Funding outcome

Current guidelines for healthy living during pregnancy encourage exercise in all healthy pregnant people. Within these recommendations, pregnant individuals are encouraged to complete both aerobic (e.g. walking, jogging, swimming, cycling) and resistance exercise (e.g. muscle strengthening exercises using resistance machines, free weights or body weight exercise). However, little is known regarding the acute maternal and fetal physiological responses to resistance training during pregnancy. As more females are choosing to begin exercise and sports involving heavy lifting, such as CrossFit, it is important to understand for those who choose to start or continue heavy resistance training exercises during their pregnancies. This study will recruit 20 pregnant and 20 non-pregnant individuals to engage in a heavy resistance exercise protocol up to 90% of maximal effort over 10 repetitions during bench press, squats and deadlifts. Maternal and fetal cardiovascular health (e.g., heart rate blood pressure) will be monitored. These data will provide the first empirical evidence regarding the safety of heavy resistance exercise during pregnancy.