Can Diastasis Recti be healed without surgery?

July 17, 2020

Can you heal your diastasis recti? Yes. But not until you give it your best effort. I want you to keep in mind, there is NO TIME LIMIT FOR HEALING!!!

Once you give the body the right movement patterns that it needs, it will start to respond. At any age and time postpartum!!

Including during pregnancy! (If you are currently pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant soon check out my Pregnancy Fitness Program which includes diastasis recti healing exercises!)

So the short answer is yes you can heal diastasis recti without surgery, you just need to activate those abdominal muscles in the right way – and that is the difficult part – cause a lot of women do it wrong!

First you have to start with your posture and making your body MOVE in a right way. To do that let’s review a few core principles:

Ribcage width for midline support

Being pregnant is tough, and as that baby needs more room our body accommodates by spreading the ribcage. All the change that occurs throughout pregnancy is actually pretty amazing, but without specific steps postpartum some of those changes stick and this can cause lingering issues like diastasis.

Check: An easy way to know whether your ribcage has gone back to normal is your bra fit. Are you back into the same clasp setting as pre-pregnancy or do your bras and sports bras all feel a bit snug?

Ribcage width can be fixed! It just depends on the muscles your body is using to move through life. Those who recruit more Internal Obliques tend to have a wider ribcage and those who recruit more External Obliques tend to have a narrower ribcage.

Here is the exercise to help with that ribcage closure:

Small Ball Rib Activation
1. Place the small ball (or rolled-up towel if you don’t have a small ball) on your lower ribs, toward your lower back
2. Prop yourself up so you are leaning back into the ball
3. As you inhale, breathe deep down into the ball
4. On your Exhale, zip up lightly from your pelvic floor and low belly
5. Wrap around your ribs
6. This movement should be small and is great for waking up the lower and middle back where you can be really restricted
7. Do 5-10 reps and repeat on the other side
Diaphragm Alignment and Strength for Diastasis Healing

The ribcage helps to control how the diaphragm functions. If the ribcage is too wide, then the diaphragm is put in a disadvantageous position to work. It flattens out decreasing its ability to contract.

The diaphragm, our breathing muscle, plays an incredibly important role in how our core looks and responds. If the diaphragm is in a more flattened position due to the wider ribcage, it can’t get that great contraction on an inhale. Without that, we’re much more likely to use a shallow breathing pattern and need to recruit our abs to get a good exhale instead of simply getting good passive movement from the diaphragm.

When our deep inner core is responding with our system as a whole, you get a lot of give on your inhale into your sides and back. This is an eccentric lengthening of the muscle. This eccentric movement takes the stress off the midline and off the diastasis.

What that means is the abs should move out in all directions on your inhale as your diaphragm moves down. The women who seem “not able” to heal a diastasis tend to either be in a shallow breathing pattern or a belly breathing pattern. Both are bad and can prevent healing. So you need to use your breathing in the right way as well.

Here are a couple of exercises to help with deep muscles activation:

Exercise One
The first exercise is activating the deep abdominal muscles in a side lying position. Start by lying on your side and then use your fingers to feel your abdominal wall just inside your pelvic bone. Activate your lower abdominal wall by gently drawing inward the lower abdominal muscles. Maintain this abdominal activation or contraction for up to 10 seconds. You can start with a 5 second hold and then progress to 10 seconds as tolerated. Make sure you breathe normally throughout the exercise and then relax your abdominal wall back to a resting position in between repetitions. Your upper abdomen should remain relaxed throughout the exercise. To progress this exercise extend the duration of this hold for up to 10 seconds at a time as long as you are correctly able to activate the lower abdominal muscles.

Exercise Two
The second exercise is to activate the deep abdominal muscles when lying flat. Start by lying on your back with your knees bent and feet flat. Keep the normal curve of your lower back throughout. Place your fingers on your lower abdominal wall just inside your pelvic bones. Gently activate your deep abdominal muscles (the same technique as exercise 1). Maintain this abdominal activation/contraction for up to 10 seconds and continue to breathe normally throughout the exercise and then relax your abdominal wall back to resting. Just like the previous exercise your upper abdomen should remain relaxed throughout the exercise. Make sure you learn to correctly activate your deep abdominal muscles before extending the duration of this hold for up to 10 seconds at a time.
Spinal Alignment for Diastasis Healing

Without expansion of the back part of the diaphragm, it often creates a curve or high hinge point in the spine at the segment where the diaphragm attaches.That curve of the spine might also prevent you from healing your distasis recti.

What to do:

Take a selfie in the bathroom mirror and let’s analyze! Does your lumbar curve (curve toward your belly) sit down in your low back or is the curve toward your belly higher? If it’s higher, this can be contributing to your diastasis. So try to stand straight next to the wall and memorize that posture and hold it while you move around (it can be hard at first, especially if you have been moving wrong way for a long time).
Lower Abs and Pelvic Tilt for Diastasis Healing

Part of this higher lumbar curve or high hinge point is related to lower abdominal strength and compensation happening in the pelvis. When your lower abs are weak your pelvis will either spill forward or you’ll tuck it under/

Both postures can perpetuate a diastasis. Along with lower abs, the glutes and hamstrings play a large role in positioning the pelvis.

What to do:

Look at yourself in the mirror again! Are you standing straight? Are your hips/pelvic bones tilting or tucked? You want nice round muscle.

5. Pelvic Floor Tightness for Diastasis Healing

A diastasis plays off the ability of the abs to fire as they should. The abs work in response to our habitual breathing pattern and our base of strength. Pelvic floor tightness can decrease the ability of our diaphragm to go down. Remember how important diaphragm movement is for healing?

Pelvic floor tightness associated with lack of glute strength and core stability. It’s the thing in the middle that acts to stabilize and support the spine and pelvis. Now I’m not talking about crazy tightness, but just enough to decrease a good breathing pattern and decrease movement of the pelvic floor. Since the lower deep abdominals work with the pelvic floor, they become a chicken and egg situation for tightness.

What to do: Take a big inhale down. Did you feel your pelvic floor give a little with your inhale? If not, you might have some pelvic floor tightness and that might be part of your puzzle for improving your diastasis.

Once you feel like your alignment is good and breathing is going well, making sure you keep the right amount of intensity in your exercises is important. Too much stress on your linea alba will delay healing and possibly make your diastasis worse. Too little stress and the fascia won’t know it needs to remodel.

Here are exercises to help with pelvic:

Hip Rolls

Roll to your back
Place your legs shoulder to hip-width apart
Relax your hips
On your exhale, lightly activate your pelvic floor and low belly
Allow your pelvis to tilt
Slowly roll up one vertebra at a time
Push your feet into your mat, activating your hamstrings and glutes
On your inhale, lower down part way
On your exhale, lift back up slowly
The key is to articulate your spine because that’s going to turn on those deep layers of your core
Do 3 sets, 5 reps each

Side Leg Opposition

Lay flat on your back with your legs shoulder-width apart
On your inhale, let your legs fall to the left
On your exhale, lightly activate your pelvic floor and deep core
Bring your legs back to the center
Inhale and repeat on the other side
You really want to find that opposition connection from hip bone to rib cage
Do 5-10 reps on each side

So let’s recap – If you have a squishy 2 finger gap or more, then there’s a good chance that your connective tissue has lost integrity and may not carry tension well. In other words, your core is weakened, disconnected and its function is compromised, leaving the abdomen unsupported – so much that your stomach protrudes forming the pooch!

As if aesthetic consequences weren’t bad enough, the lack of stability and strength in the entire core and pelvic region leads to very unpleasant repercussions like peeing your pants while sneezing, coughing, jumping, running, or possibly even organ prolapse, abdominal hernia and back pain… These symptoms are usually associated with being a normal part of the “becoming a Mom” package. These discomforts, aches and pains are too often ignored, go untreated and get worse!

The good news is it doesn’t have to be that way! You don’t have to be in pain, leaky or unsatisfied about your stomach since you became a Mom. Just because the conditions are “Common” doesn’t mean they are “Normal”. No matter how old your youngest is, diastasis recti repair exercises can always make improvements to your core strength, stability and function, also improving your flat stomach! We all deserve to live a pain-free motherhood and feel great about our bodies!

If you’ve been diagnosed with a diastasis recti, don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be the end of your fitness life and flat tummy! Now is the perfect time to approach fitness and body awareness with new eyes and new tools like ab exercises for diastasis recti and more.

A diastasis recti affects every dimension of a woman’s life

Body image,
Self-confidence,
Fitness life,
Sexual life,…

LET’S FIX YOUR DIASTASIS RECTI AND SAY “HELLO” TO A PAIN-FREE ACTIVE MOTHERHOOD, TONED BODY AND STRENGTH!

Here’s your challenge— if you want to see improvement, you have to start taking action today!! So I recommend you do the RIGHT kind of exercises for your diastasis recti daily (check out my Pregnancy Fitness Program if you are pregnant, postpartum or planning to conceive soon – so you can look and feel your best during pregnancy and beyond, or my Fit in 15 Program if you are a busy person and simply want to get in shape, tone your body and feel strong without spending hours in the gym – both of these programs contain more of the right kind Diastasis Recti Healing exercises as a bonus).