Exercise & Fertility
Exercise impacts fertility & the type you do, matters
If you’re wanting to get pregnant in the future, here’s how you can use exercise to help. (Disclaimer: there are MANY factors affecting infertility. I’m simply providing you knowledge of how you can use exercise as a tool in your toolbox.)
Hi! I’m Ally. I’m a Doctor of Physical Therapy specializing in functional fitness for women throughout every stage of life, including pregnancy & motherhood.
Yes, you can absolutely use exercise to optimize your body to be pregnant. As a general blanket statement, you want to aim for 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity. It can improve the hormone balance of estrogen & progesterone, which are important for ovulation & maintaining a pregnancy. How do you know if an activity is at a moderate intensity? Use the talk test. With moderate intensity, you should be able to talk, but NOT sing during the activity.
If you’re overweight or obese, then vigorous activity would be even better for your fertility. If you’re at a normal weight, you’ll want to use caution with vigorous activity. It takes a lot of energy from your body to create a baby. You need sufficient energy stores in your body to do so. If you are of normal weight & have to hit vigorous activity levels for training purposes, you’ll want to replenish at least 85% of the calories lost in exercise.
I’m considering putting together a whole program to help with exercise & fertility so let me know if that would interest you, please! Any questions?
References: Brinson et al. (2023), Foucaut et al. (2019), McKinnon et al. (2016), Williams et al. (2015), Wise et al. (2012)
xoxo- happy exercising