In this video, each mommy tummy exercise is designed to give you a postnatal abs workout that targets the deeper muscles of your core, to help heal what many refer to as the ‘gap’ or abdominal separation with it’s anatomical name, diastasis recti.
With full instruction with each exercise so you know you are doing the exercises correctly for that mommy tummy fix.
Throughout the workout, I guide you through the technique for each exercise so you know you are doing the exercises correctly and will avoid any strain to your body.
Diastasis Recti is often the cause of ‘the mummy/mommy tummy’ where the tummy looks pooched or still pregnant even though it may be many months or years after giving birth.
There are certain exercises that some women may do or be given to do, such as typical ‘traditional ab exercises’ that exacerbate the mommy tummy by creating wider diastasis recti or contribute to back pain.
After years of training pre and postnatal women, constant research and training with the best experts in the field of pre and postnatal health for women, I have seen how ‘traditional ab exercises’ are NOT effective for flattening the tummy whether you’ve been through pregnancy and birth or not.
The issue with the traditional ab exercises and the ones I am specifically referring to in this article are crunches, sit-ups and bicycle crunches. These target one muscle, the rectus abdominals aka the ‘six-pack’. The movement of coming up from your back to sitting upwards, is a forward flexion movement. After pregnancy, EVERY woman will have a degree of weakened deeper abdominal muscles (behind the ‘six-pack’), stretched connective tissue (which covers the tummy muscles), intra-abdominal pressure (from the baby growing inside the abdomen) and breathing patterns which need re-training.
Due then to the loss of strength in the deeper muscles, less ability to create tension, breathing without the diaphragm and deep muscles of the core working in unison when you come to do a crunch or sit-up, you don’t activate the muscles correctly and the tummy may dome or pooch during the exercise. This has the reverse effect of what you want and makes the gap between the rectus abdominals muscle wider and strains the connective tissue that covers the midline further.
In the first stages when you begin to exercise specifically to target the core after pregnancy avoid any forward flexion and instead aim to target the deeper muscle of your core, learn how to create tension by breathing out and imagine you are zipping up an imaginary jacket from the bottom to your chest or in this case from your pubic bone to above your navel. The result is to try to ‘scoop out’ the navel rather than pushing it upwards.
Combine this video with my other diastasis recti exercise videos here:
Diastasis Recti Healing Exercises Part 1 (TIGHTEN TUMMY MUSCLES AFTER BABY), go here.
Diastasis Recti Healing Exercises Part 2 (TONE UP YOUR POST BABY ABS FAST), go here.
I use a soft pilates ball and a resistance band for this workout which are easy to store, easy to find and inexpensive pieces of home exercise equipment. Join me for this postnatal workout here.
