By Daniëlle van der Leest | Women’s Strength & Wellbeing Coach | Founder of ActiveWomen | Mum of 3
Nobody talks about pre-conception fitness. Not really.
There’s a mountain of content about training during pregnancy, returning to exercise after birth, navigating perimenopause. But the phase before — when you’re thinking about trying for a baby, or actively trying — gets almost no attention.
Which is strange, because this window might be the most important one of all.
What you build now becomes the foundation you carry into pregnancy. The strength, the body awareness, the habits — all of it travels with you. And the women I’ve worked with who felt most capable and confident during pregnancy weren’t the ones who started training when they got a positive test. They were the ones who’d been building quietly, intentionally, in the months before.
This is your guide to doing exactly that.
Why pre-conception training matters more than you think
Pregnancy asks an enormous amount of your body. Your posture shifts, your joints loosen, your core is reorganised around a growing baby, your cardiovascular system works harder, and your pelvic floor takes on more load than it ever has before.
None of that is a problem — it’s normal. But how well-prepared your body is going into it makes a real difference to how you experience it.
Women who enter pregnancy with a foundation of strength tend to:
- Manage postural changes and back pain better through the trimesters
- Have better pelvic floor awareness and control — which matters enormously in birth and recovery
- Maintain training for longer into pregnancy because their bodies are used to moving
- Recover more smoothly in the fourth trimester
- Feel more at home in a body that’s changing, because they already had a relationship with it
This isn’t about being in peak athletic condition before you conceive. It’s about building a body — and a movement practice — that’s resilient enough to carry you through what comes next.
What to actually focus on
1. Compound strength movements
Squats, deadlifts, hinges, rows, presses. These are the movements that build functional, whole-body strength — the kind that transfers directly to pregnancy and beyond. You don’t need a complicated programme. You need consistency with the basics.
If you’re new to strength training, now is a genuinely great time to start — you have the freedom to learn movements and build habits without the complexity of modifying for a bump. If you’re already training, this is the time to get confident with your form and progressively build your baseline.
Aim for: 2–3 strength sessions per week. You don’t need more than that to build a meaningful foundation. The sessions don’t need to be 1 hour. They can also be 30 minutes.
2. Pelvic floor connection — before you need it
Most women don’t think about their pelvic floor until something goes wrong. Leaking postpartum, pressure during pregnancy, a long recovery — these often trace back to a pelvic floor that was never particularly aware to begin with.
Pre-conception is the ideal time to build that connection, because you’re doing it without urgency, without the demands of pregnancy on your body, and without the fog of new motherhood.
Pelvic floor work isn’t just about contracting (Kegels). It’s about learning to release as well as engage, coordinating your breath with movement, and understanding how your pelvic floor functions as part of your whole core system.
A session or two with a pelvic floor physiotherapist before pregnancy is one of the most underrated investments you can make. Going in with baseline awareness changes everything.
3. Core — the right kind
Your core changes fundamentally during pregnancy. The deep muscles that support your spine and pelvis — your transverse abdominis, your diaphragm, your pelvic floor — become more important than ever. Traditional core training (crunches, sit-ups, high-load planks) doesn’t build the kind of resilience you actually need.
Focus instead on:
- Breathing mechanics — learning to use your breath to manage intra-abdominal pressure
- Deep core stability — exercises that train your spine to stay neutral under load
- Hip and glute strength — these support your pelvis throughout pregnancy
Think less six-pack, more foundation. The deep stuff matters far more than the surface stuff.
4. Mobility and hip health
Pregnancy shifts your centre of gravity, increases the curve in your lower back, and puts significant demands on your hips. Women with good hip mobility and strong glutes tend to navigate these changes more comfortably.
Add regular hip mobility work — hip flexor stretches, glute activation, thoracic spine movement — into your routine now. It doesn’t need to be a separate session; five to ten minutes at the end of your strength training is enough.
5. Build the habit, not just the fitness
This one is less about exercise selection and more about sustainability. The women who stay consistent through pregnancy aren’t necessarily the fittest — they’re the ones who have already made movement a non-negotiable part of their life.
Use this pre-conception window to cement that. Find your schedule. Identify what gets in the way. Build the version of your training practice that works with real life — because real life doesn’t pause when you get pregnant.
What about nutrition?
Training and nutrition work together, and pre-conception is a critical time for both. Folate, iron, vitamin D, adequate protein — all of these matter before you conceive, not just after. If you’re actively trying, it’s worth reviewing your diet and supplement routine with your GP or a registered dietitian.
The short version: eat enough to support your training, prioritise whole foods, and don’t under-fuel in an attempt to change your body composition right before pregnancy. Your body needs resources.
→ My free Nutrition Guide covers fuelling through pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause. Download it here.
A note on the timeline
How long do you have? It depends entirely on your situation — and often you won’t know. Some women have months of intentional preparation; others conceive sooner than expected. Some wait longer than anticipated, with all the emotional complexity that brings.
Whatever your timeline looks like: start now with what you have. Even eight weeks of consistent, focused training builds a meaningful foundation. And the habits you build in this window — moving regularly, fuelling well, connecting to your body — will serve you regardless of what comes next.
The bigger picture
Pre-conception isn’t a waiting room. It’s an active phase in its own right — one where the choices you make genuinely shape what comes after.
Building strength before pregnancy isn’t about looking a certain way when you get your positive test. It’s about arriving at one of the most physically demanding experiences of your life with a body that’s prepared, a movement practice that’s established, and a relationship with your own strength that’s already yours.
That relationship doesn’t disappear when pregnancy changes everything. It adapts. And that adaptability is exactly what you’re building now.
Already pregnant?
If you’ve landed here and you’re already expecting — you’re in the right place. Read my guide to what strength training actually looks like trimester by trimester.
→ What Strength Training Actually Looks Like When You’re Pregnant
Want to go deeper into pre-conception training — with specific programming, what to prioritise each month, and how to transition seamlessly into pregnancy training? That’s all inside the book.
Strength Through the Messy & Beyond — Real-Life Strength Training for Pregnancy, Postpartum & Perimenopause covers every phase, from pre-conception through perimenopause. Written for real life, not ideal conditions.
Daniëlle van der Leest is a Women’s Strength & Wellbeing Coach, Founder of ActiveWomen, and Mum of 3. She specialises in strength training for women through pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause.
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