7 Knowledge Bombs for Lifting in Pregnancy

By Kat Suchet, Founder of Hatch Athletic

Ever been told that lifting too much can be detrimental for your pelvic floor? But on what grounds?

Ever been told to lift a certain percentage based on your trimester? Again, on what grounds?

Lifting makes up a lot of what we do in CrossFit programming. We're familiar with sets and rep schemes, strength programs, progressive loading, de-loading, etc etc... but what, then, are the latest guidelines for lifting when you're pregnant?

The fact of the matter is we DON'T have formal guidelines for lifting in pregnancy, as of the time of publishing this blog (April 2024). However, today, as one of the more specialist clinicians in this field (an experienced women's health physio with a specialist interest in CrossFit and lifting, who has recently had calls with many of the global researchers in women's pelvic health in pregnancy) I've put together this article to show you what we DO KNOW, based on the existing research and clinical practice in order to give you the very best guidance I can. 

Please note: this is generalised guidelines on lifting for low-risk pregnancies. Each pregnancy is different, and every woman's baseline fitness and strength will be different. Please, if you experience any bulging, heaviness, dragging, leaking or pain - stop and seek personalised professional support. 

1. Continue Lifting in Pregnancy

First things first, don't stop strength training! Keep going. In fact strength training is probably the most important element to keep in your pregnancy programming. From a physical standpoint, maintaining a level of compound strength can help with managing the increased demands on your skeletal system as you progress through pregnancy. Being fit and strong as you head towards giving birth will undoubtedly stand you in excellent stead for managing your delivery and recovery too.

From a practical sense, lifting and strength training is a great choice as it can be modified easily (way easier than modifying cardio pieces) to make adjustments the physiological changes you'll experience throughout the different trimesters, and also a growing belly. We can modify weight, repetitions, range of movement and intensity. 

2. When to Consider Reducing Load

We love lifting heavy weights! A recent poll on Hatch Athletic showed that 87% of our pregnant and postpartum mamas would choose lifting heavy over all other exercise modalities.

Having said that, pregnancy is not the time to be trying for a 1RM. The reason being, mainly, is because of the hormonal changes to our bodies can make our centre of balance a little 'off' and means our joints are just generically more vulnerable to sprains, tweaks and injury. This means, the training behaviours we can adopt when attempting personal bests - where we can sometimes use less flawless techniques, or we run the risk of missing a lift - is behaviour we don't encourage in pregnancy. 

There is no set percentage to work from in pregnancy, as everyone's abilities to lift in pregnancy will be different. From a Hatch perspective, I tend to always be QUALITY lifting over QUANTITY or VOLUME.  So, if you feel your form breaking down, begin by reducing the load, then perhaps reduce the movement distance, therefore the velocity and thrust needed to shift the weight (i.e go from a hang and consider catching a lift in a power position) and as you progress through pregnancy, consider swapping out the barbell or dumbbells or kettlebells instead. 

3a. Olympic Lifts - physical contact

Caution any lifting movement that includes physical contact to your belly. It is true that the amniotic sac is incredibly durable but it's not wise to test the theory. If you tend to bounce your barbell off your pubic symphysis (your pubic bone) or even higher, you'll need to stop doing this in pregnancy for obvious reasons. 

3b. Olympic Lifts - bar path

Snatches and cleans involve a bar path which is very close to your body. As your belly grows you have one of two choices, to keep the bar close and risk a 'bump' OR to change the bar path. If you continue to change your bar path through pregnancy, your neural system will remember this post-pregnancy, making your lifts more difficult to re-program postpartum. Remember how long it takes to pattern a snatch? Is it worth snatching 'til your waters break and then having to relearn how to snatch all over again postpartum? Something to think about. 

When you feel you need to change the bar path, start using dumbbells instead of barbells to avoid risk of belly contact is a great option especially in later stages of pregnancy. For deadlifts, as your bump grows you might find a wider sumo stance is more comfortable/achievable. 

3c. Olympic Lifts - Round Ligament Pain

Consider modifying movements that cause ballistic stretching of the abdominal wall. As we grow and expand in pregnancy some of us can be susceptible to something called Round Ligament pain. This feels like a sharp stabbing pain in the abdominal wall or at the bottom or sides of the bump. It can occur with sudden movements, and in particular ballistic movements like snatching can set it off. Be mindful of this, especially around the first major growth spurt (weeks 22-28). You haven't 'torn' your abs, they're just doing a lot of their own stretching right now so they might appreciate you doing less and resting the abs if they're a bit triggery. Good news is, with Round Ligament Pain, this subsides the moment you stop the triggering movement and rest a bit. 

4. Squatting 

Keep squatting in pregnancy! Squatting in particular has been shown to help with strengthening and conditioning the pelvic floor and reducing symptoms of back pain in pregnancy. There are lots of ways to modify a squat so you can keep squatting until your waters break - reducing the load and reducing the depth are the most obvious of these. 

Careful to all those 'butt-winkers' at the bottom of a squat - keep it high enough that you retain pelvic control. Turn it into a box-squat if you can't be sure.

Keep active throughout, sitting at the bottom of a squat can be a good birthing position but thats because your pelvic floor has an opportunity to switch off here. Keep your pelvic floor braced through the lift, especially as you rise back up to standing. 

Back squat can be a little aggravating on the low back in later pregnancy. Sore back on a back-squat? Change it up for a front squat to 'off-set' the bump!

We do loads of squats and deadlifts with loads of modification options in our pregnancy programming - let us do it for you! Check our our Pregnancy Training Programmes here. 

5. Deadlifting

We LOVE deadlifts in pregnancy and they feature heavily in the Hatch Pregnancy Programmes for a reason. Deadlifts can be an amazing adjunct for pregnancy training because it loads your posterior chain - the chain that tends to get the most sleepy and overlooked in pregnancy training. There are SO MANY different types: regular, sumo, single leg, Romanian, step-stance, single arm, double arm, etc. Peppering your weekly workouts with a range of these can not only keep your posterior nicely tuned, but can help to keep pelvic girdle pain at bay and challenge your core and pelvic floor really nicely too. 

Do you squeeze your butt and over-extend your hips at the top of a squat or a deadlift? Many athletic folk have this tendency, especially fitness racers. Hyperextension at the top of deadlifts and squats can put extra strain on the low back. Get someone to check for you. This will only get worse in pregnancy so nip that in the bud now. 

Bump in the way? Take it to Sumo-Stance. Back still not playing ball - try a trap bar instead, or kettlebell deadlifts in a suitcase hold. 

6. Lifting Overhead and On Your Back

Stop lifting overhead in pregnancy. Said who?! And again, why?

Challenge some of these wives-tales. Ask why. 

I feel pregnant women have been told not to lift heavy overhead because of the spine being more vulnerable in this position, because there's an increased chance of abdominal stretch and coning, and because we can rib-flare/adopt poorer postures in later pregnancy. As with all of my advice above - be sure you're lifting with good QUALITY movement patterns. Get someone to watch you or film yourself. 

If you can't be sure or you're concerned your spine is starting to feel vulnerable overhead, start by reducing the load. The next modification would be lifting overhead in a seated position first. Then if you're still not keen, feel free to ditch it for horizontal pushing and pulling instead. Remember - you can always modify - it doesn't mean you have to stop. 

The guidance to not do exercise or lifting on your back is now very outdated. We now generally accept the guideline that it's fine for women doing exercise to spend shorter periods on their back. The basic no-go guidelines are there for sleeping or spending a prolonged period of time there, which can potentially compromise the blood flow in the major arteries and veins that run through the abdominal cavity.

If it's for exercise alone and you don't have any symptoms of dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath or pain then you're fine to keep on going (e.g bridging/hip thrusts which can be fab for pelvic floor, low back and core).

If you feel unwell or light-headed whilst lying on your back in any exercise modify the position to an incline set-up.

7. Learn how to breathe and brace in lifting

Breathe out for all exertion or lifts in pregnancy? No to Valsalva? Yep we taught this not long ago too. But now we're of the thinking that actually everyone's pelvic floor is different - some of us can Valsalva/breath hold through pregnancy, others might need to stop. 

Valsalva is a weightlifting technique where you breath-hold and stack your core before completing a heavy lift. It's a very effective technique in improving one's ability to lift heavy load and protect your spine using intra-abdominal pressure. This is an area under big scrutiny right now by researchers, who are now starting to suggest that Valsalva in pregnancy weightlifting is not necessarily a threat to your pelvic floor (Prevett, Forner, Davenport, et al 2023).  

Researchers found that individuals who did or didn't use the valsalva manoeuvre in their pregnancy training had similar pelvic floor outcomes postpartum - there was no significant impact from those who used breath-holding techniques. Prevett (2024) has also found that there is no significant impact to a pregnant lifter's cardiovascular system including transient changes to blood pressure.

This is fab news for the lifters amongst us and an incredibly development in the field of research in this area. At Hatch we too agree, that for lifters who are experienced and have the ability to BRACE with their pelvic floor at the same time as carrying out a lift, Valsalva or not, should continue with confidence. 

Experienced lifters who can confidently brace with their pelvic floor and Valsalva in lifting - keep going.

There are a few things to consider alongside this.

I think it also needs to be mentioned that if you're not an experienced lifter, you might not really know what it means to brace with your pelvic floor when lifting something heavy. It could be your pelvic floor doesn't switch on whenever you need it. This could certainly be the case with anyone experiencing pelvic floor dysfunction, i.e. leaking, heaviness or pain down there.

In these cases, I recommend breathing out through larger efforts instead of breath-holding, and trying for a nice pelvic floor squeeze to engage those muscles and focus on getting them more 'automatic' for your pregnancy lifting journey. It would be also a recommendation to visit a women's health physio who could coach you towards lifting with an improved technique so you can enjoy this form of training throughout your pregnancy without removing it entirely. 

Less experienced lifters or those with pelvic floor dysfunction may not be confident in bracing with their pelvic floor, in which case you might prefer to breathe out through larger efforts. 

The important thing to take from this is to choose what's right for you. 

A final and very important note on Valsalva, breath holding and bracing with your pelvic floor.

Ensure, if you've been training in this way, it's just as important to learn to Valsalva with a release of your pelvic floor when you're not training. This is more of a 'bearing down' feeling - like doing a poo. And THIS is a technique you're going to need when you give birth, so as part of your training, ensure you're capable of achieving both!

Ensure you know how to Valsalva and bear down too and know the difference between the two techniques, as you'll need this to give birth!

Some other things worth mentioning...

- Avoid excessive heat and drink PLENTY of water to maintain hydrated. 

- Avoid barbell cycling that takes your heart rate over >90% HRM for prolonged periods. We have emerging evidence to suggest short periods over >90%HRM is safe for mum and baby, but it's a small study and we still recommend that for the majority of your training session you stick under 90%. 

-Trust yourself and what your body is telling you when training. While engaging in exercise during pregnancy, the following may serve as warning signs to stop exercising: vaginal bleeding, regular painful contractions, amniotic fluid leakage, prolonged shortness of breath, dizziness, headache, chest pain, muscle weakness, calf pain or swelling. You're sensible women, don't take any unnecessary risks, it's just not worth it. 

-  Don’t compare yourself to others: pregnant friends or athletes on social media. They may have been able to do things that you cannot and vice versa.

The good news is that the body is an amazing adaption machine, if there is a small period of your life were you cannot go as heavy as you would like or as hard as you normally would, that’s okay. You WILL get back to that stage again, trust me! Be kind to yourself in this relatively short phase of your training.

ope it's been helpful :)

P.S. Are you in our Facebook Group and do you know about our Pregnancy Training Programmes?

Want to know more or have a consult about your own personal pregnancy circumstances? Book a 1-to-1 consult with Women's Health Physio and Hatch Founder, Kat here https://www.hatchathletic.com/1-to-1 

Many thanks to Luana Joplin @joplinlu, Brooke Shannan @brookeshannan and Grace Hall @grace_pt_thestrongtribe for their wonderful pregnancy lifting photos.