The Perinatal Guide

Over the last decade, I’ve been fortunate to be able to help dozens of women through their pregnancies, which have concurrently been the most rewarding, stressful, demanding, and fulfilling experiences of my coaching career.

In that time, I’ve learned quite a bit about what to do and what not to do—but I’ve learned even more about the persistence and pervasiveness of public misconceptions around perinatal training.

Luckily, the science is catching up—recent research strongly corroborates my own anecdotal experience: that resistance training is not only safe during pregnancy but actually advantageous for both the mother and child.

A sound training plan seems to facilitate a more comfortable pregnancy, avert many complications, promote a healthier baby, and expedite the mother’s postpartum recovery.

But it takes time for data to trickle out of the lab and replace longstanding beliefs and practices. And this delay is allowing misconceptions around training to continue to fester, infect, and entrench themselves in the public mindspace.

The process MUST be sped up—For the health of millions of mothers and their babies is dependent on it.

But it also has to be done right—For the margin for error is literally zero.

So I’m going to walk through some of the most effective strategies I’ve picked up over the years, through trial-and-error, tons of research, and hours of conversations with clients.

We’ll start conceptually at a high-level and then zoom in on some tangible examples and tactics to use when designing perinatal programs.

The goal here is to provide a semi-comprehensive guide on how expecting mothers can safely navigate pregnancy while retaining and maximizing fitness as much as possible. No matter if you’re the aforementioned expecting mother, her supportive significant other, or even a coach looking to help their clients through this exciting journey, this article should be a great place to start.