I thought I'd posted this yesterday but I don't see it. My apologies if it did end up floating around here somewhere.
Hi. :) I'm new here although I've been popping in and out for a couple of months to read various discussions. I am a 28 year-old female who has been swimming competitively for most of her life. I'm doing low-mileage masters now to complement my running and lifting activities and quite enjoy it.
Last week my husband and I found out that we are expecting our first child. Now that it's sunk in, I realize that my routines will have to change a bit. I think my swim practices should be easy to modify. However, I had just signed up for a local summer competition league when we found out. There are six SCY meets total with short events (longest being IM & 100 fr), and the first is this Thursday.
Based on reading I've done online and a call to my health insurance Nurse Help line, it appears that I probably should not do dive starts from the deck even as early as I am now at 5 weeks. Has anyone else heard of this or heard differently? I'm going to call my ob/gyn doctor tomorrow to verify but there really seems to be a limited understanding in the medical community of competitive swimming.
I'm especially curious about this because we're trying to keep the pregnancy a secret for a couple of months to make sure it sticks and avoid news spreading too soon to my company. In-water starts will certainly raise eyebrows so I might need to pull out of the competition league and just stick with practices if I can't dive.
Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!
Parents
Former Member
Firstly - congratulations! I really don't have a lot more advice to give, but I swam LCM 100, 200 fly and 200, 800 free at 6 weeks pregnant - starting from a dive and doing flip turns (on the free). The hard push-offs from the turns did hurt down in my stomach, because all those muscles get stretched so much early on, and I almost pulled out of the 800 as I was starting to feel really tired. At the time only my coach knew and I was there sharing a room with and competing against my sister, so the pressure was on to feel normal!
Anyway that was the one and only competition I swam pregnant, but kept up the training throughout both of mine. As has been said - listen to your body. Swimming will feel a lot harder particularly at the start as that's when the baby takes so much out of you, but once you get to 7 or 8 months, you'll really look forward to that "weightless" time in the water.
I carried on flip turning until I physically couldn't turn the huge belly over. Fly I managed until about 6 months as I by then didn't have the strength to drag my whale-like self up and clear of the water to breathe.
One thing to watch though is that your joints soften up, so be careful not to overstretch particularly back & shoulders.
Firstly - congratulations! I really don't have a lot more advice to give, but I swam LCM 100, 200 fly and 200, 800 free at 6 weeks pregnant - starting from a dive and doing flip turns (on the free). The hard push-offs from the turns did hurt down in my stomach, because all those muscles get stretched so much early on, and I almost pulled out of the 800 as I was starting to feel really tired. At the time only my coach knew and I was there sharing a room with and competing against my sister, so the pressure was on to feel normal!
Anyway that was the one and only competition I swam pregnant, but kept up the training throughout both of mine. As has been said - listen to your body. Swimming will feel a lot harder particularly at the start as that's when the baby takes so much out of you, but once you get to 7 or 8 months, you'll really look forward to that "weightless" time in the water.
I carried on flip turning until I physically couldn't turn the huge belly over. Fly I managed until about 6 months as I by then didn't have the strength to drag my whale-like self up and clear of the water to breathe.
One thing to watch though is that your joints soften up, so be careful not to overstretch particularly back & shoulders.
