QuestionQUESTION: I am 13 months post-partum. I came across your EXCELLENT video when I was around 5 months postpartum, and wish I knew about it earlier! Soon after childbirth I started doing excercise to try to get back into shape, including a fitness class with much abdomninal work. I didn't know about abdominal separation & didn't realize that I had it until about 3 months postpartum, when I realized that my exercising had been making it much worse. After researching & ordering your video, I started following your method around 5 months, on & off when I could, still until now. The separation at my belly button when doing the abdominal test according to your video is currently 3 finger-widths. I am scared of doing other abdominal exercises now, and am not sure if I can still make it worse. Around 10 months, I thought that was long enough, and tried doing sit-ups, etc, but it seemed that my belly started separating more again. My main question is: what do you recommend I do from here? For abs, I am only using your video, and avoiding all other ab & oblique exercises. I am wondering if I should see a physiotherapist to help in the healing? How long do you recommend using your exercises in your video/ at what point is it safe to push my body more without separating the diastis recti more? THANK YOU so much for putting together your exellent video - you have taught me a lot about exercising after pregnancy!
ANSWER: As you start transitioning to other types of abdominal exercises, you need to make sure that your outer abdominal muscles do not overpower your Transverse Abdominis. When this happens, your tummy will bulge outward, which will stress and stretch your mid line connective tissues.
Start working in other ab exercises slowly, one at a time, keep the reps low, and focus on the shape of your abdominal wall. If you can keep your belly totally flat, then the exercise is OK for you to do.
You can also add on manual splinting of the Rectus Abdominis, with you hands as you do these types of exercises to help keep the mid line closed.
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QUESTION: At 13 months postpartum with 3 fingerwidth gap at midline - should I expect it to get smaller? Is this size of a gap something to worry about?
I will do the exercises as you suggest - one question: How do you manual splint - simply push muscles inward toward belly button when exercising?
AnswerA three finger-width separation is small. So that's a positive. The goal of diastasis rehab is to close the gap to 2.5 finger-widths or less. So you are almost there.
To splint your mid line, cross you hands on your abdomen, about 8" apart, and as you perform the exercises, use your finger tips to push your Rectus Abdominis closer together, which will close your mid line.
Start doing this on all of the exercises that use the belly scooping technique. Make sure that you don't let go of the deep Transverse Abdominis contraction. You want to give a little aid to your TvA, not take over its job. Then when this is well integrated into you body, apply the same technique to all other abdominal exercises like crunches and oblique pulses.
