The best strength exercise during pregnancy is not a particular squat, row or core movement. It is an exercise that fits your current pregnancy, your training history, your symptoms, your healthcare team’s advice and the amount of work you can perform well and recover from today.
Lists of pregnancy exercises can be a useful starting prompt, but they are not a sufficient prescription. The same movement can be productive for one woman, need modification for another and be inappropriate for a third.
Research supports appropriately adapted resistance training as part of physical activity during an uncomplicated pregnancy. It does not give us one scientifically proven pregnancy load, repetition range or list of exercises for every woman.
The 2025 review reported favourable findings across mostly multicomponent exercise programs, but it could not isolate a precise resistance-training dose or independent effect. Training dose and progression were also reported too poorly to justify precise universal prescriptions in the 2026 review.
See the 2025 pregnancy resistance-training review and 2026 reporting review.
The useful question is therefore not, “Is this exercise safe in pregnancy?” It is, “What would make this exercise appropriate for this woman today?”
An exercise name tells you less than you think
Consider a squat. That label does not tell you:
- whether the woman has performed it confidently for years or is learning it today;
- whether she is holding 8 kilograms or lifting near her current maximum;
- whether she is working through a comfortable range or forcing a position;
- whether the set finishes with several good repetitions available or at complete failure;
- whether changing balance, fatigue or symptoms are affecting her control; or
- whether her obstetric team has given her a relevant restriction.
The same is true of presses, deadlifts, lunges, carries, abdominal exercises and impact work. Exercise selection matters, but setup, range, load, repetitions, effort, speed, stability, impact and recovery determine what the exercise actually asks of the woman.
This distinction works both ways. Pregnancy does not automatically make a light exercise appropriate, and it does not automatically make a heavy exercise inappropriate.
“Heavy” is relative to the woman, the outcome and the day.
The five decisions that come before the working set
At The Evolved, pregnancy strength coaching begins before the coach selects a working weight.
1. Understand the current pregnancy context
We establish what the woman has been told about exercise, whether anything has changed and whether there are symptoms or restrictions that affect the session. Clear, dated instructions reported by the member can guide the coaching decision.
The clinician owns diagnosis, treatment and clinical restrictions; the Evolved coach translates that advice into practical decisions about training. Where direct coordination would reduce ambiguity, we can ask the member and clinician to establish explicit two-way permission before health information is shared.
This governed pathway is being finalised. Until it is active, the member remains the communication link.
2. Prepare and observe
Activation and the warm-up are not filler before the “real” workout. They let the coach observe how the woman is moving today and prepare the positions and muscles required for the session.
A movement that looked appropriate when the program was written may need a different setup, range or variation after this preparation. That is good coaching, not a failed program.
3. Acclimatise before committing
Before a main loaded movement, we rehearse it at a lower cost. The purpose is to assess comfort, control and effort before committing to the working load.
Our normal Performance Warm-Up uses 20% of the proposed working load for 12 repetitions, 60% for 6 repetitions and one controlled repetition at the proposed working load. During pregnancy, the coach may first change support, range, exercise variation or the proposed working load.
Where exact percentages are impractical, we preserve the purpose through a very light observation, a moderate rehearsal and one controlled repetition at the proposed working load. That final repetition gives the coach permission to assess the load; it does not force her to keep it.
4. Use RPE and PRIME to coach what happens
RPE is a 1-to-10 rating of how hard the set felt relative to the woman’s current capacity. RPE 7 means approximately three further PRIME-quality repetitions were available, RPE 8 means approximately two, RPE 9 means approximately one and RPE 10 means no further PRIME-quality repetition was available.
PRIME gives the coach a repeatable sequence: assess Posture; determine the appropriate Range of Motion; Identify Areas of Improvement; Measure and Monitor the response; then Evaluate and Evolve the exercise.
Together, they answer a more useful question than “Did she complete it?” They show whether the movement should progress, remain where it is, or change.
5. Record the work actually performed
If the coach reduces the range, changes the exercise or adjusts the load, the program record should show the exercise, sets, repetitions, load and effort actually completed. The next decision should be based on what happened, not on what the original program happened to say.
How an Evolved coach modifies an exercise
Modification should solve the feature that no longer suits the woman while preserving useful training wherever possible.
Our regression sequence is:
- improve the setup or add support;
- reduce the range;
- reduce the load or effort;
- reduce repetitions or sets;
- extend recovery;
- remove impact or speed;
- choose a more stable variation;
- substitute the movement pattern; or
- pause the affected training and seek appropriate advice.
When no clinician has instructed the movement to stop, a coach’s blanket decision to remove the whole squat pattern may be premature. If the issue is balance, the answer might be additional support; if it is range, the answer might be a higher box.
If it is effort, the load or volume might change. If the movement conflicts with a clinical restriction or provokes a concerning response, it may need to stop.
The coach does not diagnose the cause of a symptom or contradict the woman’s healthcare professional. Her expertise is recognising the training variable she can change and knowing when the decision has moved outside fitness coaching.
Does pregnancy mean lifting light weights only?
No. Pregnancy does not automatically mean low weight, just as previous lifting experience does not guarantee that every former load remains appropriate.
Ordinary Evolved programming often develops towards 70% to 85% of a reliable one-repetition maximum. When a reliable 1RM is unavailable, the coach can use the programmed repetition target, RPE and recorded performance; these tools inform one another but are not interchangeable.
During pregnancy, the coach may preserve meaningful intensity, or adjust range, load, volume, frequency, impact and exercise selection. The goal is the most effective, recoverable stimulus available inside the woman’s current capacity and healthcare advice.
No maximal one-repetition test is required to make that decision. A coach can use training history, repetition performance, RPE, movement quality and acclimatisation to select an appropriate working load.
What about core work, lying on your back and impact?
These are conditional decisions, not reliable internet bans or permissions.
Breathing and bracing can be coached to manage technique, effort and symptoms, but one breathing cue has not been proven to protect every woman’s pelvic floor.
Direct research also does not establish one universal week at which all supine exercise becomes suitable or unsuitable. Position should change when it is not tolerated, causes symptoms or conflicts with obstetric advice.
Read the systematic review of supine exercise in pregnancy.
Impact and Olympic-lifting variations depend on prior skill, current control, changing balance, symptoms, fatigue cost and clinical restrictions. Being experienced does not make them automatically appropriate; being pregnant does not make every version automatically forbidden.
When the right answer is to stop or seek advice
Training should stop when a woman experiences a new concerning symptom, feels acutely unwell or the proposed exercise conflicts with advice from her healthcare team. Urgent symptoms require urgent medical care; non-urgent uncertainty still deserves clarification before the affected activity progresses.
If a clinician instructs a member to stop, we pause the affected training and plan the return from updated instructions.
The question to take to a pregnancy coach
Do not only ask, “Do you train pregnant women?”
Ask how the coach:
- records and works with healthcare instructions;
- chooses a starting load without guessing;
- uses warm-up and acclimatisation to make daily decisions;
- measures effort and movement quality;
- regresses an exercise before discarding its purpose;
- records what was actually performed; and
- decides when to pause and escalate.
Those answers reveal far more than a list of supposedly pregnancy-safe exercises.
At The Evolved, we program exercise so the relevant movement patterns are challenged with the appropriate intensity across the training week using the Evolved Method. During pregnancy, that means preserving useful strength training while adjusting the variables that need to change and working alongside the woman’s healthcare team.
We are currently at capacity, with the Pregnancy waitlist open.
