Can pregnant women do that?

pregnant silhouette (c) mahalie
CC Attribution 2.0 License

When I found out I was pregnant the first time I mourned the loss of my then-erratic jogging routine. That is, until I dove into the internet to see what other moms, physicians, and experts had to say. I was surprised to find that most women can continue at the same level of physical activity, usually decreasing intensity in the later months. In fact, a lot of Olympic athletes continue the same level of activity through their whole pregnancy. I hardly felt pregnant at all until my eighth month when I couldn't breath well in certain positions and had to wake up to flip over in the middle of the night. I was actually in the best shape of my life. Every week I alternated strength training and cardio (running) on week days, resting on weekends. I aced my personal fitness class--which went right through my due date!

So yes, pregnant women can strength train. And run. Having discovered pole fitness and started flexibility training I had to wonder if I could still do those now. After all, I am three years older than last time and I was horribly sick for two months. I remembered last time all sources warned against lunges and squats--would that mean my more intense stretching had to stop? Would pole climbs be too intense? I met with my doctor with dire expectations and it

Weekend Crush: Steve Kamb of Nerd Fitness

Nope, not free falling--that's a handstand
(c) Nerd Fitness, Used with permission

Just because you're nerdy doesn't mean you can't be in fantastic shape. Check out this handstand--Steve doesn't look like the stereotypical nerd. But a look around his site, Nerd Fitness, with its comic book fonts and video game references its unmistakably, well, nerdy.

What I really love about Nerd Fitness is that it is geared towards people of all fitness levels, including those of us that find ourselves on a journey from bookworm (that's me!) or video game junkie to fit. When I started pole fitness around September 2012 I had to make some serious changes even though I jogged for 15-20 minutes... well, every few weeks or so anyways. I found Nerd Fitness because I wanted to do some body weight exercises but really pathetically lacked the strength to do it. There I was on Google, searching for exercises for pull ups--and very discouraged to find that most people posting about pull ups assumed the reader could do them.

Enter Nerd Fitness.