Maintain a strong core during pregnancy with this safe and efficient routine: the BEST prenatal core exercises for all trimesters! This is strength training for your deep abdominal muscles, designed to safely build core muscle and reduce postpartum recovery time. Use one dumbbell or just your bodyweight.
Our No Equipment 10-Minute Pregnancy Ab Workout has been one of your favorite pregnancy workouts on the blog.
Core exercises are one of the first things I had to modify from my pre-pregnancy fitness routine and let’s be honest – subbing the same one or two “pregnancy safe” moves for any ab exercise can get boring pretty fast.
Enter today’s workout: a challenging and efficient core strength routine combining six of my favorite pregnancy ab exercises with dumbbells.
This is strength training for your core: using a dumbbell to safely strengthen the deep transverse abdominis muscles, rectus abdominis, obliques, glutes, pelvic floor, and stabilizing muscles along your spine.
And it’s also a great beginner ab workout, or postpartum core repair workout as well.
Yes. In general, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says it’s safe to continue regular exercise during pregnancy. This includes most abdominal exercises you were doing pre-pregnancy (with some modifications as needed, especially if you’re coming into pregnancy with existing diastasis recti). You may need to avoid deep flexion or spinal rotation and lying on your back (which can compress the vena cava vein) as your pregnancy progresses.
YES. During pregnancy, you want to focus on pregnancy-safe core exercises (especially ones involving weights, like this workout) that build strength in the deep transverse abdominal muscles. These muscles wrap around your body like a natural corset, and provide stability as your belly grows.
Maintaining and building a strong core during pregnancy can help reduce common pregnancy aches and pains (specifically, lower back pain). Additionally, women who exercise during pregnancy are more likely to have a shorter labor (European Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology).
Strength train your ab muscles with this prenatal core workout: safe for first trimester, second trimester and third trimester.
This effective workout engages the core using a weight (or use just your bodyweight to reduce the intensity).
A core routine designed to safely strengthen the abdominals and engage the pelvic floor muscles and glutes.
Add this quick abs routine to your pregnancy exercise program 1-2 times a week to maintain strength through the first trimester, second trimester and third trimester.
One Medium Dumbbell (8-20 lbs). I’m using a single 10 lb dumbbell.
Option to use just your bodyweight to reduce intensity and scale down the workout.
Follow along with the guided prenatal core workout on YouTube, led by certified personal trainer and prenatal fitness instructor, Lindsey Bomgren.
Your Workout Looks Like This:
As always with exercise during pregnancy, listen to your body and perform the range of motion that feels comfortable to you.
Targets: Transverse abdominis (TA) muscle which extends between the ribs and the pelvis, wrapping around the trunk of the body from front to back.
Targets: Hips, glutes, quads, pelvic floor, shoulders and core.
Targets: The deep transversus abdominis muscles, oblique muscles, hips, back, shoulders and core.
Targets: Upper, mid and lower back, glutes, hamstrings, hips, abs and core.
Targets: Obliques, shoulders, transverse abdominis and erector spinae.
Targets: Low abs, obliques, glutes, hip flexors, chest and shoulders.
Note: the farther you hold the dumbbell out, away from your body, the harder your core will have to work.
lululemon Align High-Rise Leggings. Wearing a size 6 for pregnancy (I typically wear a size 4 in the Align Leggings). The Align Leggings are my absolute favorite everyday-wear legging when I’m not pregnant, but they become my favorite workout leggings during pregnancy.
lululemon Ebb to Street Tank. Wearing a size 8 for pregnancy (I typically wear a size 6 in lululemon shirts and tanks when I’m not pregnant). This tank has seamless support-to-stretch balance. It has a built in bra which I love too.
lululemon Muscle Love Long Sleeve Shirt. Wearing a size 6, my typically lululemon top size. I love layering this crop with a fitted tank during pregnancy! It’s lightweight but provides the perfect amount of coverage, and I’ll wear it postpartum too.
Find more of my favorite pregnancy workout leggings, tops and sports bras in this post: The Best lululemon Maternity Workout Clothes.
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