How Moms-To-Be Can Get Fit In Less Than 90 Minutes A Week
Back in 2013, some of the most remarkable science ever published in the sports literature was released. Researchers from Irish Universities found that people could get fit exercising just 12 minutes per week. The results were so remarkable that they made the headlines across a variety of news outlets, mainly because they appeared to fly in the face of traditional advice.
The program these researchers advocated was a high-intensity program where individuals would run as fast as they could on a treadmill for as long as they could – usually about 40 seconds – then stop to catch their breath before repeating a couple more times. The researchers showed that the effect of the intense exercise was so dramatic that it appeared to have the same effect as exercising for much longer.
But while that might be a suitable approach for regular people, it’s not such a great idea for pregnant women. The good news is that you don’t need to spend hours and hours every week working out while pregnant. Instead, you can condense all your training into less than 90 minutes. Here’s how.
Use Modified High-Intensity Training
High-intensity training doesn’t have to be performed to the same extremes as in the scientific trials. In fact, there are many ways to raise your heart rate to 80 percent of its maximum without overloading either yourself or the baby. Perhaps the best HIIT training method is the stationary bicycle. Do a high-intensity one minute burst followed by a minute’s rest, and then repeat eight more times. The whole thing should take you about sixteen minutes. If you repeat it three times during the week, that’s a total of just 45 minutes training time.
Researchers have found that high-intensity training, like the use of a stationary bike, has beneficial effects for both mothers and babies. Untrained moms had high levels of blood glucose and insulin. But mothers who trained regularly using moderate interval training, managed to significantly reduce their levels of fasting blood glucose and insulin. They also helped to increase the amount of muscle on their bodies and provided a better internal environment for their babies, according to started medical biomarkers. Although the training produced a small spike in their inflammatory markers (something which happens after any exercise), in the long term, their markers of inflammation, like tumor necrosis factor and C-reactive protein, were actually lower overall.
Stop Wasting Time Between Sets
The average person spends about three minutes recovering between sets. The belief is that you need to recover between sets so that you can put your all into the next. But is this really true? Could moms-to-be be wasting their time?
The latest science says that what matters when it comes to getting more toned is two things: the engagement of multiple body systems and the total workload per unit of time. Engaging multiple systems means making sure you get out of breath while doing weights by moving between machines and sets without a break. Doing more per unit of time means lifting a greater total amount of weight in a given time period. For instance, do twenty repetitions of 10 kg instead of 10 repetitions of 15 kg every two minutes.
