Start with shorter training sessions and gauge your progression based on how your body tolerates the activities. Hangboards are a great tool to use when you return to training since they can be used at home during naptime or after baby goes to bed; however, some hangboarding routines include lots of core activation that you may not be ready for. For example, pull-ups or hanging with dynamic movement of your legs are particularly challenging training exercises because they often result in doming or coning of the stomach muscles if your core is still weak.
This doming can actually slow the healing of the abdominal separation that many women experience after pregnancy. Climbing offers so many perks to families because it encourages time outdoors, promotes exercise and activity, provides community, and if done correctly can keep mamas healthy and strong throughout pregnancy and during their postpartum recovery. Adjust your gear, change up your goals, and climb on! About The Author: Dr. Sign up for her monthly newsletters and free guides at www.
Your email address will NOT be shared or sold, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Menu Skip to content. Subscribe to Training For Climbing Newsletter. Share via. Facebook Messenger. Compared to walking where I was grumbling and huffing and puffing, climbing felt so graceful. Then I realised that was the single best thing about climbing through pregnancy, still feeling that flow, still solving problems and being amazed at what my body could do, even though I looked like a whale.
Since I mainly climb on my own with my toddler, this time I fully intend to make use of the digital babysitter i. My favourite climbing days are spent in the mountains. Although they have been few and far between with a toddler. Walk-ins to mountain crags were the crux for pregnant multi-pitch climbing, but flowing through easy moves on rock was so worth the huffing and puffing.
I would feel very stressed in a car crash, but nobody questions a pregnant couple driving a car. For me the accumulative stress of not being able to go climbing throughout my entire pregnancy outweighs the slight risk of one stressful event.
That being said I do make choices to avoid difficult descents and inaccessible crags. Squats are good for pretty much everything, so a good few weighted ones of those too. Progressive weight vest am I right?! Although I think baby gains wait faster that you gain strength. Hanging weights around my waist no longer feels very comfortable so instead with one arm, I stand on the ground and simply try really hard to pull the fingerboard down towards the floor. The natural resistance against my pulling effort actually works.
In running by comparison, recent research has shown that during pregnancy, Ratings of Perceived Exertion RPE do not correlate strongly with heart rate HR , and judgements made this way can lead to a significant underestimation of effort.
If the same principle applies to bodily cues in rock climbing, how should pregnant women decide whether or how much to curtail their sport? If you ask your doctor or midwife if you can continue rock climbing in pregnancy, chances are most will advise against it and likely recommend yoga instead.
This is in part because there is no published scientific research on the effects of climbing in pregnancy. Nevertheless, in recent years there has been a surge in studies looking into the benefits of exercise in general for pregnant women. Greater fitness has now been linked to greater foetal brain development, improved placental growth, reduced rates of depression and gestational diabetes and a better labour experience — not to mention a quicker return to fitness after the baby.
So why not climbing? With a scientific background PhD in neurobiology and a desire to keep climbing, I set about getting some answers from other climbing mums and medical professionals in the know. What I found out is that ultimately everyone is different, as is every pregnancy.
Although as a general rule, pregnancy is not a time to push your climbing limits, it might be advisable to scale back a bit. But there is no need to stop altogether. Women need to be aware of the facts so that they can make informed decisions, which take into account their own personal fitness, climbing ability and level of experience.
Here are a few things to think about…. Most women will want to consider using a full body harness from the second trimester onwards, when the uterus sits higher in the body and the baby is no longer protected by the pelvis.
You can now buy pregnancy-specific harnesses with padding tape ones are less comfortable but cheaper. You might also want to don those comfy rock shoes, as about half of all pregnant women experience some oedema, making feet and ankles swell.
Make sure you take plenty of snacks with you and extra water. It is especially important to stay hydrated and seek shade from the hot sun. When climbing in Kalymnos in my first pregnancy, I found it all too easy to overdo it when climbing in the heat of the day. As a pregnancy progresses, your centre of gravity also changes. During pregnancy, levels of the circulating hormone relaxin increase flexibility by softening structures of the musculoskeletal system peaking in the first trimester and before delivery.
While the main function is to relax the pelvic ligaments and aid labour, elsewhere in the body it tends to increase joint laxity and can predispose pregnant women to strains and sprains. This is something to be aware of before contorting your body through strenuous technical moves. Compared to climbing, yoga is a popular sport in pregnancy and is often recommended to help mums-to-be stay fit, strong and supple. It is a personal decision which type of climbing you do when pregnant, but it is worth considering the different levels of risk involved, the likelihood of falling and how to mitigate this.
The shearing forces from taking or belaying a big fall in the second or third trimester could, in theory, rip the developing placenta from the wall of the uterus placental abruption and in a worst case scenario result in miscarriage. I therefore chose to give up leading trad early in pregnancy and stuck to seconding, both indoors and out. In my first pregnancy I gave up bouldering altogether but in the second I took a trip to Fontainebleau, climbing easy circuits on boulders which could be descended without jumping down.
It is also worth thinking about how you spot others. But again this is an individual choice and many women will continue much as they did before.
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