For many women, the second trimester brings more energy. After weeks of nausea or fatigue, it’s common to feel ready to jump back into workouts or maybe ramp things up. I’m right there, too. After spending most of my first trimester sidelined by HG, the second trimester brought some relief and with it, the return to Crossfit.
But as the pregnant body keeps growing and shifting, the question naturally comes up: should we be modifying exercise during the second trimester?
We used to hear strict rules like “don’t let your heart rate go above 140” or “don’t exercise on your back.” Fortunately, research has evolved, and many of those blanket guidelines have been retired. That’s good news but it also leaves some women unsure about how to gauge intensity or decide what’s appropriate. “Just do what feels good” can feel a little vague when your whole body is changing or if you have never been through pregnancy before.
So, should we modify it in the second trimester? The answer as with most things in pelvic health is: it depends.
Here are a few helpful ways to know when and how to adjust your workouts in the second trimester:
- RPE / talk test
- Symptoms
- Your MD or midwife’s recommendations
Let’s take a closer look at each of these.
RPE/ talk test:
RPE is a scale used to assess exercise intensity. There are two main RPE scales 0-20 and 0-10. For simplicity, I like using the 0-10 and most gyms use this as well. For pregnancy we want our RPE to be between 6-8. This coincides with moderate-heavy activity levels. This should also coincide with the ability to hold a conversation, maybe slightly breathy but if you can’t catch your breath to say something, the intensity may be too high. Now, doing Crossfit there are times this certainly happens based on the movement, I think the key is making sure not every single exercise or the entire 12 minute WOD is at this level. For example, I recently did a workout with wall balls in it. No matter what I do, I can’t hold a conversation during wall balls, they are just intense! BUT the next movement was biking, so I used that to bring my heart rate back down and get my breathing under control before the next movement.
Symptoms:
If someone is NOT pregnant and has pain or a movement doesn’t feel good, typically we scale. Why would pregnancy be any different? Symptoms can include pain like low back pain, hip pain, groin pain, or even wrist pain (common in pregnancy due to ligament laxity). Symptoms can also include things like pelvic pressure, leakage, and urgency.
Midwife OB recommendations
If you have a diagnosis like preeclampsia, placenta previa, or cervix concerns. Work with your midwife/OB to determine what the safest type of exercise can be.
* A caution on the blanket statement of listening to your MD. Some OB’s still recommend not lifting more than 20# or limiting exercise to 30 minutes per day. If you are otherwise healthy, these guidelines are arbitrary and not based on current research.
Movements I typically recommend scaling regardless of above:
There are certain movements that I typically recommend scaling in the 2nd trimester due to safety and some ideas on how to scale:
-rope climbs: pull ups, knees to waist, rope lowers, ring rows, banded lat pull down
-muscle ups: ring dips, low ring drills, ring rows, pull ups
-olympic lifts from the ground if bar path is impacted by your bump: modify to the hang position, dumbbells, or kettlebells
Scaling considerations:
So, you have determined that it may be best to scale a movement, how do we go about doing that?
I’m a big fan of keeping the prescribed exercise whenever possible and modifying the movement before completely substituting it with something else. This approach is very doable in the second trimester.
Here are some variables we can manipulate to effectively scale:
Range of motion
Adjusting the range of motion is an easy way to scale an exercise while still keeping the original movement
Some examples of changing the range of motion:
- partial squats instead of a deep squat if pelvic pressure or pain is on board
- Performing an up-down instead of a full burpee
- Raising the seat height on a bike to allow more room for the growing belly
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- Intensity
- This refers to how hard the body is working during an exercise. Remember we want exercise to feel like an RPE 6-7, 8 at the max..
- Ways you might modify intensity:
- Switching to box step ups instead of box jumps
- Biking at a slightly lower RPM
- Switching to single unders instead of double unders
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- Volume
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- This refers to the total amount of work performed (total reps, sets, or duration). Reducing volume decreases overall workload, even if the intensity of individual movements stays the same.
- Ways to reduce volume including lowering the sets and reps or the total duration of a workout.
- Ex: you have a 30 minute chipper workout programmed, you could modify it to 20 minutes. Or you have a 5 mile run scheduled, reducing the volume to 3 miles
- A recent example I encountered: reverse back rack lunges at an RPE of 6, programmed for 5 × 10 reps. I wanted to maintain the same load at an RPE of 6, but my hip was bothering me a bit, so I reduced the sets to 8 reps each. This adjustment allowed me to keep both the weight and the movement consistent while managing symptoms.
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Load
- This adjustment is fairly straightforward. If you typically perform workouts at RX loads, reducing the weight is an effective way to scale while maintaining the intended movement pattern and training stimulus. Start by dropping 5-10 # and continue to lower as needed. An example I recently had was farm carry box step ups programmed at 20#, it felt like too much so I dropped to 10#.
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Positioning/movement pattern:
This approach is similar to adjusting range of motion but involves modifying the movement pattern or body positioning to better support mechanics as the body changes.
- Examples:
- switching from a conventional deadlift to a sumo deadlift to accommodate the growing abdomen
- widening the knees in Child’s Pose to create space in yoga
- using an incline (Wall, box) for push-ups.
It’s important to remember that the second trimester can vary greatly from person to person. Even for the same individual, the difference between 16 and 26 weeks can be significant. If making these adjustments isn’t enough to manage symptoms or you still feel unsure about your exercise routine, I recommend working with a pelvic health PT. We can help you learn how to modify movements safely and effectively.
I’ll also be sharing a blog post with third-trimester modifications that includes movement swaps, stay tuned!