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Ladies --> Pregnancy and training
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Ladies, at what point in your pregnancy did you have to stop riding your bike? Also, did you have issues while swimming? Specifically the butterfly?
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Re: Ladies --> Pregnancy and training [aqualady] [ In reply to ]
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Congratulations!!

I rode my road bike until I couldn't comfortably bend anymore. Rode my MTB until I was 32-33 weeks. After that I was just too big to do it comfortably. If I had a cruiser bike I probably would have ridden until delivery time.

My last swim was 2 days before my son was born. I was only doing free/back - I'm not a fan of fly at the best of times.

Everything will vary depending on you and your body. As long as it's comfortable, keep on trucking. And don't compare yourself to others or even your pre-pregnant self - it will drive you crazy. Be grateful for whatever you are able to do. It feels like forever at the time, but it's just a small blip in your life.
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Re: Ladies --> Pregnancy and training [aqualady] [ In reply to ]
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I rode my bike until 6-7 months. I quit quite early because I was gigantic. I swam until a few days before the delivery. At the end I could only do free and back. You will know when its time to stop doing butterfly and flip turns.
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Re: Ladies --> Pregnancy and training [aqualady] [ In reply to ]
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I rode on the road till about 28 weeks (without an upturned stem much to my disgust) and continued to windtrain until the day before I gave birth. Just put an extra block under the front wheel to accommodate the tumtum. The thing that was most uncomfortable was my sit bones from the extra weight so I was only doing around 45mins.
And I also swam until the day before, I busted out a few lengths of fly now and then - mainly just to make my slack lane-mates who weren't doing fly for no good reason feel bad. I actually found swimming quite uncomfortable the whole way through - my tummy felt so tight and being stretched out didn't help. I kept tumble turning the whole way through, the only thing I stopped was diving in because I was getting close to hitting the bottom...
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Re: Ladies --> Pregnancy and training [aqualady] [ In reply to ]
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I swam up until the end, but didn't have much reason to do butterfly so I can't help much with that. My doctor told me that swimming (because of the prone position and the extra pressure of the water) is really good for reducing pregnancy water retention.

As for cycling, I limited myself to the trainer, but only made it up to around week 30ish because it started hurting my sciatic nerves and making my legs fall asleep, probably because I was huge and forced to ride sitting up.
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Re: Ladies --> Pregnancy and training [edbikebabe] [ In reply to ]
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did you have a heart rate cap while biking or running while pregnant? I know it's totally specific to the women, but I see that some women train all through pregnancy and others can only do walking/hiking, and I'm wondering if it has to do with keeping heart rate down. Thanks! :)
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Re: Ladies --> Pregnancy and training [ktommila] [ In reply to ]
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ktommila wrote:
did you have a heart rate cap while biking or running while pregnant? I know it's totally specific to the women, but I see that some women train all through pregnancy and others can only do walking/hiking, and I'm wondering if it has to do with keeping heart rate down. Thanks! :)

Luckily my dr was super cool with whatever I wanted (and I had low risk pregnancies), she said I would know when it was time to back off. She was right. I really only used perceived exertion and as soon as it felt uncomfortable I backed off. I got winded VERY easily running so I didn't run very far into my pregnancies - just because it wasn't fun/didn't feel good. Biking was much more comfortable although "comfortable" was slower than pre-pregnancy.

*I am not a doctor* I think it is pretty hard to deprive the fetus of oxygen. After all, it's very small for a long time. I definitely pushed myself here and there - it's fun to go hard/fast, just not as hard/fast as I could before and not as often.

Also - I really enjoyed taking it easy/eating more while I was pregnant. I know that's not for everyone, but it was nice to have a break from always thinking about what I was eating and how many hours I had done that week. To be totally honest though - it was also not that fun having to lose all the extra weight on the other end. Trade-offs and all that. :\
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