Gymnastics is one of (in our opinion) the trickiest sports out there; it’s all about balance, strength, and grace - all of which are hard enough to come by at the best of times.
So we imagine it would be even trickier if you were pregnant - especially if you were pregnant with twins!
However Julia Sharpe, who has been doing gymnastics since she was a toddler, continued to train with her baby bump.
“When I first started, I couldn’t do backward rolls or forward rolls, which I’ve been doing since before I could remember"
She told The Cut: “I trained as much as I could while I was pregnant because I knew I wanted to get back into the gym soon after the babies were born. I pretty much did everything up to ten weeks.”
She continued: “At about 16 weeks, the contractions started so I was told to stop using my abs. At that point I could mostly just do small swings and handstands, but I tried to continue a strength regimen that didn’t use my abs, and I swam.
“At 28 weeks, I got put on bed rest for pre‐term contractions, which is pretty common with twins. At 34 weeks, when the babies were mature enough to be born if they decided it was time, I got to come off bed rest, so I did some more handstands, but mostly just walked and did yoga.
“At 37 weeks, I got put on bed rest again for high blood pressure, so that was the end of exercise pre‐birth.”
Check out the video of a VERY pregnant Julia doing dips and walking headstands below:
Wow.
Julia, who has since given birth to healthy twin babies, returned to training eight weeks after giving birth.
But, as she had to undergo a C-section, she didn’t find her return to the gym quite as easy as she imagined it would be.
She said: “When I first started, I couldn’t do backward rolls or forward rolls, which I’ve been doing since before I could remember. For the first week or so, I could barely make a front tuck on floor and I hit my butt on the vault trying to do a handspring.
“It was confusing because I felt like my body awareness was completely off.”
But Julia, who is competing in national championships just three months after giving birth, didn’t give up.
She said: “I definitely felt myself get stronger each week, and now that I have been back for eight weeks, I’m definitely starting to feel more like myself.”
**What do you think of her video? Let us know via the comments box below now. **