, I kept mine in the water. Just small things to make it easier on my body.
Congratulations and I hope this is a smooth 9 months!
