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:
Hey Sarah... best of luck to you on #2!
I just read in my pregnancy book from kid#1 (one of the Dr. Sears' books) that research has shown that the baby's heartrate doesn't increase until Mom's heartrate gets above 150. So that, I think, is where my doctor's 140 max heartrate number is coming from... Keep it under 140 and you're keeping baby's heartrate from increasing at all.
However, no clue what exactly this 'research' was. Are we talking a study group of 20 or 2000? One study? Multiple studies? Athletes or coach potatoes or some cross-sectional representation of society (which would be heavily skewed towards coach potatoes). I don't know exactly what my max HR is, but I know I've hit close to 170 using the totally inaccurate method of counting pulse for 6 sec and multiplying by 10. I think a % of max makes a lot more sense.
Swimwolf, I loved your long-winded post! Feel free to add more. Let us know if you manage to swim all the way up to delivery!
Hey Sarah... best of luck to you on #2!
I just read in my pregnancy book from kid#1 (one of the Dr. Sears' books) that research has shown that the baby's heartrate doesn't increase until Mom's heartrate gets above 150. So that, I think, is where my doctor's 140 max heartrate number is coming from... Keep it under 140 and you're keeping baby's heartrate from increasing at all.
However, no clue what exactly this 'research' was. Are we talking a study group of 20 or 2000? One study? Multiple studies? Athletes or coach potatoes or some cross-sectional representation of society (which would be heavily skewed towards coach potatoes). I don't know exactly what my max HR is, but I know I've hit close to 170 using the totally inaccurate method of counting pulse for 6 sec and multiplying by 10. I think a % of max makes a lot more sense.
Swimwolf, I loved your long-winded post! Feel free to add more. Let us know if you manage to swim all the way up to delivery!
