May 25, 2012 | Alinka Rutkowska | 0 Comments

The Perfect Pregnancy Workout

It’s a catchy title, isn’t it? The PERFECT Pregnancy Workout. Well, to start with, let me say that I don’t think there is something universally perfect for everybody. We are all different and as the old adage goes: “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” but I felt like I owed it to my readers to review The Perfect Pregnancy Workout vol. 1 as it is the second workout I’m using most often during my pregnancy, right after Belly Dancing For Labor.

I’ve always been very active and I love aerobics, body sculpting, group workouts, dvd exercises, boot camps, so it was only natural that I would continue exercising after I fell pregnant. The only problem was that I was confused as whether I could or not. Does exercise and pregnancy go together? Now I know they do but you need to know what kind of exercises you can and can’t do. This lack of knowledge resulted in my not working out “just in case” during my first trimester. Since I was traveling I couldn’t attend a pregnancy workout group and so I spent several hours researching, ordering and trying different dvds. This one – I loved!

It’s led by a former Cirque du Soleil acrobat Karyne Steben and it has both beginner’s and advanced options. I usually choose the option depending on the difficulty of the exercise and on how strong I am feeling at the moment. Here are the benefits the program claims to give you together with my comments:

Improves your mood – definitely, but my moods gets improved after any workout I do 🙂
Reduces lower back pain – I don’t have any back aches but that could also be the result of my Belly Dancing For Labor.
Develops mental discipline to control labor pain – I can’t tell just yet but the last exercise definitely develops mental discipline as you need to swing your arms without stopping for 3 minutes. Think that’s a short time? Try it! 🙂
Tones your lower body to handle the demands of labor and birth – can’t tell just yet but I do feel toned.
Makes it easier to lose weight after your baby is born – we’ll see about that but I’m gaining the healthy amount of weight right now.
Strengthens your upper body to lift and hold your baby – I did practice with a 4 month old girl a few days ago and I could carry her quite a long distance without any aches or pains afterwards (which her mother couldn’t!)