Teaching Pilates During Your Own Pregnancy

I received this great question the other day and thought it deserved its own blog post:

"Hello, I teach Mat Pilates and recently found out I am about 4 weeks pregnant. I have continued teaching and plan to atleast for a while... Do you have any suggestions for teaching while pregnant?"

As a matter of fact... I do.

Sit on a Ball While Teaching
This is one of the best things you can do while you're teaching. In fact, you can do this at home, too. The more often you sit on a ball, the more your lower back and hips will stay fluid and pain-free. You're never perfectly still on a ball, your deep core muscles are constantly working to keep your balance (its really subtle, but they are working and keeping toned core muscles in pregnancy is so helpful in the long run). While teaching, you can do small pelvic tilts, pelvic circles, little bounces- all of these will help keep low back pain away and keep your posture under control.

Minimize Physically Assisting Clients, Demonstrating, and Changing Springs
Basically, minimize the amount of times you bend over. The added extra weight of assisting a client or changing the reformer springs can go straight to your low back. Since your body is changing every day, and the relaxin is making all your ligaments looser, you may not realize that changing your clients reformer spring is going to throw your back or neck out until its too late. This is a great time to teach clients how to change their own springs.

Demonstrating Exercises is another thing to avoid, for the same reasons.

Avoid Teaching a Exercises That Take a Crazy Amount of Balance
During pregnancy, our sense of balance is off and we can sometimes feel like we're about to fall when we would otherwise normally feel no fear whatsoever. I remember when I was pregnant, standing next to a docked boat bobbing up and down made me feel like I was about to fall into the sea!!

When teaching, avoid teaching a lot of exercises where the clients are in a precarious position, such as Side Splits on the reformer, or Front Splits with both arms in the air. Let's say your balance is thrown off for a second due to watching them- your reaction to feeling like you're going to fall could throw them off, as well. Maybe its different exercises for you that make you feel off balance- whatever it is, it might just be worth avoiding for safety's sake. Its only for 9 months, after all!

Lunge and Squat
Not only will lunging and squatting strengthen your body for childbirth, it will also save your back during pregnancy. Anytime you need to pick up a prop, assist a client on the floor, change a spring (though of course you're keeping these to a minimum anyway)- do so by lunging or squatting so that your upper body remains as upright as possible. In fact, to come up to standing again from a lunge or squat will require your core muscles to work, so that's an added benefit.

Wear MBT Shoes
I wore MBT shoes throughout my whole pregnancy and I think that was one of the best things I could have done to prevent low back pain (of which I had none!). They held me upright in perfect alignment so that my increasing large abdomen didn't pull my lower back forward, I couldn't lock my knees while standing, or inadvertently put my weight in my heels.

Keep Snacks, Water, and Candies on Hand
I know during my pregnancy, I was incredibly nauseas 24/7. One of the only things that helped me get through teaching while feeling extremely ill was to suck on hard candies and stay hydrated. Don't allow yourself to get too hungry, especially to the point where you feel light headed. Either eat a snack right before you start teaching, or keep a snack nearby so you can grab it at the first sign of hunger.

Hope these tips are helpful! Feel free to share your tips for teaching while pregnant, or working in general while pregnant.