Competing/training while pregnant

I'm in my 34th week, still swimming 5x week. I'm still doing flip turns (though they look a little ungainly) and still swimming some butterfly. (Mostly in 100 or 200 IM sets, so never more than about 50 fly at a time). I have been swimming masters for 16 years now, but I didn't compete in HS or college, so it's not like I'm one of those Olympians in the fast lane normally. When I'm not pregnant, I am smack in the middle of the pool, and now I've moved down a lane or two. However, I'm mostly swimming on my own these days because of scheduling conflicts with my team's practice schedule. I did swim the 3000 postal event last year when I was about 11 weeks and pretty much swam my normal speed. I didn't really notice a significant slow down or a lack of capability until I got to my third trimester. Until then, I was swimming my standard 3000-3500 yds per workout, and holding my 200's under 3:00. These days, however, it's a real effort to swim a 200 in anything less than about 3:35 and I usually need to do a 4:00 interval if I want to do more than 1. Here's what I've found so far: 1. My body will not let me do what it can't do. So I don't worry that much about target heart rate. Earlier in my pregnancy I was working hard and still doing sprints. As I have gotten more pregnant, my body has given me the feedback to slow down. Now if I sprint at all in a workout, it's only for one or two 50's and that's it. I was a little concerned at one point that I was pushing too hard, so I had my friend who is an OT bring her blood pressure cuff and her pulse oximeter to the pool and had her test me after my workout and everything was totally fine. My theory (and I'm not a doctor, so take it with a grain of salt) is that you can't go by some arbitrary HR limit. It's much more important to know what YOUR body can do. For me, I'm not having a problem if I get my HR to 140-150 because I recover pretty quickly (i.e within a couple of minutes). But for others, even getting up to 120 could be a problem if they don't recover for a long time. Ultimately, if your body is telling you to back off. Do it. Don't push through it you aren't feeling good. 2. I feel MUCH better if I swim any given day than if I don't. Even if you just get in the water for 20 min and paddle around, it's better than not going at all. Early on, it helps with queasiness. Later on, I'm finding, it helps keep the swelling down in your hands and feet. 3. I can still do all of the strokes, including fly, much to my surprise. I think a lot of this was that I spent 6 months before I got pregnant working with a physical therapist and a pilates coach to strengthen my core muscles to deal with a chronic bad back. I have found that fly and *** particularly require this core strength. You can 'cheat' if you aren't pregnant and compensate with other muscles, but when you are pregnant, you don't have that luxury, so if you aren't using your core in those strokes, you may have a very hard time doing them. 4. I mix up my workout as much as possible to make sure I work as many different muscle groups as I can. And I particularly try to make sure I really work my core muscles on all of the strokes. Here's a workout I did last week as an example. 200 free warmup 400 reverse IM warmup 4 x 150 Kick/Drill/Swim (by 50's) 2 x ...... 350 free on 6:30 ...... 200 IM on 4:00 ...... 100 free on 2:00 easy ...... 50 free on 1:00 fast 200 free/back warm down (alternate by 50) --------- Anyway, sorry for the long winded post and CONGRATULATIONS to everyone who is reading this and thinking about swimming during her pregnancy. I highly recommend it. We'll see how delivery goes, but so far even the benefits of minimal morning sickness, greater energy, and no lower back pain have been worth it for me.

I'm in my 34th week, still swimming 5x week. I'm still doing flip turns (though they look a little ungainly) and still swimming some butterfly. (Mostly in 100 or 200 IM sets, so never more than about 50 fly at a time). I have been swimming masters for 16 years now, but I didn't compete in HS or college, so it's not like I'm one of those Olympians in the fast lane normally. When I'm not pregnant, I am smack in the middle of the pool, and now I've moved down a lane or two. However, I'm mostly swimming on my own these days because of scheduling conflicts with my team's practice schedule. I did swim the 3000 postal event last year when I was about 11 weeks and pretty much swam my normal speed. I didn't really notice a significant slow down or a lack of capability until I got to my third trimester. Until then, I was swimming my standard 3000-3500 yds per workout, and holding my 200's under 3:00. These days, however, it's a real effort to swim a 200 in anything less than about 3:35 and I usually need to do a 4:00 interval if I want to do more than 1. Here's what I've found so far: 1. My body will not let me do what it can't do. So I don't worry that much about target heart rate. Earlier in my pregnancy I was working hard and still doing sprints. As I have gotten more pregnant, my body has given me the feedback to slow down. Now if I sprint at all in a workout, it's only for one or two 50's and that's it. I was a little concerned at one point that I was pushing too hard, so I had my friend who is an OT bring her blood pressure cuff and her pulse oximeter to the pool and had her test me after my workout and everything was totally fine. My theory (and I'm not a doctor, so take it with a grain of salt) is that you can't go by some arbitrary HR limit. It's much more important to know what YOUR body can do. For me, I'm not having a problem if I get my HR to 140-150 because I recover pretty quickly (i.e within a couple of minutes). But for others, even getting up to 120 could be a problem if they don't recover for a long time. Ultimately, if your body is telling you to back off. Do it. Don't push through it you aren't feeling good. 2. I feel MUCH better if I swim any given day than if I don't. Even if you just get in the water for 20 min and paddle around, it's better than not going at all. Early on, it helps with queasiness. Later on, I'm finding, it helps keep the swelling down in your hands and feet. 3. I can still do all of the strokes, including fly, much to my surprise. I think a lot of this was that I spent 6 months before I got pregnant working with a physical therapist and a pilates coach to strengthen my core muscles to deal with a chronic bad back. I have found that fly and *** particularly require this core strength. You can 'cheat' if you aren't pregnant and compensate with other muscles, but when you are pregnant, you don't have that luxury, so if you aren't using your core in those strokes, you may have a very hard time doing them. 4. I mix up my workout as much as possible to make sure I work as many different muscle groups as I can. And I particularly try to make sure I really work my core muscles on all of the strokes. Here's a workout I did last week as an example. 200 free warmup 400 reverse IM warmup 4 x 150 Kick/Drill/Swim (by 50's) 2 x ...... 350 free on 6:30 ...... 200 IM on 4:00 ...... 100 free on 2:00 easy ...... 50 free on 1:00 fast 200 free/back warm down (alternate by 50) --------- Anyway, sorry for the long winded post and CONGRATULATIONS to everyone who is reading this and thinking about swimming during her pregnancy. I highly recommend it. We'll see how delivery goes, but so far even the benefits of minimal morning sickness, greater energy, and no lower back pain have been worth it for me.