Pregnant CrossFitter - Cate Kelly

My name is Cate. I live in Bryn Mawr, PA. I have three kids, a dog and a lucky husband. HAHA. I have been crossfitting for almost three years, and I have been at KOP with Aimee for almost a year and a half. I am a stay-at-home mom. My kids keep me pretty busy. I LOVE to go to the box but there are lots of days that I can’t go and I just do my best to follow along at home. Every once in a while, we get a babysitter on a saturday morning and my husband goes with me to KOP. That’s how I know he still loves me! That is my heaven.

I had been crossfitting for almost two years when I got pregnant with our third child. During my first two pregnancies (both were normal & healthy) I worked out in a globo gym, doing cardio and light weights. I lost muscle during each of my previous two pregnancies. When I found out I was pregnant last summer I was at a really good place with my training. I was happy with my performance and I liked how I felt about my body. I wasn’t ready to give that up for 9 months of being pregnant, 6 weeks of recovering from delivery, and then another 9 months to get back to where I started. I knew I wanted my third pregnancy to be different but I wasn’t sure what I could handle.

I decided to break it down by trimester and I set a goal to get through the first trimester with my usual intensity. I discussed this with my OB and she totally agreed. The thing is I am not sure she knew what I meant by intensity. I am certain she didn’t know what I meant when I said I was lifting ‘heavy’. But I trusted my body to let me know when enough was enough. At the end of my first trimester I had the sense that I could keep going. My second and third trimesters came and went and my body was telling me that working out hard was the right thing to do.

The thing that really surprised me about training while I was pregnant was how comfortable I was lifting. I thought that carrying heavy things was uncomfortable and unsafe for pregnant women. Literally in my first pregnancy my husband would accompany me to costco to lift cases of water into my shopping cart. During this pregnancy, I deadlifted 285 lbs, I squatted 245, and I I pressed 120. I regularly completed the wods with the rx’d weights. I did fran, grace and kelly all rx’d. when I scaled a workout, I was typically cutting down on the runs, or substituting an exercise because I had limited range of motion. I was shocked at what my body could do.

My baby girl, Keira Grace was born on May 2nd. My last workout was the day before, squatting 205 for sets of 5. I normally would have rested that day but I was determined to have her that weekend and I was pretty sure that squats would help her along. She was 7 lbs 5 oz and perfect in every way (unless you count the fact that she wakes up 2-3 times a night). She is my third and labor was relatively easy. Keira was born 2.5 hours after we arrived at the hospital and I was home the next day. I started back crossfitting five days later. It wasn’t really my plan to start right back in but I was exhausted and hormonal and it just hit me that if I had worked out all through my pregnancy it didnt make sense to stop now. Working out made me feel good and gave me more energy. My first workout back was helen and I did it at home. It was tough. It kind of reminded me of my first helen ever. But the fun part is that everything has come back so quickly. There’s nothing like progress to keep me motivated!

Kiera