Pilates and Pregnancy - Week 30: Big Ball Exercises

Welcome back to our Pilates and pregnancy blog! This week the baby is about 18 inches long and 3.2 pounds. If the baby arrives when he’s supposed to we’ve got less than 10 weeks to go! I’ve noticed a small amount of swelling in my legs along with occasional leg cramps the past few weeks. Other than that, I’ve been feeling pretty good!

This week we started my workout with a great leg stretch in a seated position. To do the stretch, I sat tall and leaned back toward the mat with my arms supporting me just behind my hips. While in the supported leaning back position, I started by pointing and flexing my feet. It was a small movement, but felt really good to stretch the bottom half of my legs and get some movement through my feet and ankles. Next, we did a little internal and external rotation of the legs by turning the thighs and knees in toward and then away from one another. By gently rotating the legs in and out I could feel the stretch all the way up in my hips.

We did a series of exercises using the big exercise ball in our session. The balls are very supportive and can be used in a variety of positions during labor. Carey is hoping that by getting me comfortable moving and exercising with the ball I will make an easy transition to using the ball during labor. They are available at the hospital where I plan to deliver, but just in case they’re all spoken for, I will be bringing my own.

We started our ball work in a kneeling position with my hands on top of the ball in front of me. Pushing down gently, I rounded and then extended my spine in a cat/cow motion. It was work in my arms to stabilize the upper half of my body and felt nice to stretch out my low back. In between this and some of the other exercises I would drape over the ball in a modified child’s pose position which not only felt great but will also be a great position to use throughout labor (according to Carey).

We also did some leg lift variations where my side body was supported by the ball. I had to work to maintain my balance while I did different leg lifting and rotating exercises. These exercises were a lot of work and I didn’t feel like I could lift my leg very high. It felt nice, however, to move through my hips which have progressively tightened during the pregnancy.

We ended the session with a great quad/hip opening stretch. You can see this one pictured above. To start, Carey had me sit back on my heels (or as close to it as I could get) and drape my body and head back over the big ball. Just being in that supported position was a quad stretch. Then, she had me gently push my hips forward to intensify the quad stretch and help open up the front of my hips. It was a subtle movement, but a nice stretch.

Check in next week for all the details on the shower Carey and our wonderful clients threw for me!

-Cassie