By June Cheong

Kickboxing when you are pregnant?

That is a definite "no". Rule out basketball and hot yoga too.

However, exercises like brisk walking, swimming and pre-natal yoga are safe for pregnant women.

Dr Ong Wee Sian, head and consultant sports physician at the Sports Medicine Service at KK Women's and Children's Hospital, said: "In general, most low-impact aerobic exercises and light resistance or strengthening exercises are good and safe to perform throughout a pregnancy."

Low-impact aerobic exercises include brisk walking, swimming, cycling, yoga, dancing and aqua-aerobics while light resistance or strengthening exercises involve using one's body weight, free weights and weight machines.

1) Gym training

Light strengthening exercises using weights or exercises with a fitball are good for toning up a pregnant woman's muscles.

Mr Zen Lee, a fitness manager at California Fitness Orchard Club, said: "Strength training is recommended to ensure enough muscle tone to support the pregnancy and to prevent excessive weight gain.

Muscle toning helps the pregnant woman to burn calories faster."

2) Gyrotonic

This exercise system can be adopted to stretch, strengthen and increase pregnant women's range of mobility.

Mr Levan Cher, chief healing and fitness therapist at The Body Clinic, said: "A pregnant woman's primary fitness objective would be to build on her stamina to prepare her for labour and delivery.

"Cardiovascular fitness is important too and the exercises strengthen her heart and lungs."

3) Yoga

Pre-natal yoga classes have proven to be popular with Singapore mothers-to-be.

True Yoga runs pre-natal yoga classes twice a week at its centres while Pure Yoga offers six classes every week at its studios.

Ms Pauline Lim, a marketing manager at Pure Yoga, said the average class size is now eight to 12 women, twice the number that attended such classes when these were first started in 2007.

A True Yoga spokesman said that pre-natal yoga is beneficial as it helps to improve the flexibility of the body and strengthens the pelvic muscles, which are the core muscles used during delivery.

It improves blood circulation and stimulates the organs and glands too, which helps normalise blood pressure.

Ms Sujata Cowlagi, a teacher at Pure Yoga, added that pre-natal classes also help allay expectant mothers' anxieties through a regimen of breathing techniques which assist to calm the mind.

4) Pilates

Pregnant women should give their pelvic floor muscles a good workout throughout pregnancy as toned muscles will be easier to relax and control during childbirth.

A spokesman for pilates exercise studio Options Studio said pilates teaches women to gain control of, as well as strengthen, their pelvic floor muscles.

Together with the core abdominal and lower back muscles, these are the muscles that support the baby during its development and during childbirth. He added that women with strong pelvic floor muscles report that they sense "'more control"' during labour and can recover more quickly after childbirth.

5) Kegel exercises

These are all-important exercises which pregnant and post-partum women should do. Developed by Dr Arnold Kegel in 1948 as a way of controlling incontinence in women after childbirth, the series of exercises are designed to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor by contracting and relaxing them.

Ms Angel Aw, a personal trainer at Fitness First Ang Mo Kio, said: "'Kegel exercises help to enhance bladder control and prevent sexual dysfunction later on."'

This article was first published in Mind Your Body, The Straits Times.