The most important component in healing diastasis recti is your mindset. I know, I know, I get it- but bear with me. I have been in that place of just wanting to fix the problem and move on, and when you have a physical injury there is a tendency to treat it just like that. However, I am here to tell you that having diastasis recti has opened growth opportunities for mindfulness, self-care, body-love, and (as I am in my 40’s) age positivity.

Here is a comparison between stuck and growing:

In 20I0 I was stuck, really stuck. I had a 4 finger diastasis recti separation on my youngest child’s 3rd birthday. I felt weak and unstable without my Spanx and abdominal brace, which I wore daily. Worse than that, I started to believe that I would never do the things I love most. Whatever I did caused me pain and would bulge my belly more or lead to urinary continence.

I was not strong enough to deal with my life.

• My 3- and 5-years old kiddos
• My active job as a personal trainer and figure skating coach
• My desire to support my sister who was on hospice in her last days
• My goal to have energy and feel clear minded.
• My longing to be the active adventurous woman I love to be.

“I was left believing that I would be a mom sitting on the sidelines observing the life of her family, and not participating.”

Three weeks after my sister passed away, I left for a conference is St. Louis Missouri that would change everything. Not only did I have new budding perspective on life through my grief process, but I was also searching for hope in the darkness. Dr. Stuart McGill’s Ultimate Back Conference would give me the missing links to what truly heals diastasis recti and its symptoms.

“Ten years of education, experience, and hundreds of clients later, I am a witness there is hope for you too.”

Three stages to healing diastasis recti:

There are stages to healing, and each one builds on the other. This is what I discovered and uncovered over the years through the work with hundreds of clients (both women AND men). The interesting component to these stages is that you can come in and out of them, depending on what is going on in your life. For instance, after a terrible fall years into my healing, I went back to stage two and then quickly back up to three again. The beauty in having a process is that it is there for to fall back on when you need it.

• Stage one: Closing the gap
• Stage two: Creating balance
• Stage three: Strengthening other supportive muscles

Stage one: Closing the Abdominal Separation Gap

You better believe this is about posture. This is about what you do every day that either moves you backward, or keeps you stuck. There is not a diastasis recti program out there that would disagree on this point and there are many great ones that meet many different needs! Allow me to qualify what a closed diastasis recti gap is, as there are some differences between experts in the field. Closed, by definition, is when there is less that a 1 finger gap of separation. I go further to say that a closed diastasis recti gap is when any negative symptoms are gone and you are capable of functioning with strength and synergy every day and in all you want to do. Focusing on closing it any further beyond freedom from symptoms is purely for aesthetics.

You can have all the symptoms and not have tear. Over stretched and unresponsive muscles cause the same issues. Many of my clients fall into this category. You can see this bulge visibly. It often creates a rectangle of unsupported tissue around the belly button. If pregnancy was not the cause, weight loss/ gain, or extreme abdominal pressure is the likely culprit. This is most common with diastasis recti in men. The stages and exercises to close the ab separation work the same for you!

Exercises to avoid with Diastasis Recti

Full transparency, aesthetics matter to me and therefore there are some exercises I simply avoided while closing the gap, and some that I personally continue avoid. For me, this was about letting go of my ego. I know that the instructor of my favorite HITT class loves to finish with burpees and I do not want to look like a quitter, but I also know that squat thrusts are just as hard and would not hold me back from healing. The key here is to know what works for your body.

It is my goal to see everyone move in ways they love, but you need to have the awareness about how you move if you want to keep your gap closed. I want to refer you to some resources that talk about the importance of reducing intra-abdominal pressure in exercise (IAP), and share with you a few moves that create high levels of IAP. This knowledge will allow you to consider what movements would be beneficial to avoid in your early stages of healing and awareness building phase of stage one.

Movements that create high intra-abdominal pressure: (Movements to avoid)

• Burpees
• Planks
• Wide leg deep squats

In contrast, things you should do during stage one of healing diastasis recti:

• Become aware of your slouch!
• Learn to brace and support your core the day with some gentle tension
• Hinge from your hips and keep your spine straight.
• Strengthen the glutes, and internal and external obliques
• Breathe right, from your belly
• Poop right, knees up, no pushing or straining

Stage two: Healing diastasis recti with total body balance

Whether you are aware of it or not, you have imbalances from left to right- and front to back all over your body. For the last 17 years as a Certified Corrective Exercise Specialist and Personal Trainer I have never met a perfectly balanced human. Imbalances are normal and often go unnoticed, until the day they speak up with a pain signal. This is the day your nervous system starts talking to you in the form of tension, pain, or a lack of strength. The best solution is not to panic and take action by listening, thanking your body for the signal, and working to find a solution.

“One of the many contributing factors of diastasis recti are imbalances in the body right to left and back to front.”

How to create a balance of strength in the body

• Do bilateral strength work where you only use one side of the body at a time.
• Isolate the core, then integrate it with other muscles at the same time.
• Use tools like foam rollers, massage therapist, or infrared saunas to release tension.

Stage Three: Exercises to do with Diastasis Recti

Strengthening your whole body while engaging your core is the final task to truly healing diastasis recti. The best core work at this point is done with the intent to create connection from the core to the upper body, and the core to the lower body. These kinds of exercises should be dynamic, challenging, and improve both strength and mobility.

Through movement, the nervous system creates connections called neural innervation. Image how a plant expands its root system over time, these neural connections look just like that! The truth about the separation is that once torn, the muscles do not grow back together, but you can teach your body to function as if there is not tear through synergy.

At this point in your healing journey your core exercises begin to be a part of the way you prepare and or cool down from intense activity. They make you feel good and help you perform better every day. Even though you don’t need to do stage three exercise every day, you might find them to help you after long periods of sitting as a way to break up a long workday.

Stage three of my Core Restore Program 9 week Program includes:

• Four complex movements repeated 3-4 times each
• 15 minutes or working time in the full session
• 2-3 sessions a week
• Long lasting results
• A great warm-up, cool down, or active rest day workout

Learn more about my Core Restore Program.

Healing diastasis recti later in life

I hear women resign themselves to looking and feeling bad because they believe this is the way their mothers did it, and so will they. But it is never too late to start your healing journey. Muscles can always be strengthened, that is how they are designed to function. It is possible that years of working around your injury has left you with pain and movement patterns that you learned to live with and even embrace. It is important to recognize the healthy tension between acceptance and wanting something better for yourself. I believe you have nothing to lose but trying to make a better life for yourself at any time. This is your life, so starting living!