If you are loving what you're learning in the podcast and you want to start applying it to your

fitness routine, you can try one of our free classes. No credit card required, just drop your

email to get access. This is a upper body build class taught by myself to take the class,

visit portal.evilfitness.com. I'm Dr. Shannon Ritchie.

I'm a doctor of physical therapy, fitness trainer, and founder of Eflop Fitness.

In the Dr. Shannon show, you'll learn applicable tools to improve your health based on science.

Welcome to the show.

Is it possible to improve any part of your fitness during pregnancy? And if so, how? I think maintenance can be a very appropriate goal during pregnancy. And we'll talk about how to do that.

But many people shoot for maintenance, under load, and under exercise, and therefore may not even

successfully maintain.

I am a huge believer that you can build strength and even muscle mastering pregnancy, therefore

improving your fitness all without wearing yourself down.

I'm just over five months pregnant myself, and I know that energy is not always there during

pregnancy, so trying to commit to an overly

intense routine just is not realistic. But it doesn't need to be that way. It takes the right

dosage of exercise. It doesn't need to be extreme or beat you up. It can be both gentle and

approachable while improving your fitness and all pregnancy outcomes. Most women spent nine months of their pregnancies,

underloading their bodies, losing muscle, and then they lose more postpartum, and they struggled

to get back to pre-pregnancy fitness levels because they've essentially spent a year deloading

their bodies. I've developed a passion for empowering women that they don't need to be

scared of strength training during

pregnancy. But it makes sense that there are. There is not a lot of guidance around this topic.

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