Yoga & sport during pregnancy
by Marika Tietavainen
I have always maintained the old adage that pregnancy is not an illness, and having experienced the condition recently myself, I still stand by it. Well, apart from the debilitating morning sickness, which is frightfully reminiscent of morning after a wild party, bar memories of actual fun, and which seems to stick around like a ad smell for inconsiderate length of time. But once this condition has passed it is surprising just how much our bodies can tolerate and achieve, how much more strength we have than we maybe initially think and how sports training can be tailored to fit the needs of the growing belly. While my journey may not be relatable to all ladies out there counting their 9 months, I hope my experience provides some foretaste of things to come for those women that live and breathe sports and active lifestyle, and who may find the abrupt change in their training schedule, well, a bit challenging. Despair not, and if you are currently held in the death grip of the torturous cycle of morning sickness, just repeat the mantra ‘this too shall pass’. It will, and you have my sympathies. While you are at it, don’t feel guilty for throwing your partner out in the morning for their application of aftershave/perfume and cup of coffee — the fresh air will do them wonders and save you from bouts of extreme nausea, should you have turned into a German Shephard in the olfactory department as I did.
I never suspected I was pregnant for the first 8 weeks of my 9 months of ‘unusual circumstances’. In fact, during this period my main focus of yoga training was on handstands, and in particular trying to achieve correct hip alignment and core stability in this inversion that requires delicate control of balance. I felt strong, fit and detected steady progress. I was also fasting, which gave further rise to the general sense of wellbeing. At the time, corona virus lockdown had also incidentally been enforced for approximately two months, which certainly contributed to the perfect storm of training at home conditions: no rush hour commutes to work, more time available to concentrate on daily yoga practice and clean living with purely home cooked meals and absence of alcoholic drinks and late night parties. I was also able to live stream yoga classes via Instagram and Facebook to try to maintain some regularity for my students in the midst of the new world order of social distancing and face masks.
All things considered, I was alarmed then when one morning I woke up to a mysterious feeling of nausea, headache and general tiredness, suspecting immediately exposure to the recently discovered and still almost entirely unknown new virus. As anyone at the time, I attempted to self-diagnose the symptoms based on wildly varying accounts of people affected around the world, with no real conclusive results. After a weekend on sofa feeling sorry for myself, and having crossed food poisoning out of the list of possible causes for the sudden lethargy, it was time to consult the professionals. However, before heading to doctor, my husband suggested a home pregnancy test. Nothing to lose, my appointment with a pee cup and home test kit was agreed on the morning of the trip to the hospital. If anything, that crushed yet another legendary blockbuster film myth, where a huddle of friends/family wait anxiously around a test stick for that elusive second line to slooooowly appear. I on the contrary had hardly dipped the end of the test stick in liquid when the lines flashed up determinedly vividly on the display screen.
Slightly dazed and surprised at the sudden turn of the events, we changed the plan to visit a virus testing clinic and headed to family planning unit instead. Home kit results confirmed by a steady heartbeat in the sonogram it was time to return home and re-think our life. Relief, happiness and confusion mixed with my continuing queezy stomach and now evidently never-ending sore head ensured an early night, and by this point nearly a week’s break in the yoga practice, or any other physical exercise for that matter.
In the coming days we managed a few sedate walks. Turns out that the so-called ‘morning sickness’ is a real pain in the backside, and unlike the cutesy name suggests, it has the ability to assault the sufferer of it quite literally 24–7. I crashed within a few days from an energetic fitness bunny to a wreck dragging my feet for a painful 30 minutes along paved walkways while fighting constant feeling needing to puke (while I actually didn’t) and sluggishness in my whole body. At the same time I made acquaintance with one of the most irritating pregnancy symptoms — the constant need to pee. Suddenly the world of possible walks was strictly constrained by distance to the nearest toilet, and that distance seemed at the maximum hover somewhere around one hour mark. I became an avid toilet spotter, which certainly helped mapping for walks in the later stages when the need for pee breaks increased still. Teaching yoga classes required a detailed battle plan with a dash to visit restroom facilities just before the start of the class, avoidance of too many squeezy moves on bladder and prompt exit after class to the favourite toilet block.
My first attempt to carry out a yoga practice around a week following the big news can be described as a minor disaster. First upward dog to downward dog saw me involuntarily dropping on my knees, and there appeared to be no strength left in my body to perform even just the simple and standard sun salutations for warm-up, which I had always taken for granted. The total practice I managed was just shy of 20 mins, clumsy and riddled with bouts of nausea. The sudden change in circumstances around my physical ability was devastating, and quite frankly hard to take in.
At this point, try to find a supportive friend, who does not tire in assuring you that by week 12 there will be a ray of sun. Somebody who has been through the mill already, and has solid evidence that this really is true, will help to carry you through these difficult weeks. I also had the fortune to have a husband that reminded me of the magical 12 week mark on a constant repeat, including the days I had lost all hope. Although this may be hard to believe during the dark days of fatigue, it happened to me. One day, just as abruptly as it arrived, the nausea dissipated right on cue at the heels of that glorious week 12. Cautiously optimistic, I threw down my yoga mat and got on with my practice. And suddenly, just like that, I was back! Strong planks, steady breathing, solid poses and even effortless balances such as crow pose. I can even now remember the ecstatic euphoria upon completion of a fine hour’s practice, and how I couldn’t stop babbling happily of executing different asanas.
I really was over the moon and sun, and it just gets better. After that initial successful session, I was able to pick up the practice where I left if those pitiful 4–5 weeks ago. I quickly moved on to more challenging poses including inversions, and ironically, my handstand steadily improved over the coming weeks. There were of course limitations to the extent of movements and range of asanas I could perform, but overall I felt I was not missing out on too much. I needed to shorten the curve on the upward dog to give rest to my stretching abs and skin, but warriors were grounded and low. I had to abandon the classic bow pose belly down, but nothing prevented me from turning that on its side. My transitions may have been less elegant, but that didn’t disturb my concentration on holding each asana. With some modifications and adaptations, I was able to continue my yoga journey with minimal disruption. If you are still not convinced, check with my long suffering husband, who joined my practice, and often finished our hour of pure bliss (me) and soaking sweaty ‘really hard’ class (him).
Encouraged by the apparent success of slipping back to yoga practice, I mixed the sessions with energetic walks in the park. As my personal style of doing yoga is physically very demanding, I made a concession to myself to alternate yoga with brisk walks of maybe 5km. Sometimes those rounds in the park turned into jogging, although in the summer heat and humidity of Middle East those really pushed the boundaries. Nevertheless, I only did what I found comfortable, which felt right, and I never crossed the line where I would have been uncomfortable. The point I try to make is that even with harsh conditions, if you have been physically capable to do sports at an above average level before falling pregnant, with relatively small decrease in intensity level, there is still a whole world of activities your body will do comfortably.
Swimming provided another welcome change to the exercise routine, and where else would this whale have felt more at home, I thought. I laugh now when I see the early photos at pool, when I THOUGHT I had a belly to talk of, but ignorance is bliss. Only issue I noticed with swimming was that I was easily able to push myself too much in the cool and weightless water element. The first time in the pool with my newly acquired beachball belly accessory I actually pulled my shoulder joints, having maybe not taken into account the loosening of the joints due to the hormone relaxin released during pregnancy, and confidently executing lap upon lap of breaststrokes. That resulted in an uncomfortable night of aching shoulders and revised intensity level for the swim plan. I managed to rein myself in during subsequent weekly pool plunges while sticking to the mantra of slow and clean technique does is steady.
By the time I reached week 36 in my pregnancy, I still felt confident to hoist myself up to a headstand. I always made sure I was next to a wall, and that I lifted my legs up mainly using scissor legs to avoid excessive pressure on the abs, but up I went upside down. I would never recommend this to anyone unless you are absolutely certain of your inversions, and practising at an advanced level, but for me this was one of the most calming and refreshing poses during the months of pregnancy. The flow of blood from swollen feet brought a wave of coolness to lower limbs, providing some serious relief from this pesky symptom of carrying all that extra weight.
However, by week 34, there was another noticeably shift in ability of my body to simply bend and move from low poses on the mat to standing poses and back down. This felt very frustrating, and unfortunately slowed down the yoga practice to an extent that the main benefit and focus of it became stretching and relaxing. This prompted one more change to my fitness regime, which was a return to gym after a considerable break of couple of years. But I was content at this point that I had been able to continue physical activities at a decent level until this point, and the gym sessions provided a welcome last minute extension to that. Between exercise bike and stepper I was able to get some much needed cardio exercise, while weight lifting machines gave a whole new lease of life to this pregnant, by now ball shaped, sports aficionado. Perhaps most astonishingly, having just moved to a new gym that had a punching bag, I started to work on punches, blocks and kicks (yes, kicks too!) that I had not really concentrated on for many years. That punching bag came to my life at the right time, and it was love at first sight!
Although my kicks were painstakingly slow and much less Bruce Lee and more like slow motion film at the end of week 38, I was delighted I still had good range of mobility. To protect the bubble of water in my belly (with its unsuspecting resident) I retrained myself from double hip movements that is the essence of all power in martial arts, but I gave myself a chance to concentrate to correct my (slightly rusty) technique. It may not have been an equivalent of a two hour sweat and blood fighting session, but it gave me assurance that I have been able to retain sufficient level of physical fitness through the months of pregnancy. With this knowledge, I am prepared not only physically, but also mentally and emotionally, for the next stage coming up — recovery.
What to take away from this then? Obviously, exercising while pregnant makes the whole experience so much easier. For example, apart from practice contractions, I never had to make acquaintances with Mr Backpain, which I am told is ordinarily a frequent visitor during most pregnancies. I would encourage everyone to move as much as possible, but according to your pre-pregnancy abilities. If everything else hurts, try to drag yourself into the forgiving and supportive environment of water, this is where I too spent my last day exercising before the date of delivery. This is not the time to start marathon training, as much as you would like it. This leads to the second most valuable lesson which I learnt, which is to be gentle to yourself and accepting of the temporary decrease of level of your own abilities. To anyone who has ‘gone hard at it’ all their life, the sudden uncontrollable changes to your own body may be a bit overwhelming at first. When that realisation hits, breathe deeply in and out, and think of all those people who bounced back. You will too. Just enjoy the extra piece of guilt free chocolate, and see you on the mat, whether yoga or tatami, soon.
