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!
I was poking around the USMS site -- looking for something else -- and came across this older SWIMMER article about swimming & pregnancy. Might be of interest:
www.usmsswimmer.com/.../pregnancy.pdf
Breaststroke felt good, still strong, but I'm going to keep an eye on the legs as my joints soften. Backstroke felt good, too, and fly felt normal. It was mostly my free that suffered.
For me being distance free and fly swimmer I always worked harder on the free and we always did free-heavy sets, so if your sessions are anything like mine were you'll feel it more in free than other strokes. Plus I suddenly realised that I swam freestyle with my arms, back, side and stomach when pregnant (duh!!) see I never really thought what muscles I used until they were otherwise occupied!
Breaststroke is very good for stretching the pelvis in preparation for the birth, but don't stretch too far!
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.
This is so true. I went to my first practice last night since we found out (and since I've started having a lot more symptoms) and swimming felt a lot harder than usual. My lane lapped me for the first time ever I think and a couple of people asked me if I was okay. I told the coach. Yes, I'm fine, my body just has other priorities right now! I worked hard but avoided anything that maxed out my heart/oxygen. I sat out a long sprint and had to cut a couple of things short.
I could feel tiny twinges in my stomach whenever I pushed off hard from flip turns so I learned to soften them a bit.
Breaststroke felt good, still strong, but I'm going to keep an eye on the legs as my joints soften. Backstroke felt good, too, and fly felt normal. It was mostly my free that suffered.
Interesting and informative thread. A friend of mine was flip turning into her 9th month (I have no idea how, but somehow she made it work, wish I could have seen it), and another friend ran into her 8th. I hope I can rock it like that, health permitting, when my husband and I decide to start a family.
Just wanted to pop in and give an update. I haven't swum since Monday (an opportunity to get ice cream and see a documentary about babies with two close friends popped up during my other practice time and of course I couldn't turn that down :D ). However, I lifted with my trainer on Tuesday and Thursday and did 20 minutes of stationary cycling on Tuesday because running just wasn't going to work.
As much as I had planned and wanted to be able to continue going full force during my pregnancy, my body makes it very clear that it requires significantly reduced intensity, at least for now. It's not a bad thing - I'm certainly willing to do it for what I get in return! But I just wanted to put it out there that you can't always plan for these things. :) I have a 5k tomorrow that I signed up for right before I found out what I was pregnant. I'm planning to easy jog it but may end up walking part or most of it.
