Competing/training while pregnant

Former Member
Former Member
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:
Parents
  • Former Member
    Former Member
    Well, I have one month to go, but I'm still swimming. I am actually considering doing doubles now because it's so hot and humid here and swimming is the only thing that makes my poor swollen ankles shrink back down to a reasonable size. :) I've definitely slowed down a lot, but I'm doing about 2000-2500 per workout and still swimming all four strokes. My breaststroke is totally out of whack now. I'm having a hard time doing a whip kick... I seem to be gravitating to a frog kick. It takes me a while to warm up, but then I'm usually able to do one or two short main sets. For example, this morning was... 600 mixed stroke warm up 6 x 100 free on 1:50 4 x 200 free on 3:30 1 x 200 IM easy Still doing flip turns, however ungainly they look... the baby seems to fall right to sleep when I swim, especially with the flip turns. I'm also finding that I'm having a harder time breathing (especially on my back), so I'm trying not to get my heart rate up too high. I had a bit of a scare the other day when I was doing a 100IM set. On my 4th 100, I started my backstroke and was a little out of breath and then suddenly my airway just froze. I couldn't breathe for about 15 seconds (which seemed like forever). So my solution has been to limit backstroke to no more than 50yds at a time, and to only do it when my HR is still relatively low. I'm hoping to swim right up until the end... we'll see how it goes.
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  • Former Member
    Former Member
    Well, I have one month to go, but I'm still swimming. I am actually considering doing doubles now because it's so hot and humid here and swimming is the only thing that makes my poor swollen ankles shrink back down to a reasonable size. :) I've definitely slowed down a lot, but I'm doing about 2000-2500 per workout and still swimming all four strokes. My breaststroke is totally out of whack now. I'm having a hard time doing a whip kick... I seem to be gravitating to a frog kick. It takes me a while to warm up, but then I'm usually able to do one or two short main sets. For example, this morning was... 600 mixed stroke warm up 6 x 100 free on 1:50 4 x 200 free on 3:30 1 x 200 IM easy Still doing flip turns, however ungainly they look... the baby seems to fall right to sleep when I swim, especially with the flip turns. I'm also finding that I'm having a harder time breathing (especially on my back), so I'm trying not to get my heart rate up too high. I had a bit of a scare the other day when I was doing a 100IM set. On my 4th 100, I started my backstroke and was a little out of breath and then suddenly my airway just froze. I couldn't breathe for about 15 seconds (which seemed like forever). So my solution has been to limit backstroke to no more than 50yds at a time, and to only do it when my HR is still relatively low. I'm hoping to swim right up until the end... we'll see how it goes.
Children
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