Introducing Baby on Board Workouts

Zwift has just delivered a healthy 12 weeks of workouts for pregnant mothers-to-be! This is a plan that permits a greater amount of flexibility than your typical training plan, allowing Mom to build this routine into her life.

To find the collection, look for the “Baby on Board” workout folder. When you log in to Zwift, click “Training” and make sure “Workouts” is selected at the top of the next screen. Scroll down until you see “Baby on Board” and click it to open the folder of individual workouts.

The program was written by Kristin Armstrong and Dani Rowe, two Olympic gold medalists and both mothers themselves. Dani tested them out earlier this year while she was pregnant with her son, who was just born in September. She was looking for workouts that she knew would be safe for her and her baby.

Read the details of this workout on the Zwift blog, and listen to a deep dive into pre and post natal training on a special episode of the Zwift Powerup Cycling podcast recorded only 11 days after Dani gave birth to her son.

How has Zwift fit into your life during and after pregnancy? We’d love to hear your stories!

This is great. The Baby Bear workout seems bugged? It “randomly” alters power at the wrong times. Anyone else experiencing this?

Hi @Richard_Waitt welcome to Zwift forums

Can you elaborate a bit? Do you mean that your controllable trainer’s resistance randomly changes within a block where your target is X watts?

Or do you mean that the workout changes the watt target within a block where you’re supposed to hit X watts?

The resistance “randomly” changes during a block. So during a recovery block, the resistance shoots way up. I don’t know that it’s rando because it’s happened twice during the “baby bear” workout.

I should say that it has happened on two occasions meaning i’ve done the workout twice. It also happens more than once during the workout.

@Richard_Waitt

Would you try a different training plan / workout and see if this happens there? I’d like to see if it’s specific to the Baby Bear. I’m guessing it’s not.

I’ve personally run into a the symptom you describe in ERG mode workouts. I would also run into random Bluetooth signal drops where my power goes to zero and my avatar stops, only to have the signal reconnect a few seconds later.

What fixed both of those for me is uninstalling the Garmin Connect app on my smartphone. It was apparently listening for, and interfering with, the Bluetooth signal. This can happen with other apps on your smartphone that run in the background listening for a BLE trainer to bond with. So if you have apps like Wahoo / Saris / Strava installed - try uninstalling them all to see if one of them might be the culprit.

I’ve had no problems with any other workouts that i’ve done. Only the two times i;ve done baby bear. maybe its a weird coincidence but i doubt it. If i want to do a similar workout i’ll just find one.

Hi - I am looking to break some cycling records while pregnant and have already done 100 km (62 miles) in under 3 hours at week 25 and then between week 34 and 36 do 100 miles and doing this on Zwift courses (doctors wish they had more patients like me) … In previous times while pregnant I have swam 10km (6.2 miles) holding 1:15 per 100 yard pace and qualified for masters nationals in 1000 yard and 1,650 yard race … so curious are there any other really cool cycling moms out there raising the bar? Also if there is anyone that wants to join a 100 mile bike ride March 20? Or perhaps make a group ride? … seriously with extra blood volume- it is a serious advantage cycling while pregnant :wink:

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I’m really enjoying these work outs, they are such an amazing addition to Zwift that I didn’t know about until 3 months pregnant. Handy in the second trimester when I have lots of energy! I wonder if you would consider a postpartum programme for getting back on the bike after birth? I’d definitely do it as I plan to use zwift as much as I can once on maternity leave. Much easier than planning a run!

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Very pleased to see these workouts included! So helpful to be able to exercise with confidence.