Interview: Dr. Christina Prevett on New Study That CrossFit During Pregnancy May Result in Fewer Complications
Talk to almost any CrossFit athlete who has been pregnant.
These athletes will tell you that they received at least some degree of criticism, or at the very least moderate concern, from people in their life, or from vocal onlookers online, who saw them lifting heavy weights, or doing handstands and pull-ups, as their pregnant belly grew.
Even (or maybe especially), the six-time Fittest Woman on Earth Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr was certainly not spared from the critics, who came out in droves as she continued to appear to train hard when she was pregnant with her daughter in 2023.
This is part of the reason that Dr. Christina Prevett, a pelvic floor physical therapist and a postdoctoral student at the University of Alberta, has decided to dedicate her research to studying fitness — specifically high-load resistance training — during pregnancy.
When she was pregnant with her first of two children, she was a competitive national-level weightlifter who continued lifting moderately heavy throughout her pregnancy, which led to criticism.
- “People on the Internet were being the people on the Internet. You know, ‘Your organs are going to fall out of your body. All this kind of stuff,” she said, laughing.
- “There’s acceptance [for pregnant people to lift] low to moderate loads, but people get a lot of hate when they choose to lift heavy, but there’s no [scientific] evidence to say that it’s bad,” Prevett told the Morning Chalk Up.
And now, thanks to a study Prevett conducted at the University of Alberta, there’s some evidence that continuing to do CrossFit and lift heavy might provide some benefit to both parent and baby.
View this post on Instagram
The details: Prevett’s research, which she conducted in 2022, was published in the International Urogynecology Journal and included 679 participants around the world, most of whom were recreational, general population CrossFit athletes (88 percent) and Olympic weightlifters.
- The study considered variables, such as whether or not the participants kept wearing lifting belts throughout pregnancy, as well as what types of lifts they did and didn’t do to “get a good picture of what they modified [in their training] and how they did” in pregnancy, delivery and postpartum, she explained.
The result: Those who maintained their pre-pregnancy training levels — or at least continued to lift at least 80 percent of their pre-pregnancy one-rep max at some point during their pregnancy — had fewer pregnancy-related, delivery, and postpartum complications than those who ceased training levels before giving birth.
- More specifically, rates of high blood pressure, mood disorders, gestational diabetes, and cesarean sections were “well below national averages” of the general population, Prevett said.
- Further, the research showed that participants who were stronger during pregnancy had much lower levels of incontinence during and after pregnancy, and those who continued to hold their breath and brace hard as they lifted — something that pregnant people have often been told not to do by health practitioners — didn’t develop pelvic floor dysfunction as has often been feared.
The big picture: For Prevett, this is just the start of much more research she intends to do that will investigate lifting weights while pregnant, a topic that currently hasn’t been explored much at all.
- “There just isn’t a lot of research, especially around resistance training [while pregnant]…And because we don’t have the research around heavy lifting, if we don’t know, the answer is no,” Prevett said.
This has led to all kinds of possibly misguided recommendations to pregnant people, Prevett said, such as to avoid lifting more than 20 pounds when pregnant, something she insists isn’t based on any kind of empirical science.
Next up for Prevett are two more studies currently recruiting women.
The first study is looking for women who are less than 12 months postpartum who recorded their training throughout pregnancy, and the second is recruiting women who are less than 20 weeks pregnant, who are willing to be part of a study that will follow up with them until 18 months postpartum.
Ultimately, Prevett’s goal is to “start to move the needle forward” in this area of research, so we can give more appropriate fitness recommendations to pregnant people. And her hunch is that her research will continue to prove that fitness during pregnancy, and even lifting heavy weights, is useful, not detrimental.
- “I think that being pregnant is hard, and being pregnant deconditioned is harder, and a lot of our messaging has unintentionally caused people to be weaker…,” Prevett said.
She added: “There is a lot of fear still around exercise during pregnancy, and my goal is to be empowerment forward versus fear-focused….Keeping our bodies strong is something we should be prioritizing.”
Featured image: @anniethoridottir / Instagram