Joanna Hall's pregnancy fitness programme

Cardiovascular exercise

For cardiovascular fitness work, swimming and walking are excellent and three to four sessions a week in addition to your daily 30 minutes of moderate physical activity are quite enough. The water will provide a welcome support to your bump especially in latter stages of your second and third trimester. If you are used to exercising prior to pregnancy, swap high impact activities for lower impact activities and avoid contact sports, scuba diving, or other activities that might possibly cause abdominal distress. While some professional athletes maintain their running, it's best to replace any high impact activities such as running or skipping with low impact activities such as brisk walking.

Multitask your walking If you are already a mum, you'll know finding time to exercise is always a challenge so save time and optimise results by multitasking your walks with posture, pelvic floor and gluteal work.

• As you walk, work your abdominals by tucking your rib cage down to your hips extending tall through the top of the head. This is essential as your growing baby will naturally cause your ribcage to rise up and out broadening your back.
• Take long strides and extend through the back heel for extra buttock lifting effects.
• The pelvic floor muscles are made up of two different types of muscle fibres so it's best to challenge your pelvic floor muscles with varied paced contractions, contract them for eight strides and then release, repeat five to ten times then contract and release every two strides, repeat five to ten times.