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Why a Powerful Pregnancy Program? Because it could happen to YOU! Focusing on tummy muscles, pelvic floor and leg toning exercises, it also contains a lot of 'inside information'. Find out the benefits and how to do pregnancy abdominal bracing correctly.
Compare the difference .... which would you prefer? I could not count or tell you how many women have said: and decide to be much more diligent with their exercises if they have a second pregnancy. It is never too late to start or improve your pelvic floor and exercise routine. Starting now will help. Your 'basic essentials' are included in the program and many women have said: This simple, easy to use information should form your absolute basic knowledge about the areas of your body, which change dramatically and significantly during pregnancy and childbirth. These are your back, abdominal and pelvic floor areas. The information comes as a booklet together with pamphlets, complemented by charts, which allow you to monitor your progress and the changes of pregnancy on your tummy and pelvic floor muscles. It also includes charts for checking that you get back to normal, or as close to normal as soon as possible after the birth. Take a look at an example of using one of the charts below, recording stomach muscle separation changes before, during and after pregnancy.
Tummy muscles can go back in and the pelvic floor muscles can feel OK with no real problems being apparent after a first pregnancy, but they can stretch more quickly second or third time around. It is important to get back into shape as soon as you can after the birth to prevent the development of problems later on. And of course to feel better about yourself and to tone up to fit back into your clothes. How can you get back to normal, if you don't know what normal is? This gets us back to the recording of the measurements and changes during pregnancy, and by using these as your baseline, you can then aim to get back to your normal after the birth. (Your baseline provides you with a guide for what is "normal" for you). It is not too late to use at whatever stage of pregnancy you are. Anyone can improve. Aim just a little bit higher than where you are with your body and exercise level now. The other reason for using the Program is that a slow decline or weakening can occur after you have finished having your children, as you approach menopause. Most of us don't think beyond here and now, but your muscles staying weak or stretched after pregnancies can be the underlying factor for many of the incontinence problems women experience around menopause. It can also contribute to the development of prolapse. So, prevention is better than cure. Early treatment is better than putting up with problems or waiting for them to hopefully go away by themselves. Many 50 year old women coming in for treatment of incontinence have said that their problems started when they had their children.
Once they have learned about them, their common comment is: I was fortunate enough to start my exercises early in my pregnancy. I was talking to my step-mother about pelvic floor exercises and to this day she thought that it was just normal to "leak" a little after exercise or coughing. She has had three children, and when I explained to her why she was "leaking" she wished that someone had informed her.
You will learn some of the information in the Program from Physiotherapists and Midwives teaching your Antenatal classes but:
READ ON to find out more about the extra features of Your Powerful Pregnancy Program about the extra features of Your Powerful Pregnancy Program - READ ON. Many women (almost 50%) in pregnancy will experience low back or pelvic pain during pregnancy. As well as the important exercise of pregnancy abdominal bracing, which can help prevent or relieve back and pelvic pain, and back care tips (all available in Your Powerful Pregnancy Program), there are some other important exercises to help to 'hold you together' in your pregnancy. The pelvic joints are held together by muscles and ligaments. Ligaments loosen during pregnancy as the connective tissue 'collagen' softens to allow them to 'give' and stretch during the growth of the baby. This is due to the hormone relaxin. Now the muscles around your hips and pelvis are normally strong enough to support around your pelvic joints, when the ligaments are nice and firm, i.e. when you are not pregnant. Once the ligaments relax, your muscles have to work a lot harder to hold your pelvic joints together, so they need to be stronger in pregnancy to cope with this extra job. Now also add to this the weight of your growing baby/babies, which is increasing throughout your pregnancy. So, again your muscles may be strong enough at the beginning of your pregnancy, although some women notice early backache in the first three months, even before the weight of the baby increases, just because of the effects of relaxin. But as your baby/babies grow, if they stay the same strength, they may not be able to fully hold and support your pelvic and hip joints. So really, your muscles need to be gradually strengthened during pregnancy, to match the increasing load and weight of your growing baby/babies.
The other thing that can happen is often that on one side of the pelvis the muscles are weaker than on the other. This often leads to pelvic and low back pain developing on one side more than the other. With the Powerful Pregnancy Program exercises, you can find out if one side is weaker than the other and work on strengthening the weaker side to prevent this from happening. You can test the muscles on each side, and then work more on one side than the other until your strength 'evens up'. Then you can fully support the weight of your growing baby evenly throughout your pregnancy. This weakness often occurs or is present without us even realising it. We are often stronger on one side than the other, eg if we are right or left handed, that side may be stronger. Normally this is not a problem, but it can become apparent in pregnancy due to the extra load you are carrying and to the factors mentioned above (the hormone relaxin loosening the normally firm and strong supportive ligaments). So again, prevention is better than cure, and you can simply work your muscles in an effective way using the Pregnancy Toning Exercises in the Powerful Pregnancy Program. Pelvic floor muscle exercises also help to 'hold your pelvis together' from the inside. Your pelvic floor muscles attach to the bones on the inside of your pelvis, so a firmer, well working pelvic floor will help to hold together and support your pelvic joints together from the inside. Using "As Your Shape Changes", you will be able to check that you are doing your exercises correctly and record and monitor your pelvic floor muscle fitness. Work out if your muscles are weak and need some extra work early in pregnancy, or notice any decline or change in their strength as you monitor their progress.
Your General Fitness Aerobic exercise is important for many reasons, before, during and after pregnancy. To help you stay motivated, we have included an Exercise Record Chart in Your Powerful Pregnancy Program. You only need to exercise for 100 minutes per week to gain the benefits of exercise and for improving or maintaining fitness before, during and after pregnancy. This may mean adding up those 5 and 10 minute walks you do to and from school, the shops, or work, or the longer exercise sessions that you do. You may be surprised how easy it is to get 100 minutes in per week. Again by recording it each time, you can see in black and white your times, and not have to feel guilty, by thinking you haven't done enough exercise! As a Reminder . . . What are the dots for that we include with Your Powerful Pregnancy Program? Once upon a time, some clever person decided that sticking dots around in strategic places, can help women to remember to do their exercises. Many women complain that they forget their exercises, and then feel guilty for doing so. By putting dots in places that you regularly see or use, they can serve as a prompt to doing your pelvic floor muscle exercises. They can also help to remind you to do your tummy bracing exercises. Dots can also be placed in your diary or on your calendar, as an indicator of when you are next due to check and record your measurements in your charts. This way, you won't go through your whole pregnancy before you remember to record in it again. Remember, this program is good to read and better when used, by filling out the charts. "There is no way you can stress enough the importance of being body conscious of these areas before, during and after pregnancy. It is definitely true that the fitter these areas are, the easier recovery is after your baby is born. Post natal abdominal bracing exercises are also included in Your Powerful Pregnancy Program. So, to order your copy of "Your Powerful Pregnancy Program", CLICK HERE. The exercises are simple and yet the effect and long term results are both powerful and most essential for all women.
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The exercises in Your Powerful Pregnancy Program have been carefully chosen for their simplicity and purpose in strengthening around your hip and pelvic joints. They can easily be done either at home, or incorporated into a gym program. They work the muscles right around the pelvis specifically and you can use the charts provided to monitor your progress and strengthening as your pregnancy develops. They can also be used for toning your leg muscles after the birth.
