I used to strength train 3-4 times a wee
For reference only. Not medical advice.
Question
I used to strength train 3-4 times a week, but at 23 weeks I have no stamina or desire. What exercise is reasonable now and how do I adjust? Real household: caregiver juggling school week and one elder or sibling nearby. Schedule: Fri; gym membership. Kitchen/home right now: walking, swimming. Already tried: pushing to old weights. Please answer as a practical family-care guide: what to do next tonight/today, what to avoid, and a clear decision tree. Constraints: respect «No diagnosis, no medication changes»; no dosing kids/pets/elders yourself; no mystery powders or buying prescription meds online; keep steps screenshot-friendly under ~25 minutes where cooking/care applies. Structure your help as (1) what I already tried vs better alternatives, (2) constraints/avoid list, (3) red flags—when to stop DIY and get clinical/urgent help. Keep the voice concrete and kind for a tired caregiver; stay inside kitchen/home-care/communication levers only. Name what success looks like in 24 hours without promising cures. Avoid brand shopping lists; focus on routines, food already at home, and communication scripts caregivers can screenshot.
Answer
Do this tonight: swap the gym session for a 20-minute easy walk with whoever is nearby, and put one question on the list for your next prenatal visit — "what lifting and intensity are cleared for me at 23 weeks?" That question is the only thing I can't answer for you.
Why pushing to old weights backfired. Big lifts, low food, and a hot gym are the most common way to feel wiped at 23 weeks. It usually isn't damaged fitness — it's load, heat, and fuel doing more work than you think. Lowering the demand is the fix, not pushing through it.
(1) What you tried vs. what to do instead
| You tried | Better alternative this week |
|---|---|
| Old weights, same sets/reps | Same movements, roughly half the load, 2 sets instead of 4–5, stop 2 reps before failure |
| 3–4 sessions/week | 2 sessions/week (your Friday slot + one midweek), ~25 minutes each |
| Gym in a hot room | Pool or shaded evening walk; stop if you get dizzy, hot, or short of breath |
| Training alone, first thing | After a small snack and a drink of water, never on empty |
| Judging the session by feeling sore | Judge it by "I finished and could have done more" |
Your two anchors, in the shape that fits a caregiver week:
- *Friday, ~25 min, pool or walk.* Swim easy where you can hold a conversation, or walk at a pace where you could still talk. Walk loops that pass a playground or shop so a school run and this are the same errand.
- *Two 8-minute strength blocks, any day.* Sit-to-stand, wall push-up, a filled water bottle row, step-ups on one stair, band or towel row. 2 sets, slow, breathing out on the effort. Both fit inside a school-week evening.
If a session gets skipped, it is skipped. Two good ones beat five that end in bed.
(2) Constraints and the avoid list
- One-sided or new breathlessness, one calf that swells or aches — not normal pregnancy tiredness. That's a stop-and-call item, not a rest day.
- Don't train flat on your back after 20 weeks for anything that feels like lying flat and pressing.
- Don't train through vaginal spotting or leaking, period-like cramping or regular tightenings, a bad headache with vision change, pain high under the right ribs, chest pain, faintness, or a temperature with being too weak to get out of bed. Call your maternity unit or local emergency number for those.
- Don't take the "no stamina" as a symptom to fix with pills or powders. Fatigue this size belongs on your prenatal visit list — anaemia and thyroid are the two clinicians check for, with blood tests, not guesses.
- Don't change, skip, or add any medicine or supplement because of this — including anything you took before pregnancy. That's a clinician decision.
- Sleep and food carry the session, not the other way round. A carb-and-protein snack before the gym, water through the session, and a real dinner after it — from what's already in the kitchen: bread and eggs, rice and leftover meat, oats with milk, yogurt with banana. Nothing to buy.
Screenshottable scripts
To your household: "I'm cutting to two short sessions a week until my next check. The walk after school pickup counts as one — I'm not dropping it, I'm resizing it."
To your prenatal team: "I strength trained 3–4 times a week before pregnancy. At 23 weeks I have no stamina and tried pushing my old weights and felt worse. What load and intensity are cleared, and what should make me call you instead of training?"
To the gym: "I'd like to switch to two short sessions a week — can I use the pool and the lighter area?"
(3) Red flags — when to stop DIY
Call your maternity unit or local emergency service now, day or night, do not wait for office hours:
- Vaginal bleeding or any leaking of fluid
- Regular contractions, period-like cramping, or low back pain that comes and goes — before 37 weeks, treat it as labour until a clinician says otherwise
- Severe headache with blurred or flashing vision; pain high in the belly or under the right ribs; sudden puffiness of face or hands
- Fast or difficult breathing, or chest pain
- Fainting, feeling faint on standing, or one-sided calf pain, redness or swelling
- Fever with being too weak to get out of bed, or shaking chills
- The baby moving much less than usual — contact the maternity unit the same day, and don't wait to see if it picks up
Call within a day or two (book, don't wait for the next appointment): the fatigue hasn't improved after a couple of weeks of the lighter plan, you're short of breath climbing one flight, you get dizzy standing up regularly, or you've had a headache most days. Those are visit-list items, and asking for blood tests is reasonable.
What success looks like in 24 hours — not a cure, just the next 24 hours: two easy sessions or one, no session ending in a long lie-down; the walk happened with a person nearby instead of alone; one normal meal before training and a drink of water during it; the prenatal question written down in your phone so it survives the week. If you're still wiped out tomorrow, that's an answer to bring to the visit, not a reason to push harder.
I'm not diagnosing anything here and I'm not changing any medicine — the prenatal visit is where the "why so tired" question gets answered, and everything above is built to keep you moving safely until then.