I think every mom would love a quick fix for getting those abs back. I can’t promise a quick fix but I can promise that it only requires some simple exercises.
Let’s talk about the anatomy first so that you can understand better. You abdominal muscles have 3 layers and 4 muscles all connected together by fascia as well as to the pelvic floor. All 4 of these muscles need to work together to perform almost any task. Take opening a door for example. When you reach out to open a door, your abdominal muscles contract to brace/stabilize yourself while moving your arm out to touch the door. Then you go to either push or pull the door and your abdominal muscles contact to anticipate the one sided force of either pushing or pulling. That’s how they work together.
The top muscle is the Rectus Abdominis muscle or the 6 pack muscle. It is meant to stabilize and it is the one that separates due to pregnancy, leaving a big gap in between called the Diastasis Recti. The middle layer is your External and Internal Obliques which are the movers. The tend to shorten during pregnancy because of the growing belly. The deepest layer, which is the most important and hardest muscle to train, is the Transverse Abdominis muscle, another stabilizer. During or after pregnancy this muscle gets “turned off.” The Transverse Abdominis and the Internal Oblique muscles work with the pelvic floor muscles. If these 4 muscles don’t work together in synchrony, there is a dysfunction. One may be stronger or tighter than the other creating increased pressure in the core (intra-abdominal pressure). This increased pressure either pushes down on your pelvic floor or out through the Diastasis Recti.
Some resources say that your body created a Diastasis Recti in response to protecting your pelvic floor. When a Momma is pregnant, she has a baby growing in her uterus which is obviously creating force and pressure. Well, the pressure has to go somewhere. Pressure usually goes through the path of least resistance, so either through the pelvic floor or the gap created between your abdominal muscles. It’s amazing that your body knows what it is doing to protect itself, but now we need to help it heal properly.
Some Mommas don’t really have a visible Diastasis Recti, I didn’t really, but I did have quite the ‘mommy pooch,’ which I didn’t love. Again, this is because the abdominal muscles were so stretched out, and thereby weakened during pregnancy. For example, if you take a rubber band and hold it out in the stretched position for a really long time it won’t recoil back to its original size. Thats what happened to your abdominals. And because they are so stretched out they don’t work and contract properly. Maybe your top abdominals are pretty strong but because those contract more they push down, increase intra-abdominal pressure, and create that ‘mommy pooch.’ We need to help retrain them to get them to work properly and contract without increasing intra-abdominal pressure.
So let's just do sit-ups, crunches, or planks. Those strengthen all our abdominal muscles right? NOOOOOOOOO!!! That will only make the intra-abdominal pressure worse, create more of a dysfunction, and more problems down the line. Abdominal doming is an example of poor intra-abdominal pressure management.
So what can we do? One of the most important exercises to assist with improving intra-abdominal pressure, as well as getting the pelvic floor and deep abdominal muscles working properly is breathe work. 360 breathing will help to turn on the core and Transverse Abdominal muscle. While practicing 360 breathing, a forced exhale really gets the Transverse Abdominal muscles to fire. Remember, this was the muscle that is the hardest to train.
The second exercise is getting our pelvic floor to contract correctly. Remember, I said the Internal Oblique and Transverse Abdominus work directly with the pelvic floor muscles. So we need to figure out if we need to strengthen or relax the pelvic floor to improve its function and eventually the abdominal muscles function.
A third exercise is improving posture. We want proper alignment to allow for our abdominal muscles, pelvic floor muscles, and other muscles including our glutes and inner thigh muscles to join in on the synchrony. We want the ribs stacked over the pelvis with a neutral pelvic tilt (front to back alignment).
Lastly, crossbody exercises (moving left to right or right to left in a diagonal) and side planks can help to use the Internal and External Obliques to improve the dysfunction and help to turn on the different levels of the Transverse Abdominis.
Long story short, most mommas SHOULD NOT DO crunches, sit-ups, planks or other front loading exercises that most exercise programs include. The exercises given by a Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist will really help to reclaim your Abs postpartum, fix the dysfunction, and heal your core and pelvic floor properly. A happy core and happy floor makes a more confident and happy momma.
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