@hisongswilast I would stop once you start showing. When your bump develops, this indicates that your ab muscles are stretching to accommodate your growing uterus, so your abs are already under a lot of strain and pressure. Further exacerbating the strain via ab exercises can cause problems.
For me personally, I scaled back direct core work at 13 weeks and stopped it completely at 15 weeks.
@faith2016 Exactly! I’ve been doing a lot of single-leg work (single-leg RDLs, split squats, etc) and making sure to maintain proper breathing and core engagement. I’ll save the planks and hollow holds til postpartum.
@hisongswilast My pelvic floor PT said keep doing everything except crunches unless I notice coning (or otherwise feel really weird). I'm 16 weeks and her guess is I can keep going until at least 20.
@hisongswilast dont stop but totally stop doign the ones that make ur abs cone(looking at you anything on the back). when i was pregnant not that long ago i just did stuff like standing KB/DB marches, transverse abdominal bracing, side plank dips, then seated marches on my birth ball when i got too big and tired. i have minimal DR. most think i can attribute this to getting up from lying positions correctly, even at the drs office i wold roll to my side and i still do 5weeks pp.
my physical therapist says you can get DR during the pushing phase of delivery sometimes. i have very minor DR. read somewhere if ur belly button pokes out, then you likely have DR of some kind and what do u know, my belly button started to poke out in the 3rd trimester
@hisongswilast It's really dependent on your experience and comfortability. I was able to do ab exercises until I popped. Check your form and if you notice any coning or doming, modify. I'd say I did my usual ab routine until about 18-20 weeks, Now at 28 weeks I'll do planks, bird dogs, and deep-core focused breathing on a birthing ball.
@hisongswilast I personally stopped any compression ab exercises (crunches, v ups, bicycles) as soon as it didn’t feel right, which ended up being around 10-12 weeks for me. Tbh it was probably just bloating more than anything, my pelvic floor PT said to continue as long as it felt ok, but I felt good about swapping for more pregnancy safe and beneficial core exercises that focus on TVA and obliques. Strengthening the rectus abdominus (6 pack muscles) isn’t really all that helpful for pregnancy and labour, especially if you are going into it with a store core so it didn’t make sense for me to continue doing them just for the sake of it. I’ve been doing bird dogs, bear planks, wood chops, belly hugs, pallof press, and banded marches. Earlier on I continued doing planks, dead bugs, heel drops but I dropped those around 20w.
@hisongswilast You don’t need to stop ab exercises (actually double down on them while you can) until you have a visible bump. At this point, you have the DR risk and so you should stop. Anything that makes your abs “bump” visibly cone while exercising is bad for you (contrary to people thinking it’s bad for the baby - it’s not. It’s really very bad for tour abdominal muscles.) Of course don’t do anything that makes you feel dizzy, or tired and not in a good way. There’s normal workout fatigue and then there’s the wrong kind that only comes on during pregnancy where your body is telling you to slow down. Only you can be a judge of that. If you want more targeted info for your specific situation, def recommend contacting a pre natal fitness expert (not ob gyn.. most of them have zero clue about pregnant women fitness and will tell you anything to avoid liability upon themselves.) I know folks who did ab workouts all the way until 7 months. It just so happened that their abs were really strong to begin with, holding their bumps in for the longest time with no additional work on their part, so bumps showed up late, they carried differently and there was no coning to speak of until month 7. There is no one size fits all.
@hisongswilast It was around 18 weeks that I started to modify. A lot of pressure and discomfort during full push-ups was my first indicator that it was time. Until that point I think I was doing all ab exercises normally, even crunches but decided to completely stop anything with a crunch in it at 18 weeks plus drop to my knees for pushups. I was still planking as normal until about week 20 then started to see coning so now I only do them elevated. That was also the week I decided to stop doing pull-ups. I chose to forgo the traditional advice of stopping ab work at the end of the first trimester because I really didn't have much belly growth until 18+ weeks and I figured it was better to maintain strength for as long as possible. We'll see if that comes back to bite me in the ass.
