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Hi! Welcome to diet.com fitness I am Dara Zall Kelly and I am here to share with you the second part of our prenatal fitness exercises.
Today, we are focusing our upper body and I am going to start of with some of back exercises, because during pregnancy we all tend to round forward a little bit at the belly and entire upper body gets a little bit bigger and the weight gravity pulls us forward. So our first exercise is going to be a lat pull down. You are going to hold on to your tubing one handle in each hands, and then you are going to reach into the center and grab on. And then do the same, slide out until you have a descent amount of resistance. Now, hands come up to just above your head and what you are going to do is squeeze those shoulder blades together and back like you are holding a pencil between your shoulder blades and pull, pull…that tubing down right to about chest level and come on up.
As usual, I like to tell people we are going to do two sets of 10 to 12 repetitions. Do your first set, rest for 20 to 30 seconds and move on to your second set. So moving on we are going to continue on with that back trying to open up really find some strength and we are going to grab our five pound dump bells, three, five, ones, whichever you would like, suit cans if need be. And we are going to bring our selves into position. One foot forward, one foot back, knee never goes over that toe. Bellybutton pulls the spine; gluets are tight, back straight. You are going to start with your hands together, weights touching and squeeze, and down. Again, you are going to go for 10 to 12 repetitions, take a break, and do it again. We are going to put our weights down for now and move on to our next exercise. Very important for strengthening the low back
Now again, you have your tubing available pretty much anywhere. And you are going to wrap it around the stable surface. Find a door jam, a banister, anything stable you can even have a partner or friend hold on to the other side. You are going to walk your self back, holding on to the handles, until you find yourself with a lot of resistance, quit a bit of resistance to make it work effectively. And you are going to come down into a gentle squat, making sure those knees do not go over your toes, bellybutton to spine I do not want anybody out there like this, tuck it under, belly button to spine, shoulders back and you are going to squeeze and come in. Again, 10 to 12 repetitions with a 20 to 30 second break between the sets.
What I like to do now is show you a little bit of a test exercise to strengthen your pectorals, which are going to be under a lot of pressure during the next couple of months. So we want to make sure again that you are nice and strong and you are able to hold your self up with good posture, neutral alignment. Now, one of the best ways to do that is the basic push up. Place your hand slightly more than shoulder with a part, feet out, abs in tight, back is straight, watch that there is no sway back tucked up, but right under. And you are going to try and bring your chest down. Touch the wall and back down and back. Okay, we will take it on to the floor and yes these are safe for you to do as long as you are feeling comfortable. Make sure that your head is up not down and not overly extended, nice neutral alignment, belly button to spine, squeeze those gluets and lower your self down and lift up and down and lift up.
Give those a try. Tune in later for some more alternatives for upper body exercises. Thanks for joining us and we will see you next time.
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