The MINT Prjct

New Study on Pregnant Women the & Effects of High Intensity Exercise on Their Babies

• The MINT Prjct • Season 2 • Episode 1

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We are BACK after a hiatus and with a really exciting new type of episode!

Our biggest mission at MINT is to help moms and trainers become more educated and aware.  For the longest time, it's been very tough to find actual studies done on pregnant women as it relates to exercise.  However, that's changing and today we talk about a recent study featured by Emily Beers in a Morning Chalk Up article.  The study was done on a small group of pregnant women and their babies, testing how high intensity interval training and moderate intensity training effect health markers of the baby.  If you're interested in the age old doctor's advice to "keep your heart rate below 150" and what new evidence is telling us, listen in as we go over the hilights!

Morning Chalk Up Story
Link to Article

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To learn more about The MINT Prjct and check out our programs and courses, head to TheMINTPrjct.com and follow us on Instagram, as well as your hosts, @bets.inthewild, @_coach.cara_ and @jesscarr.fit

Speaker 1:

You're listening to the Mint Project, the podcast to elevate your knowledge on pregnancy and postpartum fitness, nutrition and more, along with parenting, business and advice to keep you living your best life. The Mint Project is led by your expert trainers Betsy Jones, PeraForster and Justcar. With that said, let's do this. What's happening under the hat?

Speaker 2:

Under the hat is like. It's basically stuck to my head and I'm not sure I can get a breath brush through it. It's like a. It's like a combo situation.

Speaker 3:

I'll find a picture of what it looks like. Oh my God, the photo. Is it the bald spot?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, man washing your hair is just so much.

Speaker 2:

So much, I'm staying home today. I'm going to work out tomorrow. Yeah, you have to plan it.

Speaker 3:

You have to plan it correctly, Like because if you're going to wash it and then work out oh my God, that was a bad day for your hair. It's not good. Wow, wow, yeah, there was a photo.

Speaker 2:

It's so different. Yeah, I'm like. Well, I'm going to wash it for Christmas.

Speaker 3:

Eve when we have a party. So that's washed it for Jesus, so I'm not going to wash it for.

Speaker 2:

Jesus and then wash it again. We might as well. I'll be at home, I'll just wear a hat and look like a red.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I was telling Betsy before you got on care that I well I did my hair and look somewhat presentable because I had to go to Mila's Christmas party at school today, which every time I every time I go to a school party, I just teachers.

Speaker 3:

I don't know how you do it. I don't know how they do it. Angels, you're a meat. Bless you.

Speaker 1:

Bless you Because I'd be fired in a day, within five minutes. I'm like what are you doing? Why are you doing that? Stop screaming, stop.

Speaker 2:

And then they don't listen. They never listen. The first time they don't listen. She's doing chill.

Speaker 1:

She's doing the clapping, and then they have to clap back, and then it happens like five times until everyone. There's just always a murmur of talking while someone else is talking and I can't. I can't do it. How are you not yell? How are you not yelling right now. But yeah, it was good, they built gingerbread houses so that was a complete disaster.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm sure.

Speaker 1:

They were crying there was Wow. Over gingerbread.

Speaker 2:

You were crying at that age, because you know what, you know how they fought.

Speaker 1:

There was one girl. You know how they fall down, and they were in like teams, so they're Milo's team won, by the way, of course. Of course it did, because, like you know, some kids want to build it a certain way and other kids don't want to build it that way, and then it falls over and then it's one kid, or like, okay, don't eat all the candy and icing, and I, every time I go past this one kid he's got his finger in the icing. Probably a half a tub.

Speaker 3:

It was just so anyways, you don't even feel it.

Speaker 1:

It's like sugar has no effect on you, you just crazy but you don't feel sick.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, I remember those days, actually it was nice Eat, whatever I wanted and not feel sick.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I have like two scoops of ice cream and I am like out for three days.

Speaker 3:

What did we get?

Speaker 1:

Oh, we got cookie dough and Betsy was here, oh that was good.

Speaker 3:

That sounds good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was like a no bake cookie dough and it was. It was good so good Sounds good.

Speaker 1:

Are you guys ready for Christmas? I?

Speaker 2:

was and then I came up with a lot of last-minute ideas.

Speaker 1:

I know, I know I.

Speaker 3:

Think I'm ready. Did I tell you guys? Raise the one really, who buys the presents?

Speaker 1:

He's why, you guys are like just the exception to the work, always like most dance have. No, it's a total surprise to them what the kids are Getting on Christmas.

Speaker 3:

I have no idea why no, some of the things my kids are getting. But yeah he gets it done early. Oh my gosh. I buy like one or two things for the kids. I just I'm like they don't need anything. I know by their crap all day and I'm like they don't need anything, but he actually finds like different things and like fun things.

Speaker 2:

He's really good at it. He's a good.

Speaker 1:

I.

Speaker 3:

Have fun, gifts and stuff I just can't myself think of anything right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think they'll use yeah. Yeah, mila's finally at the age where she's done with toys, thank God. That's it but now it's like I want brand name Uggs and Nike and Taylor Swift to get switched. By the way, you can get for $1400, but you're gonna sit behind the stage. Behind the stage.

Speaker 2:

Oh my god, we're in the last row.

Speaker 1:

Yeah $1400. Oh, that's the cheapest.

Speaker 2:

Good for Taylor.

Speaker 1:

They're in debt. They're in debt.

Speaker 3:

For some people, it's worth it. For us, we don't really care as much about Taylor I would go if it were inexpensive To a degree, yeah, maybe.

Speaker 1:

I would maybe pay $300.

Speaker 2:

Yeah there's not many artists, my favorite artists of all, I would, oh yeah. Only because Mila dollars for like a birthday present.

Speaker 1:

Yeah yeah, but also she's nine, so I'm like we're not paying that much to go to a concert in another state, so then I have to pay for a hotel.

Speaker 3:

It's even more transportation, but yeah oh, food, yeah, yeah, yeah so she got the Uggs instead that she'll grow out of in like six months, so yeah, Betsy, what is?

Speaker 1:

what is? A crew won't listen to this, so what does he get?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, he well.

Speaker 2:

All season actually, yes, did you know that? Tell you that you told us. Yeah, he wants. He wants a Santa suit with a beard you tell me.

Speaker 3:

So we got it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we've got to tell you how hard it is to find a Santa suit. This was okay. So the entire season I've asked him what he went from. Santa, what do you? And he'll just like make up words. He doesn't want anything.

Speaker 3:

He just had a. No, he has no sense of like.

Speaker 2:

Wait and see yeah, so um, except he did want a room, a remote control spider like, and the kind that I really I said absolutely not.

Speaker 1:

Scary.

Speaker 2:

So a few days ago he wrote a letter to Santa at some Christmas event saying that he wanted this Santa suit. It is not even the week of Christmas to find a Santa suit for a toddler.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Amazon has them in every size, except for his size, of course, of course. So.

Speaker 3:

I did find it. Yeah, I sized up.

Speaker 2:

I think it's, in the end, what I did, and then he's gonna y'all. I pulled out the gift wrap because I was like I want him to know about giving right? Yeah, let's, let's have him as part of that. We're giving people gifts experience. It was good and now he can't focus on anything except for the gift wrapper, on the house and everything in my house is getting put into bags.

Speaker 3:

So people will get who knows what.

Speaker 2:

And the safety suit will be a hit because they'll just wear it on Christmas day. Oh my god, he's gonna be so cute yeah that's so cool, that kitty.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, so cute. I love when they get excited to like give other people things. Yes talking about Mila's school, like a lot of schools around here. I don't know if around there they do this, but they do like a Christmas store at their school where they can pick stuff out for people, but it's like one to seven dollar items, you know. So they come home with these like great, like Cheap little thingies, but it's like so cute to see them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's like every deer here. She gets my dad some random thing that has like dollar bills on it or that's so fun. But yeah, it's really cute because she's so excited to buy stuff for people and yeah.

Speaker 2:

I love it. I'm sure this year.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a chore list so she could make money to give people presents.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, you thought it was very. I saw that checklist, it was.

Speaker 1:

Inflated yeah like fifteen dollars for vacuuming.

Speaker 3:

Whoa, I wish.

Speaker 2:

We're taking out the trash.

Speaker 1:

I was like I'm just gonna start paying myself to do these things right, yeah, that'd be great. That is funny, oh, oh yeah, we're learning about money in.

Speaker 3:

Things. Yeah, we're trying to do that. I had kaya host a workout for all of her friends.

Speaker 1:

Oh my god.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and so did you get video? Where is the video? It was a busy weekend. Okay, that was last weekend, but it she was $5 a kid and we were making money like at the gym that I go to sometimes they had a giving tree.

Speaker 1:

So we picked a little boy out of the presents or in the gym and she yeah she hosted the workout.

Speaker 3:

I'm just kind of nervous to do it, so I ended up doing the talking program.

Speaker 1:

Good job, she made a lot of money.

Speaker 3:

Time in 45 minutes. I mean it is time to get. We have Guides, All designed to help you safely and effectively stay active.

Speaker 1:

I it's a great lesson, yeah, yeah, it's like sometimes I don't think they understand, like, where the things come from and yeah. How they it just it doesn't make sense in their little brains. But when?

Speaker 2:

you can show them like I was, like, yeah, you could just use that card whenever you was. Just like imagine, right, right.

Speaker 3:

My kids always say I'm like I don't want to pay for that. They're like well, dad has money, you have money.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

I know.

Speaker 1:

It's it's hard. My dad was always really good about teaching me about money, so I I want to do the same. Yeah but it's. It's hard to explain when they're little like yeah this card is attached to Something that I work for like it's not just like a card. They just buy used things.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, a lot of people.

Speaker 1:

Taylor.

Speaker 2:

Swift, don't, we do like you.

Speaker 1:

I will say I'm very impressed with your documentary. Yep, same. I don't have money. Just even if I do, I don't.

Speaker 3:

I don't want to spend it that way rather go somewhere Like that would be three grand.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for both of us to go plus hotel, that I could maybe go to somewhere other than Indiana.

Speaker 3:

It's an Indiana, so could come to Alaska and sleep on a boat and and get over your big, oh god, your dream not see the whale video that I sent to you guys. Betsy, did you see that? No it's real.

Speaker 1:

I mean, everyone was serving.

Speaker 2:

So let us know if we, if Jess is alone or if any of you have beers of. I think sharks are just like. Period in the water, but yeah, being on a boat at all because of like being taken over by shark the ocean specifically Okay.

Speaker 1:

And there was a man and I get targeted on Instagram and Facebook now because of this and all I see and you continue to scroll. Well, this was on. I'm gonna drop the F bond, but the guys account. Fuck Jerry, it was on his account. It was this man windsurfing and a huge humpback whale. I Showed my head, I'm great.

Speaker 3:

I was like and I said, or very injured. He's like I looks like it hit the kite, not him. I was like, oh he came up I.

Speaker 1:

Told everyone. Yeah, I told everyone when we were. They talked to me into jet skiing in Marko Island, but my fear was that, like some sort of creature is gonna knock me off, oh my gosh it happens. I'm here, yet you guys there's also Killer whales that like are attacking ships in the ocean. Okay, so I'm gonna read, I'm gonna ask our listeners.

Speaker 2:

A different request now. We don't care about your fears. Please let us know if any of these things are valid like has this ever happened to you? Have you ever been knocked out?

Speaker 1:

by a.

Speaker 2:

It's real a dolphin, any kind of sea creature? Please send us your experiences, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure it's rare, but you know, yeah, just know it happens to be too safe.

Speaker 2:

So could be you, yeah. So, speaking of can't being it can't be too safe, we're gonna take a real Wide turn to say great actual topic for today transition.

Speaker 2:

So we are talking about an article that came out you'll see how I'm getting to the segue. It's about safety in pregnancy surprise, surprise with fitness Common topic around here, but yeah, so we're gonna go. An article today that we found through a morning chalk up post and it's about high intensity and it's effect on pregnant women and their babies. So what's exciting about this is that research on pregnant women. It's typically pretty hard to come by because it's not really ethical. However, in Canada, it's legal to do this. So finally, we have a really relevant study to give us some info on what seems to be the most confusing part that doctors tell us. That is, heart rate. So, ladies, real quick, what advice did your doctor give you about heart rate, because it does vary some.

Speaker 3:

I didn't get any advice on heart rate. It was mostly don't dead lift or else you're going to get a split in your heart rate.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was very interesting so yeah, and my advice was very cautious because I had that sister. I had an emergency surgery at like maybe I was eight weeks and they basically told me to do nothing like walk. That's it for my entire pregnancy. But I've had clients who very specifically were told don't let your heart rate go over 140, and they would literally bring their heart rate monitor and watch it and stop if it did. So it definitely still is out there. Yeah, for sure, told to people.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so the advice given by doctors varies. I know a lot of women get the number around 150 beats per minute. That's what my doctor said. That's what a lot of my clients, when I was coaching their doctors, would tell them. So maybe area specific, doctor specific of course, which has been changing a lot in the past few years, but in general, if we're using that, 150 beats per minute is kind of a go to for a lot of us. That can feel like you're doing nothing in a workout.

Speaker 2:

If you've been doing CrossFit if you've been doing hit if you've been, which is basically the same thing. Let's all be honest here. Any kind of high intensity workout is that can often feel like you're doing nothing at 150 beats a minute. So this study really digs into what is happening to your baby in different heart rate zones. So let's take it, the study really measures two different types of exercise zones. So one is being hit, which is that high intensity interval training, and they're defining that as 10 one minute intervals at or above 90% max heart rate, with a one minute rest in between. And then the second kind that they're testing was a moderate intensity continuous training. So that's defined as 30 minutes of a continued intensity of about 64 to 76% heart rate.

Speaker 2:

Now I will tell you, ladies, for those of you who want a formula here of okay, so how do I calculate mine? And stay in there. It's not that simple. You have to know a base number to get a percentage, which most of us don't, but still, we basically all know when we're the difference of about 90% intensity versus 75, right, so intense versus moderate. So they do this experiment with 15 women and track not only their physical responses but the babies, which is so cool. So right after their exercise, they do a number of different tests that we'll get into, and the findings are pretty cool. So, kara, as our director of education, do you want to tell us a little bit about what you discovered and like your thoughts on the study?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So first of all, I just want to pay back on what Betsy said about how cool it is that we have this information, because it is really hard to do tests like this on pregnant women. When I was doing my thesis for my master's degree, my thesis question was on return to physical activity postpartum, and I didn't even do any kind of like actual physical testing on anyone. I just sent out a survey and a questionnaire, and even to do that I had to go through an entire approval process and I had to indicate in the questionnaire. If you ever feel any kind of like mental or emotional stress or you're too uncomfortable to answer any of these questions, you can exit the survey at any time. They wanted to make sure that there was no way that someone could be harmed in any way doing this kind of test or even taking questions on someone. So that is really I mean. By doing that I learned like okay, this is why we don't have any hardly any research on pregnancy and exercise.

Speaker 1:

So the fact that we have this is really cool.

Speaker 3:

So again, these research researchers studied 15 women who were all around 27 weeks pregnant, and they had them perform moderate intensity continuous training and then, on a different day, high intensity interval training, and they randomized the order of those workouts. So some women did the high intensity interval training on day one, some women did moderate intensity interval training on day one, and then they compared the effects of this.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 3:

Another limitation of this study is that they couldn't actually monitor the fetus during the activity, but they monitored right before and they monitored literally seconds after the activity finished. They were still able to see really favorable numbers that suggest that it's well tolerated by the baby, and that's something that I thought was cool. So all of these women were around 27 weeks of pregnancy, but the researchers suggest that further areas of study should include participants in earlier stages of pregnancy. They don't really think that that would have an effect, but that is something that could be studied. We know that the body is currently changing throughout pregnancy, and so it would be interesting to study each of those stages.

Speaker 1:

So I want to back up a little bit. Did we talk about, like, why people have always said not to do HIIT during pregnancy? Like what is the hypothesis there? I talked about it a little bit in the beginning, but just for people who aren't aware, like that, this is even a thing that people say. I mean, I'm sure most people listening to this know you know, you see people on Instagram like, oh my gosh, I can't believe she's doing that. I can't believe she's doing that hard workout right now.

Speaker 1:

What they talk about in the study, and which is like where this comes from, is they have a hypothesis that when you're working out at that high intensity, the blood flow and oxygen and all the nutrients are going to your muscles and away from the fetus, so causing basically, like fetal distress and restricted growth, even though we really don't have, like Kara said, any proof of anything. That was always the hypothesis. So that's, I think, where you know people have always kind of wanted to study this to the well. Does that happen? It sounds like between the hit workouts and the like moderate intensity workouts, there really was not a difference in how the baby was responding, which is cool.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and talking about that too, there was another measure, something that they measured. I can't remember what it was, but basically it was how much like oxygen perfusion that the baby gets and the placental blood exchange and actually like the numbers were good, like actually better on that you know, and so exercise actually is probably good for your baby, you know not, probably it is.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's what that study showed and they're really. And whether you want to do moderate intensity or high intensity, like this study shows, there's not really a difference between how your baby handles it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so let's talk about real quick why then, if there's not really a reason why and this is more kind of general not necessarily have to be pregnancy, but why you would choose one over the other. And it talked about kind of the history of high intensity and why it's become so trendy, and then looped it into some things in the study too. So the main reason that high intensity interval training has become so popular is because it takes away the issue of time constraint right, so you can get more done in less time is kind of the bottom line there, and they found that a lot of the moms with they were talking about in the study as well, that most of them. There were two reasons I'm trying to remember. The other reason, the one that stuck out to me, why they weren't exercising those that weren't was because of time constraints, and they weren't able to find the time to do it.

Speaker 2:

Which who is? But yeah, so that's kind of why they would choose one over the other.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think, that the second reason, the second most common reason for not working out while pregnant is time constraint, and the first perceived barrier to physical activity is that people yeah, they're scared of it or they don't understand what to do. So it's a lack of knowledge. And then the second one is lack of time.

Speaker 2:

Man.

Speaker 1:

that's why, right, I'm like, which is kind of why I mean why we started the MIM project was because of the knowledge issue. Yeah, it's crazy to me only 15% of pregnant women currently meet physical activity recommendations, which is 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity per week A week. A week. So yeah, I mean, that's less than two hours.

Speaker 2:

You go five days a week.

Speaker 3:

No, that's more than two hours. Wow, man. Yeah, if it's five days a week 30 minutes Two and a half hours yeah. Like 30 minutes a day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's doesn't have to be, but yeah, it's like a lot of the times I'll go down in the basement and do a quick hit workout because it's faster and I feel like I got more done. What we're not saying is hey, definitely go do this, because this study showed it was okay for these 15 women.

Speaker 1:

I do think it's a very small sample size, but I think what's cool is that the data is moving in the right direction and we're starting to do studies like this, that I think eventually they'll be able to have more evidence that says, yeah, like you can, and maybe it's not. Every day is a hit workout when you're pregnant right, maybe that's once a week, but and again, we're not recommending anything from this, we're just talking about the study and what we think about it. But it is so cool that this was done and that things are kind of moving in that direction of helping women work out in ways that they can and, you know, getting more women to be able.

Speaker 1:

And to be able to work out and move in pregnancy. Because if that's the issue, then it's really cool if we get to a point where doctors can say, well, hey, just do a shorter workout, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I think one thing that you hit on just that, I think, is really important Probably the most important thing we could say about this entire episode is that we we did not do this study.

Speaker 2:

We are not telling you what is safe and what is not safe. We're informing, and that is what our company is about is find information, take it to one place, share it with people so you can make your own decisions, because, in the end, that's what you do. So I always advocate for bringing information to your doctor, because, if you think about the time that doctors have and this is not to say that any or all doctors don't do research, but you know it wouldn't hurt to bring you know a brand new study that has come out. If you're pregnant and you want to get your doctor's take on this, if your doctor, for you, is your end all be all trust, but you're in, you're getting educated. Talk to your doctor about this study. I think that, while we want to respect doctors, we also it's also helpful to have conversations with them and maybe not just coming to them with oh, this company told me this or this Google told me this. They're going to respect a research article more than anything else.

Speaker 2:

So not a bad idea to kind of loop them in on what you're thinking and the information that your decisions are being backed by.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and again, this is just one article, just one study. It's actually you know, it's all written out and in a research journal, but you can also look at like examples in Pericle Evans, like people around you that you can see, like other athletes or other women. Again, don't take other people's experiences and general and, you know, then put them to yourself. But there is a lot of examples around that. Even before the study came out, women have been doing this.

Speaker 3:

They've been doing high intensity interval training and things have been fine. They did say in this article that they followed these women through their birth and most of them were able. They had a healthy birth, healthy baby. I think one of the babies had to be in the NICU for a bit because they were delivered early, didn't really say much else other than that, so they even followed them through that and it showed that for most of them the babies were fine during delivery as well too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I was going to say I think there are a lot more than 15 women who are doing hit style workouts in their pregnancy and continuing with like higher intensity workouts and are finding themselves healthy, happy babies and again, not telling anyone to go out and do that and challenge your heart rate during pregnancy. But yeah, it's just interesting and exciting and just cool to see the research done. Yeah, for sure Cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so. I think, what we'll do. If you guys are interested in reading this article for yourself, of course you can always go to Morning Chalk Up. We'll link their kind of report on it through there. We will link the actual article or you can find the article within the Morning Chalk Up write up. But also, if you want to really read it, if you like the science, if you want to just kind of geek out on all of it, you do need to pay for the full version. That's 40 bucks, but it's super extensive.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, if you would like that, we will link it in the show notes. And, as always, keep learning, ladies. Till next time, keep learning.

Speaker 1:

All right, bye, bye. Thanks for listening to the Mint Project. If you enjoyed this episode, please go ahead and leave us a five star review and follow us on Instagram at the Mint Project. Project is spelled PRJCT. You can also visit our website for free resources, courses, merch and more at TheMintProjectcom. Until next time, keep crushing it.