If you’re in your second trimester, exercise can start to feel a little different.
Maybe your energy is coming back. Maybe your belly is growing enough that certain movements feel less familiar. Maybe you’re wondering whether it’s still safe to lift weights, increase intensity, train your core, or keep doing the workouts you did before pregnancy.
If you are in the second trimester, or preparing to be, you may be wondering what exercises are safe and beneficial during this stage of pregnancy. And the further along you get, the more questions you may have about the changing needs of your body. For example, what are some physical changes that you can expect? And can you lift weights during the second trimester?
The second trimester is often an ideal time to build strength, refine your movement mechanics, and prepare your body for the added load, alignment shifts, and core pressure that continue to increase as pregnancy progresses.
This article will walk you through what changes during the second trimester and how to train safely, effectively, and confidently during this stage.
Read on to learn:
- General guidance for exercise in the second trimester
- Key physical changes that occur and how they can affect movement
- Best training strategies and exercises for the second trimester
Quick Answer: During the second trimester, exercise can include strength training, lower-body work, core exercises, and cardiovascular activity, as long as you have medical clearance and feel good doing it. This stage is often an ideal time to build strength because energy may improve while your body is also managing more load, alignment shifts, and increased intra-abdominal pressure. Focus on neutral alignment, exhaling on exertion, and modifying loaded core exercises as your belly grows.
General Guidance for Exercise in the Second Trimester
By the second trimester, many early pregnancy discomforts, like nausea and fatigue, often begin to subside. This is why this stage is sometimes referred to as the “honeymoon of pregnancy.” For many people, this increase in energy creates an opportunity to be more active and purposeful with training.
During the second trimester, your uterus and baby are growing, your body weight is increasing, your alignment is shifting, and your intra-abdominal pressure is increasing. Strength training can help you better manage these demands, reduce discomfort, and prepare for the physical work of labor, birth, and early parenthood.
While weight gain is ramping up, your capacity to handle moderate intensity may also be higher during this stage. So, if you feel good and have medical clearance to exercise, the second trimester can be an ideal time to build strength before the added demands of the third trimester.
Before getting into specific training strategies and modifications, let’s look at the key changes your body undergoes during this period.
Key Physical Changes that Occur in the Second Trimester
During the second trimester, your body continues making significant changes to accommodate your growing baby. These shifts can create new sensations in your muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, and joints. Your cardiac and circulatory systems are also adapting to meet the needs of pregnancy. Here are three key changes that can impact how exercise feels during the second trimester:
- Weight Gain and Alignment Shifts: As your baby grows and weight increases, it can become more challenging to maintain neutral alignment. A growing belly shifts your center of gravity forward, which means the muscles along the back side of your body often have to work harder. This is one reason why low back, hip, or neck pain may surface during this stage.
2. Increased Pressure in the Deep Core: As your baby grows, pressure naturally increases inside the abdominal cavity. This is called intra-abdominal pressure (IAP). This pressure pushes outward on the abdominal wall and downward on the pelvic floor. Your body is designed to stretch and adapt to these forces. However, certain activities and behaviors can increase IAP beyond what is already occurring from pregnancy. Chronically elevated IAP can increase the severity of core-related issues, like diastasis recti and pelvic floor dysfunction.
3. Increased Cardiac Capacity: During the second trimester, blood volume increases significantly to supply nutrients to the growing baby. This creates a cardiac advantage similar to “blood doping!” Of course, this can vary. Weight gain, alignment shifts, fatigue, discomfort, or pregnancy-related symptoms may affect how much of this increased capacity you actually feel. But for many people, the second trimester can bring a noticeable boost in energy and exercise tolerance.
Best Training Strategies and Exercises for the Second Trimester
If you have not done so already, begin by mastering the foundational training strategies outlined in our Guide to First Trimester Exercise. These fundamentals are essential to laying the groundwork for success in second and third trimester training. From there, the second trimester is a great time to focus on the following strategies:
1. Avoid Breath-holding upon Exertion
As discussed above, increased intra-abdominal pressure is a normal part of pregnancy. However, certain behaviors can increase pressure beyond what naturally occurs, and the main one to avoid is holding your breath during exertion (sometimes referred to as the Valsalva Maneuver). This can happen while lifting weights, picking up a heavy laundry basket or bag of groceries, or even having a bowel movement.
Holding your breath during effort can help you produce more force, but it also places added stress on the abdominal wall and pelvic floor. Instead, focus on exhaling on the effort. This means you inhale on the easier portion of the movement (like lowering into a squat or extending your arms for a bicep curl), and exhale on the more challenging portion (like standing up from the squat or performing the curl).
2. Increase Intensity to Build Strength
In our first trimester guidance, we emphasized the importance of strength training to help your body better manage the increased stress placed on it throughout pregnancy. As you head into second trimester, this is often a good time to gradually increase intensity. In strength training, this means using enough resistance that the work feels moderately hard. While adding load during pregnancy can feel counterintuitive, remember that as your body weight increases, your body needs more strength to manage that added load. The second trimester can be an ideal window to build this strength before the additional demands of the third trimester.
The key is to increase intensity gradually, maintain good movement mechanics, and remember to exhale on the effort.
3. Emphasize Lower-Body Strength
Your legs carry you through everything you do each day, and during pregnancy, they are managing progressively more load. The stronger your lower body is, the better equipped it will be to manage that added weight with less compensation. Focus on a mix of:
- Bilateral lower-body moves, where weight is evenly distributed on two feet, like squats and deadlifts.
- Unilateral lower-body moves, like reverse lunges, split squats, step-ups, or step-downs.
During pregnancy, hormonal changes can lead to increased mobility and decreased stability, especially in your pelvic hip region. So, you may feel a bit more “wobbly” than usual. For some safe & effective lower body exercises to help increase your stability, check out these 5 moves to build lower body stability. NOTE: If you experience any symptoms of SI Joint Pain, SPD, or Sciatica, avoid weight-bearing single-leg moves and stick with bilateral exercises instead.
4. Strengthen Your Core (in All Directions)
As your belly grows and weight gain increases in the second trimester, your body may begin to shift out of neutral alignment. These alignment changes — especially when combined with potential decreased stability — can contribute to pain, compensation, or injury. A strong core can help your body better resist those shifts.
During pregnancy, some of the most beneficial core exercises are those that challenge your body to stay in neutral alignment while forces try to pull it out of position. These include exercises that resist forward bending, backward arching, side bending, and rotation. These are known as anti-core exercises, and they are highly beneficial during pregnancy. They train the core to stabilize your body in all directions, which is exactly what your body needs as the demands of pregnancy continue to increase.
5. Avoid Loaded Core Exercises Outside of Neutral
As your belly grows and intra-abdominal pressure increases, it becomes more important to avoid core exercises that add unnecessary pressure to the abdominal wall or pelvic floor. This means avoiding loaded movements outside of neutral alignment, including:
- Loaded spinal flexion, like sit-ups
- Loaded spinal extension, like backbends
- Loaded lateral flexion, like dumbbell side bends
- Loaded twisting, where the hips and shoulders dissociate (or don’t move together as a unit)
Unloaded movements in these positions, like stretches or cracking your back, are perfectly fine. For more details, including how to know when your body needs a modification, review these core exercises to avoid during pregnancy.
6. Modify High Impact As Needed
The second trimester is also when you may need to stop or regress high impact. One of the key reasons for this is the stress on the pelvic floor. As pregnancy progresses, weight gain and alignment shifts increase stress on the pelvic floor. High impact further increases this stress. Be particularly careful with high-impact single-leg moves, especially those involving quick changes in body position, such as jump lunges, skaters, or quick side-to-side lunges, due to potential pelvic instability from hormonal changes. Watch for instability, pain, and/or accidental leakage as key signs to remove the impact. If you do feel you need to take it down a notch, here are some helpful cardio modifications for pregnancy.
Final Thoughts: Listen to Your Body
The second trimester is often a unique window during pregnancy. For many people, energy levels improve, exercise feels more manageable, and there is an opportunity to build strength before the additional demands of the third trimester.
As your body continues to adapt, focus on the fundamentals: maintain neutral alignment, avoid unnecessary pressure buildup by exhaling on the effort, and progressively strengthen your body to meet the demands ahead.
Most importantly, remember that exercise during pregnancy is not about doing less. It’s about training with greater intention. The demands of pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood are significant. The stronger and more prepared you are going into them, the better equipped your body will be to manage those demands and emerge even stronger.
Looking for Other Trimester-Specific Guidance?
Explore our other articles below:
- Your Guide to First Trimester Exercise
- Your Guide to Third Trimester Exercise
- Your Guide to Fourth Trimester Exercise
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you lift weights during the second trimester?
Yes, if you have medical clearance and no contraindications, the second trimester can be an ideal time to build strength. As your body weight increases, your body needs more strength to manage that added load. Focus on good movement mechanics, exhaling on exertion, and working at a moderately hard level. For more details, read this Guide to Strength Training During Pregnancy.
What exercises are best during the second trimester?
Strength-based exercises are especially beneficial during the second trimester. Prioritize core exercises that train your core to resist being pulled out of neutral alignment, lower-body strength exercises (especially single-leg), and exercises that prepare you for the activities of daily living (ADLs) you’ll be doing as a new parent.
What core exercises should be modified during the second trimester?
As your belly grows, modify loaded core exercises that take you outside of neutral alignment. This includes loaded sit-ups, backbends, dumbbell side bends, and loaded twisting, where the hips and shoulders rotate in opposite directions. Many anti-extension exercises, such as planks and leg lifts, will also need to be modified. For more details, see core exercises to avoid during pregnancy.