Training for Life – Yours and Your Baby’s

by Victoria Diaz, SSC | October 07, 2025

Training isn’t just for sport or aesthetics. It’s for life.

I began barbell
training in the summer of 2016, around my 22nd birthday. I weighed
149 pounds, and my starting numbers were: squat 105x5x3, press
35x5x3, bench 75x5x3, deadlift 135×5. Over the next seven years, I
brought my bodyweight up to 174 pounds, and my personal bests
reached: squat 260×1, press 119×1, bench 155×1, deadlift 326×1.

Training saw me through
a lot – illness, two years of full-time school and work, my wedding
in 2019, the year 2020, two moves across the country, and even rehab
after a car accident. But I had never trained through a pregnancy.
Not yet.

Through all those
seasons, barbell training taught me resilience. The ability to go
through hard things and come out stronger – physically and
mentally. I’ve squatted with 245 pounds on my back and felt the bar
freeze mid-rep for what felt like minutes. I’ve pulled on deadlifts
that didn’t move…until they did. I’ve pressed weights that
felt like they would fold me in half, only to stand up with them.
Every rep completed and every bar racked reinforced what I was
capable of.

In the spring of 2023,
my husband and I found out we were expecting our first child that
December. At the time, I was 29 years old, standing 5’6”,
weighing 160 pounds, and squatting 225x3x2. (I was also pressing and
deadlifting regularly, though I don’t recall the exact numbers.) I
had coached many women through pregnancy and postpartum by then, but
now it was my turn.

There isn’t much
research out there on strength training through pregnancy, but what
we do know is this: the stronger you are, the better you’ll handle
the task in front of you. And pregnancy is no exception. I was
excited to live what I’d been preaching for years.

I had no idea just how
critical it would be.

That’s life, isn’t
it? You often don’t see the payoff of your efforts until the end.
Friends would say, “I don’t know how you do it. I just want to go
home and sit on the couch.” And trust me, I did too. But I knew
that wouldn’t serve my goal. I wanted to be strong through my
pregnancy. I wanted to be strong for labor, delivery, and postpartum.
So I focused on the outcome, not how I felt.

At the end, my boss and
I tallied up how many training sessions I completed while pregnant. I
hit over 90% of my planned workouts. I got sick a couple of times,
and we moved apartments, which threw off the routine. I definitely
had days where I went home and slept for three hours instead of
training. But most of the time? I showed up. I kept putting the bar
on my back.

We had been planning a
home birth long before I got pregnant. We wanted as little
intervention as possible, and home seemed like the best environment
for that.

Like many women, I had
imagined birth as something calm. A quiet room, dim lights, maybe
worship music in the background. A peaceful, beautiful experience.
Maybe that was just me trying to manifest something, but it’s what
I pictured anyway.

What I didn’t picture
was going into labor already sick. Three days before labor began, I
started coughing – badly. I rarely get respiratory bugs. If I’m
sick, it’s usually a fever and a couple days of sleep. But this was
different. I was coughing so violently that my chest and abdomen
ached, and I kept peeing myself from the pressure. I remember begging
our son: “Just a couple more days. Let me get better first.”

But babies don’t
listen. On the night of December 27th, around 9 pm, contractions
started. By 10 p.m., my water broke. We took my temperature: 102°F.
My midwife arrived at 11:30 pm to check everything. I had a confirmed
fever, and our baby’s heart rate was elevated.

With those concerns,
she recommended we transfer to the hospital for closer monitoring. We
arrived at the hospital around midnight. Contractions were picking up
fast. While checking in, my midwife said she thought this baby would
be coming sooner than expected.

At the hospital, I was
given an IV for hydration and started on antibiotics for the
infection. We declined all other interventions. I labored in whatever
position felt best, and I found myself spending most of the time on
my knees. Not exactly restful—but it was the most comfortable.

I had a monitor on my
belly the entire time to track the baby’s heart rate. After 8 hours
of labor – 5 of them on my knees – I delivered our 10 lb 4 oz son
vaginally, without an epidural.

It wasn’t the birth I
imagined. I would not recommend going into labor with a fever and
respiratory infection. But at no point did I feel like my body was
going to give out. Not once. My legs, my back, my whole system
held strong.

So what happens when
you get the opposite of what you hoped for? When life throws you
something far from ideal? What physical state will you be in to
handle it? Strength training doesn’t guarantee an easy birth. But
it builds the ability to endure.

Labor didn’t go the
way I imagined. It was messy, painful, and completely out of my
control. But I never doubted my body’s ability to keep going. I
never felt weak. Not once.

Strength training
doesn’t guarantee a smooth birth. It doesn’t make life easier.
But it builds something deeper: resilience, grit, the ability to keep
moving forward when nothing goes to plan. That’s what training gave
me. And that’s what I’ll carry with me – not just into
motherhood, but into everything else life throws my way.

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