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We’ve all been there.  We know we SHOULD be making our way to the gym to exercise, but we just can’t muster the motivation.  Scrubbing the dishes sounds like a more attractive option. Though, of course, parking ourselves on the sofa sounds like the best choice of all.

As a mom or mom-to-be, you probably feel this way more often than you did during your child-free days, when pregnancy and the demands of motherhood weren’t further sapping your energy.

Here are five strategies to get you moving when exercising is the last thing you want to do. 

1. Lace up your kicks and see what happens.

Inertia is a powerful thing.  The longer we sit around, the harder it can be to get up.  Can’t talk yourself into a CrossFit workout?  Put on your shoes and take a walk outside.  Keep your goal modest – maybe just once around the block. If you’re someone who needs a destination, plan to walk to get the mail or grab a few groceries at the store. You may find that your energy levels pick up the moment the fresh air hits you.  And now that you’re out there, maybe that one trip around the block turns into four.  Maybe you get really motivated and power walk or find your way into neighborhoods with a few challenging hills (can you say, “interval workout”?).  Maybe I ride by on my bike and see you doing push ups next to your stroller.  🙂

2. Get a workout buddy.

Often finding the time for exercise comes down to accountability.  If you know your girlfriend is waiting for you at the gym, you’re much more likely to show up than you would be if you were going on your own – especially on those low energy days.  Plus, it can be hard to find time to spend with friends, so working out together provides an opportunity for much needed time for yourself and away from family.

3. Remember you don’t have to “kill it.”  

If you get to the gym and you still don’t have energy for that 60-minute spin class, don’t sweat it.  Make today a light day.  If a yoga class is available, take that.  Or create your own workout: go low intensity on a piece of cardio equipment for 20 minutes; follow that with 20 minutes of low resistance weight training; complete your workout with 15 minutes of core work to strengthen your TVA and your pelvic floor (e.g. kegels).  Our bodies actually do BETTER if we combine intense exercise sessions with light ones.

4. Carve out time when you know your energy levels are highest.

People in general, and expectant moms in particular, have natural highs and lows during the day.  If you’re expecting a baby and are experiencing stereotypical morning sickness, plan to work out later in the day when you’re feeling better.  Are you more of a morning person?  Set an alarm and get that workout in before the kids get up.

5. Reward yourself.

And no, I don’t mean with Oreos (sorry!).  Treat yourself to a pedicure or a new article of clothing if you fit in at least 10 exercise sessions during the course of the month.  Need a more immediate reward?  How about a nice hot bath after your trip to the gym?  Or enlist the help of your spouse or partner, and ask for a foot massage to reward your hard work!

And if you just can’t do, be kind to yourself.  Obviously you shouldn’t ALWAYS give into inertia, but sometimes rest is truly what you need as a busy mom or mom-to-be.  Rest up today, and give it your best shot tomorrow.

Winter Mom Camp started this past week, and core strength is a big focus in my Gentle Class.  While critical for everyone, core strength is especially important for pregnant and postpartum women since pregnancy and delivery wreak havoc on these muscles.  Many of the moms in my Gentle Class recently delivered, and I started class with a discussion of core strength that I’m sharing with you today, along with a breathing exercise that’s foundational to a tone core.

Those looking to strengthen their core muscles often turn to exercises that target the rectus abdominis (the “six pack”), like crunches. But TRUE core strength comes from an entirely different set of muscles, including the diaphragm, transversus abdominis (TVA), pelvic floor, and multifidus.  We might call this group of muscles the “inner core” or “inner unit.” You can think of it as a rectangular-shaped cylinder that sits in your abdominal cavity with the diaphragm on top, the TVA in the front, the pelvic floor at the bottom, and the multifidus in the back.

Arguably the most important of these muscles is also the most overlooked: the diaphragm.  It’s a parachute-shaped muscle that attaches to the bottom of the lunges.  When we breathe with our diaphragm, the muscle contracts and descends into the abdominal cavity.  This creates pressure in the abdomen because the pelvic floor, multifidus, and TVA eccentrically contract as the diaphragm descends.  I find the image of a french press useful here.  The diaphragm is like the plunger on the top.  When you breathe in with this muscle, it’s like pushing the plunger down.

Core strength comes from this pressure created in the abdomen, pressure that the diaphragm sets in motion when you inhale.  The pressure stabilizes the spine and provides support in your everyday activities, whether you be walking, climbing stairs, carrying children or groceries, or lifting weights in the gym. Moreover, every time you breathe with your diaphragm, you’re also strengthening the other three inner core muscles because they eccentrically contract in response to the movement of the diaphragm. That’s why the diaphragm is foundational for core strength.

Sounds simple, right?  Just breathe your way to a strong core.  Well, yes and no.  The problem is most people DON’T breathe this way.  I often have clients practice this type of breathing, and many lack access to the diaphragm, at least at first.  Instead they are among the many “chest breathers” out there: they breathe in and out, but the breath gets stuck in the chest, rather than traveling all the way down to the pit of the belly as it should.  If the diaphragm doesn’t descend fully into the chamber, it doesn’t properly pressurize, increasing your risk of lower back pain.

To gauge access to your diaphragm, try this exercise.  Assume savasana pose, lying on your back with your arms and legs extended.  Then place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly. Soften through your abdomen and take a deep breath in.  Imagine that your abdomen is like a vase, and the air is like water.  As you draw your air (the water) in, allow it to fill the pit of your belly (the bottom of the vase) first before rising up to the top.  You’re doing it right if you feel the hand on your belly rise first and the hand on your chest rise last.

Practice that every day for the next week, aiming for fuller and deeper breaths each day.  This will set your foundation.  In my next post I will describe other ways to further strengthen the muscles of your inner unit.

And by the way, there’s still ONE spot left in Mom Camp’s Gentle Class.  It’s perfect for pre- and postnatal moms, those with exercise limitations, and those who are new to exercise.  Would love to have you there!

Today I’ve got an update on my pooch. And that’s the belly pooch we’re talking about here, not the “bow-wow” kind of pooch.

Last I wrote, I was diligently doing my core training in an attempt to close the diastasis responsible for the belly bulge that remained after the birth of my second daughter in July. If you missed that post, definitely check it out for background information. There’s also a lot of good information there for you if you find yourself with an unwanted pooch.

When we left off, I was four weeks postpartum. My belly had shrunk considerably from delivery, but a noticeable pooch remained:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now here’s four weeks compared to ten weeks:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And remember, ALL of these photos are taken with my belly completely relaxed.  No false advertising here by drawing in my abs. (Read my last post if you want to hear me get on my soapbox about THAT topic 🙂 ).

Now, I didn’t take belly shots before my pregnancy, so I can’t compare the 10-week photo to a pre-pregnancy baseline.  But my memory tells me that while I’m still not quite back to pre-pregnancy belly flatness, I’m certainly close.

And what about the diastasis?  Unfortunately, a non-trivial gap remains.  Depending on the time of day when I do the measuring, I can still fit more than two fingers into the space between the two sides of my abdominal wall.  But the WIDTH of the gap is only half the story.  The DEPTH of the gap also tells us something about the severity of the diastasis.  My gap is considerably more shallow now than it was after delivery.  This suggests that the linea alba – the fascia that joins the two sides of the rectus abdominis – is much stronger than it was before.

I’m now 16 weeks postpartum, and I’ve been continuing twice-daily exercises for my TVA.  Although I stopped taking the belly shots, here’s a fun photo of me and Lily at 13 weeks.  I’m very happy with how far I’ve come!

 

 

No, I didn’t get a puppy.  I’m talking about my belly pooch.

After giving birth to my first daughter, my belly returned to its normal flat self almost immediately, so I was a little disappointed to find that a bump remained after the recent delivery of my second daughter.  The bump was present despite my having done everything you’re supposed to do to avoid it, including staying active during pregnancy with a focus on strengthening the inner core.

I’m quite thin, and excess belly fat was not the explanation.  Diastasis recti, or the separation  of the rectus abdominis (i.e. your “six pack”) into left and right halves, was the explanation.  

We’re going to talk more about that, along with other changes that take place in the few weeks after delivery that help explain why you might still look six months pregnant after having your baby.  I’m also going to show you a series of belly pictures taken over my first four weeks postpartum to help illustrate these changes.

Before we look at those pictures, I feel compelled to note that I did everything to make them look as bad as possible: I took profile pictures; I wore a tight, white camisole; I completely relaxed my belly. I also took all the pictures in the evening, a time of the day when I’ve noticed that my belly is particularly distended.  I say this because it bugs me when I see other women post misleading pictures.  They will provide views of their bellies with their abdominals tightly drawn in, and they will look pretty darn good.  They will look something like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks pretty good, right?  That’s me at three and four weeks postpartum, drawing in my belly. It’s even more impressive with a frontal view and some skin exposed.  Here’s me again at four weeks postpartum:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately these pictures are dishonest.  Here’s what I look like at those same points in time with my belly relaxed:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you ask me, I still don’t look too shabby, but the pooch remains.

So the moral of the story is this:  if you see a fitness mom trying to sell you a flat belly after baby by providing a view with her abs drawn in, be skeptical.  It’s probably false advertising.  

Ok, so now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s look at an entire series of unflattering (but honest!) photos over the first four weeks after delivery:

Belly Shrinkage during First Four Weeks after Delivery (Abdominals Relaxed)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woah!  Pretty cool, huh?  One thing that you should immediately notice is that my belly shrinks significantly at first but then more gradually.  That’s because of uterine involution.  At delivery, your uterus is at least 500 times larger than it was before you conceived, and it takes a while to shrink back down.  The rate of involution is greatest in the days immediately postpartum and then begins to slow, with the uterus returning to its normal size in about six weeks.

But uterine involution is only half the story.  By the second week postpartum, the uterus is considerably smaller and has returned to its original location in the pelvis.  Yet as you can see, I still have my pooch at week two.  That takes us back to the diastasis.  Let’s talk a little more about that.

When the two sides of the rectus abdominis split, there’s nothing to hold the contents of your abdomen in, so they pop out.  Most of what protrudes are your intestines, so if you have a diastasis, you may notice that your pooch is larger if you’re constipated or experience gas.

To correct the diastasis we must strengthen the transversus abdominis, or TVA.  As I’ve noted elsewhere, the TVA lies beneath the rectus abdominis. While the muscles of the latter run vertically, the muscles of the former run horizontally, acting like a corset to pull all four side of the body together.   If we tighten the corset by strengthening the TVA, we pull together the two sides of the rectus abdominis.  

As noted above, I HAD been diligently doing my TVA exercises while pregnant, so what gives?  Why did I still have the diastasis?  Was there something else I failed to do to avoid this fate?  Did I do something I shouldn’t have done?

Unless you consider having a second baby a mistake (I sure don’t!), there was nothing I did wrong.  Diastasis recti is simply more common in subsequent pregnancies than the first one.  Everything had been stretched out before, so things stretched more easily the second time around.  It’s kind of like how you tend to feel pregnant faster with your second pregnancy than you did with your first.  As a friend of mine once said, it’s like your body saying, “I know what to do!”

Having multiple pregnancies is just one risk factor.  Others include having a c-section, having a large baby, and carrying in the front.  I had a vaginal delivery, and although I had a 7 lb 5 oz peanut, I carried her WAY in the front, leading my husband to refer to my belly as the “torpedo” (Thanks, babe.  I love you too).  So make that two risk factors for me: second baby and torpedo.

Although I can’t prove it, it stands to reason that my diastasis would have been worse had I not done the TVA exercises while pregnant.  And these exercises remain the key for correcting the separation now.  Every day I collectively spend 25-30 minutes strengthening the TVA.  Depending on my schedule, I’ll either spend ten minutes on the exercises three times/day or 15 minutes twice/day.  I can’t precisely tell you how much of my progress is due to time and how much to the exercises, but I can say with certainty that my TVA is much stronger now than it was when I started doing them one week postpartum.

So what exactly are these exercises?  Pelvic tilts (both with and without heel slides) are definitely one of them. If you don’t know what those are, check out my earlier blog post that provides instruction. If you’re looking for other ideas, I’m currently taking new clients, both in-home and distance-based.  I’d love to work with you!

 

 

A few weeks ago I listed cat cow pose as one of five great yoga poses for moms-to-be.  If you missed the post, definitely check it out!

I also mentioned that you can enhance the core work in this pose by very consciously drawing your navel in towards your spine to engage your transversus abdominis (TVA) and by lifting your pelvic floor.  Today I’m going to explain why the TVA and pelvic floor are so important and show you how to perform this exercise.

When you think of your “core,” what muscles do you imagine?  Your “six pack,” perhaps?  If you do, you’re not alone, but you’re also incorrect.  When we talk about core strength, it’s the deep muscles to which we refer, including the diaphragm, TVA, multifidus (deep spinal muscles), and pelvic floor.  These four muscles create a rectangular-shaped box inside our abdomen with the diaphragm on top, the TVA in the front, the pelvic floor on the bottom, and the multifidus in the back.

Maintenance of intra-abdominal pressure is the key to core strength.  When the core is functioning properly, the diaphragm descends into the abdominal chamber when we inhale; this creates pressure in the abdomen, much like a we would pressurize a plunger cylinder by pressing on the top of the plunger (I find the image of a french press useful here).  The TVA, multifidus, and pelvic floor work in concert with the diaphragm to help create and maintain that pressure, by naturally engaging as the diaphragm descends.  Weakness in any one of these four muscles compromises the ability of the body to maintain this abdominal pressure and stabilize the joints. This leads to a variety of adverse consequences including lower back pain, muscular imbalances, and poor posture, as the body stabilizes the joints in less ideal ways.

Pregnancy and delivery make moms especially prone to core weakness. The TVA becomes overstretched and undertoned as the uterus expands.  The growing weight of the uterus puts strain on the pelvic floor and weakens it.  Depending on the mode of delivery, moms experience additional trauma either to the pelvic floor (in the case of vaginal birth) or the TVA (in the case of a C-section, which cuts through this muscle).

Moms-to-be can strengthen these important muscles by performing cat cows/pelvic rocking with TVA and pelvic floor activation.  As you exhale into cat pose, very consciously draw your navel in towards your spine to engage the TVA and then perform a kegel at the very end of the exhale to engage the pelvic floor.  The TVA work becomes increasingly challenging as you progress through your pregnancy because the weight of your uterus increases.  You truly are using your TVA to lift your growing baby and other components of your uterus!

Here’s a video of me performing this exercise at 38 weeks.  Look closely and you can really see my TVA working to lift the uterus as I exhale; you will also see my uterus descend on the inhale as I lower the weight of my belly back down.  Unfortunately, the kegels you cannot see.  We will have to save instruction on kegels for another day.  🙂

Tomorrow marks my 36th week of pregnancy, and as I head into the home stretch, I’m finding myself increasingly drawn to a handful of yoga poses.  I’m sharing them with you today and highlighting the specific benefits of each for moms-to-be.  Even if you’re not expecting – heck, even if you’re not a mom… or even a woman! – these poses are beneficial to you too, so keep reading!  In fact, I have little time for yoga outside of the Vinyasa classes I teach, and I have no qualms about including all of these poses in my classes because they have such wide applicability.

1. Cat cow/pelvic rocking

Come into an all fours position with wrists under shoulders and knees under hips, spine neutral.  As you inhale, tilt your pelvis forward, so your tailbone rises and navel drops down toward the floor, while simultaneously turning your gaze to the ceiling.  At the end of the inhale, exhale as you draw your pelvis backward, turning your tailbone down towards the floor, drawing navel to spine, arching your back, and tucking your chin to your chest.  Repeat for several breaths.

Benefits: This pose is a gentle way to encourage your baby to drop into the pelvis. It also gently strengthens and stretches all of the core muscles, and helps relieve pain in the lower back, which is especially common in the second and third trimesters.

Tip: Enhance the core work by very consciously drawing your navel in towards your spine as you exhale into cat pose.  This engages and strengthens the transversus abdominis (TVA), which pregnancy weakens as your belly expands.  Add a kegel at the end of the exhale to strengthen the pelvic floor, another set of muscles that pregnancy weakens, owing to the increased weight of the uterus.

 

 

 

2. Bird dog

Come into an all fours position with wrists under shoulders and knees under hips, spine neutral.  As you inhale, extend your right arm and your left leg.  As you exhale, return to your starting position.  Repeat on the opposite side.  Continue for several breaths.

Benefits: This pose also strengthens the core and relieves pain in the lower back.  You can increase the intensity of the poses – and the core work – by holding opposite arm and leg extended for several breaths before switching sides.

 

 

 

 

3. Squat

I like to enter this pose from a wide legged forward fold with toes turned out.  From this position, shift your hips back and bend your knees.  Place your elbows on the insides of your thighs, just above your knees.  Drop your hips as low to the floor as you can and hold your hands in prayer at heart center.  Hold for several breaths.

Benefits and Precautions: This pose open the pelvis and strengthen legs for delivery.  It also stretches the pelvic floor and uses gravity to help your baby descend into the pelvis.  This pose is not recommended if your baby is in breech position, as it will encourage the baby to descend further into the pelvis in a sub-optimal position.  Those who experience knee pain in this pose should also avoid it.  This pose may also be inappropriate if you experience symptoms of sciatica and/or pelvic girdle pain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Goddess

Take a wide-legged stance with toes turned out.  Extend arms overhead with palms facing forward.  On the exhale, lower your arms to cactus pose, retracting your shoulders as you lower your elbows and bring your forearms parallel to the floor with elbows bent to 90 degrees.  Simultaneously drop into a squat, lowering your tailbone down toward the floor and bending your knees.  Inhale and reverse the movement.  Repeat for several breaths.

Benefits and Precautions: The benefits and contraindications listed above for squat also apply to this pose.  However, because you don’t descend into such a deep squat, Goddess pose is accessible to more people.  Goddess pose additionally strengthens the upper back and shoulders, and it stretches the chest.  This will prove important when the baby arrives and you spend a lot of time carrying your little one around and feeding your baby.

Tip: Imagine that you are standing with your back against a wall in this pose.  As you descend into Goddess, imagine that your hips are sliding down the wall and keep drawing your arms back, such that your shoulder blades, elbows and the backs of your hands scrape the wall behind you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Savasana

Lie supine (on your back) with arms and legs extended, hands near your sides with palms facing up.  Relax and breathe.  Stay in this pose for at least five minutes.  If you prefer not to lie on your back, you can elevate your torso with stacked blankets or pillows.

Benefits: This pose is a great dress rehearsal for labor when you are best served by relaxing through contractions.

Tip: Savasana is an excellent opportunity to practice diaphragmatic breathing.  Not only is this relaxing, but the diaphragm is a part of your core musculature, and breathing this way helps to strengthen it.  Imagine that the abdomen is like a vase and the air like water.   When you fill a vase with water it fills the bottom first and then slowly rises to the top.  As you breathe in, visualize the air filling the lower portions of your abdomen and then rising to the top, filling the chest last.  I sometimes encourage my students to place one hand on the chest, the other on the lower abdomen, so they can feel the abdomen rise first.