• Focus on low resistance, high repetition exercises for the major muscle groups (i.e. chest, upper back, and legs), decreasing external weight used as you progress each week.
• Strengthening your upper back muscles is key to keeping good posture and counteracting the ‘forward’ weight of your growing belly and breasts. It will also help calm your achy upper back!
•  It’s important not to hold your breath, as this can spike your blood pressure quickly. Keep your breaths long and smooth.
• Alignment and balance are key when exercising because of the change in your center of gravity. Move slowly and deliberately.
• Avoid laying flat on your back for any exercise for longer than 60 to 90 seconds. How do you adjust for this? Incline chest presses on a stability ball with your hips slightly lifted or on the floor are perfect!
•  Keep your body temperature in a normal level, avoiding hot and humid workout conditions. Drink plenty of water.
• If you experience any bleeding, headache, chest pain, severe fatigue or severe calf pain, you should stop the exercise and refer to you medical professional.

How to do it: Sit on a stability ball or in a comfortable chair. As you breath in, let your belly expand forward. As you exhale, draw your navel toward your spine and lift the pelvic floor muscles (Kegels!). Imagine hugging your baby with your abdominals each time you exhale. Inhale and release the squeeze, squeeze the muscles back as you exhale. Repeat 20-30 times.

Bird Stance  

This exercise works both abdominal tone and back-body strength. It’s also great for maintaining balance.

How to do it: Still on all fours, extend your right leg back to hip height. Engage your core and lift the opposite (left) arm toward the wall in front of you. Hold here for 5 breaths, lightly contracting your navel toward your spine to keep your balance. Repeat on the other side.

Half Bird Stance

For more of a challenge, as you’re in this position sweep your left arm in an arc to your hip as you exhale, returning overhead on the inhale. Repeat 10-15 times, then change to the next side.

Full Bird Stance

Kendra Fitzgerald is the Founder of Barefoot Tiger (www.barefoottiger.com), an in-home personal training, yoga, pilates, nutrition and massage therapy company in New York City. She and her staff of 15 trainers, teachers and therapists teach regularly around the city, and now you can join them for classes at their newly opened studio in Midtown Manhattan!

A lot of new moms wonder if they should exercise while pregnant and what kind of exercises and stretches are best for the health of both mom and baby. We asked Kendra Fitzgerald, founder of Barefoot Tiger for some prenatal exercise tips and here’s what she suggested!

Exercise is important for new moms for so many reasons. It can help you build the strength you will need for the last few months of pregnancy, for labor, and the demands of taking care of a newborn. Maintaining strength during your pregnancy can also help you ‘get your body back’ more quickly after pregnancy. And most importantly, exercising during pregnancy can help your baby have a normal birthweight, enhance placental growth and function, and lower the risk for gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia.

As you reach the 3rd trimester of your pregnancy, there are a few key items to keep in mind:

Cat Cow

Step 1

Step 2

Stretches

    How to do it: Sitting on your mat and leaning back, cross your right ankle over your left knee and bring the bottom foot flat to the floor so your right leg is in a figure-4. Sit up tall, moving your pelvis forward and lifting your chest. Move your knee from side to side to find that sweet stretching spot in your outer hip. It should feel like a pretty big stretch (and really good!) The pelvis muscles can become tight as your pelvis stretches and opens as you get closer to your due date. This stretch can relieve a lot of lower back and hip pain you may be experiencing.

As long as you have clearance from your OB-GYN to exercise, you are good to go! If you were already active before getting pregnant, it’s likely you can continue your program while you are pregnant, with slight modifications to the intensity as you progress through your pregnancy. No matter your exercise history, you should continue to discuss your exercise program with your physician.