Prenatal Fitness Fix with Erin O’ Brien.
Three months of eating stodgy rubbish and lying on my sofa has taken its toll. I look seven months pregnant instead of four, and none of that is baby bump!
So after having a very lazy first trimester, I have decided to attempt to do some fitness in my second stage to try and slow down my weight gain. After a good look on good old Amazon, I managed to find a pregnancy box set with very good feedback, called The Complete Pregnancy Workout.
Today I attempted Erin O’Brien’s ‘Prenatal Fitness Fix’ and was quite impressed.
Whilst it is American, so occasionally has some cheesy one-liners, Erin is a good instructor, and explains all the moves well enough for me to pick them up quickly.
Erin is in her third trimester on the DVD, so it is nice to see how the exercises can be done when you get big; her bump seems huge on her tiny body!
The first section is a 40 minute workout, which begins with a long warm up, before moving onto some dynamic movements, which includes squats, lunges and light cardio. After so many weeks of avoiding exercise, this certainly raised my heartbeat and gave me a sweat, but it is not as intense as a standard workout, to ensure you do not overheat.
Erin explains why she has chosen some of the exercises, and how they prepare you for labour. It is set in her home, and at one point she even has to have a pee break, which is a refreshing change from many fitness DVD ‘productions’.
There is then some floor work which is Pilates-based, before some nice, relaxing stretching.
The DVD also contains a 20 minute circuit training session that you do with your partner. Erin designed the session to help include the partner in the pregnancy journey. The partner does not have to do any exercise themselves, they are there to provide physical resistance for you; they basically act as gym equipment, helping you to tone your arms, bum and thighs.
Erin uses her husband, James Denton (Desperate Housewives actor) as her partner, and he played the part of the bloke well, as he didn’t seem too interested in being there!
However, this is a nice little session to do with your partner, and it enables you to try to tone up, which is always a bonus!
I felt nice and refreshed afterwards, and even managed to do some housework afterwards, so I am going to try to keep it up!
I definitely recommend this for others who have been as lazy as me. I am also going to review the other 3 pregnancy DVDs later on in my blog- they include Pilates, yoga and a post-pregnancy workout.
If you know of any other good workouts or ones to avoid, please comment below this post J
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