I'm Elisa All with PregnancyToday. I'm here with Shaina Young a prenatal fitness expert who's also a new mom and she's going to be talking to us about the benefits of cardiovascular exercise and yoga during pregnancy. Can you tell us why cardio is important during pregnancy? Cardio is great its going to help you build your stamina, endurance and its going to be a great way to keep a healthy body weight. It will help you be at a healthy blood pressure throughout your pregnancy.Excellent I also remember doing yoga during pregnancy and it was a great mental and physical exercise. Oh absolutely. There's some different benefits that you get from yoga. One is the breath work is going to help reduce your stress and the breath work transfers really well to the labor and delivery room and just having that internal focus and being able to access your energy. So Shaina are there a couple of poses you can show us that will be good for expectant moms? Absolutely, lets start with the warrior one pose. Step your right foot forward and your left one back, be mindful that in yoga when your pregnant the stances are going to be a little bit more narrow, keep that left leg straight and bend the right knee, bring your arms up 90 degrees. Take a long deep breath here, allow the tailbone to drop down. Your next inhalation, push those fingertips right up as you gaze up to the sky and feel energized. Your next exhalation, allow your hands to come together resting on your hearts center and carefully step up to the front of your mat. You feel ready for another pose? Alright, tree pose is a fun pose it's one of my favorites it does involve a little bit of balance so if you feel a little unsteady feel free to take a tree pose next to a wall so you have a prop for your balance. I'm going to demonstrate the tree pose that you would do towards the end of your pregnancy when your balance may be a little bit suspect. Your going to turn the knee out toes are going to come down stand strong in that left leg stand nice and tall bring your hands to the hearts center. This might be it if you feel like have a little bit more to go or you feel really steady slide that foot up just little bit so your toes come up off the ground. If your earlier in your pregnancy and you are looking for a little bit more of a challenge that right foot or the foot your working with is going to fit right up into the groin making sure your not resting your foot on your knee and again my hands will stay in the heart center but for more of a challenge the fingertips just like in warrior go right up to the sky. But again do what feels safe. It feels good. Great, great – now lets bring the hands down back to hearts center.
Well thank you for sharing those great poses with us. Your welcome. It seems like we can do this through pregnancy and beyond – absolutely. We will see you next time on PregnancyToday.
