People are always asking me "Which exercises should I be doing?" to heal their diastasis or to help strengthen their pelvic floor after having a baby.
There are lots a great exercises I can recommend and general tips on which exercises to avoid, but the real secret lies not so much in which exercises you do -it's HOW you do them.
"The exercises we do to heal a diastasis are tools to teach you how to move your body and control the internal pressure in your core." -Maritza Linzey
In other words, to stop bearing down and putting extra stress your core and pelvic floor when you lift heavy stuff and move during everyday life. The truth is, how you move your body everyday is going to have more of an impact on your results than an hour of exercises.
How you load your body when you're walking , picking up the carseat or unloading the washing machine makes a big difference.
You can start by becoming aware of your habits.
Here's some things to pay attention to:
Do you always stand with Your weight on one leg?
Do you always hold Your baby on the same hip?
Are you slumping forwards while breastfeeding?
So which exercises are right for you?
It depends is the honest answer.
I know this sucks when you want a straight answer so you know what to do.
Choosing "the right exercise " for you depends on lots of factors
Because your posture and alignment affects your core pressure ,how you move and hold your body has a big impact on which muscles you need to strengthen.
It also depends on how you habitually load your core muscles and if you have any injuries or muscles that are "switched off" and not doing their job.
(This shifts the work to other muscles which get overworked causing pain, postural compensations and increasing the risk of injury.) The process I use with my clients to find out which exercises they need looks like this:
Step 1: Assessment
Nothing happens without assessing where you're starting from.
We need to find out which stage of recovery are you in and how you like load your core and pelvic floor right now.
Then I cherry pick which exercises you need to help you control your core pressure.
You'll end up with a personalized roadmap to recovery, using only the exercises targeting what you need to work on. (Fast and efficient works best for busy mamma's).
My goal is to get you strong enough to do the all the things you want to do whether that's running, dance fitness classes or jumping on the trampoline with your kids.
Step 2: Reconnect and Retrain
Depending on what stage you're starting in, (check out the handy graphic below) we get to work.
For expamle, if you're a Rehab caterpillar, we focus on "turning on" and re-establishing connections with muscles have switched off and learning new core loading strategies.
The next stages progressively help you build more strength and get your core to load properly during movement, so you control your core pressure withou thinking about it.
How long each stage in this process takes depends on where you start from and HOW you load your body during your daily life.
The better you are at doing your "homework" exercises and the more you're mindful of your daily movement patterns, the quicker your progress. Switching your attention from only doing exercises, to focusing on your natural daily movement patterns is the secret to faster healing.
If you're constantly pushing down on your pelvic floor and out onto your diastasis,then it's going to take forever for that sucker to heal. -Maritza Linzey
Start by moving with purpose today. Pay attention to how you move when you're doing your every day tasks.
If you need more help with this make sure you grab my free guide to get you started.
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