How Pippa Middleton Prioritized Safety & ‘Confidence’ In Her Pregnancy Workouts
Figuring out the approach to fitness that feels right to you while you’re pregnant is something that’s different for every person in every body. For people who really love exercise and movement as a form of self-care, it’s important to see healthy approaches to pregnancy and postpartum fitness out in the wild: examples of people in different bodies with different goals looking after themselves and baby.
Which is why it’s great to hear, via her trainer Ashley Verma, that during her most recent pregnancy Pippa Middleton was going at her own pace as she reintroduced exercise into her routine, prioritizing feeling confident and safe and working toward the goal of staying strong and happy in her bod.
“Activity was always a part of her lifestyle. So, keeping it and implementing it while pregnant was just part of her norm,” Verma told Us Weekly. “… She just wanted to feel like she was doing everything safely, feeling confident in her body as it changed. We wanted to work on the confidence and we wanted to work on posture because what happens when you are pregnant, the weight of the baby starts to pull you.”
The 37-year-old worked with Verma previously during her first pregnancy in 2018 and she says that back then the priorities were helping her stay active (which she said she found difficult!) and focusing on staying strong.
As for the kind of workouts they tackled together, Verma said they focused on bodyweight workouts, exercises with hand-weights and some pregnancy-friendly floor exercises. But, ultimately, she said an important part of it was about being “comfortable in your body while you’re experiencing so much change.”
“I worked with hand weights with Pippa. We worked with just your own body, weight-bearing workouts where we did leg lifts. … We [also] did the safe way to do floor work, where you can just incorporate a pillow to help support the baby,” Verma said. “We want to stay strong and sculpted, but we got in there safely. And those were the really the key points and factors that we really got into.”
Before you go, check out some of our favorite at-home gym equipment that won’t break the bank:
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