“This is my 2nd birth and I haven't had the mental or physical capacity to really feel like I'm getting any strength or stamina back. My core feels so weak it's almost like it's missing - which is something I experienced with my first birth as well.”
Katharine
It’s really common to feel like your core is missing after pregnancy and birth.
Your abdominal muscles get streeeeetched during pregnancy, which can result in abdominal weakness, or, your abdominal muscles becoming underactive. Underactive muscles may have a hard time showing up when you need them, and it can sometimes result in that feeling of being “missing”.
Your pelvic floor muscles are also impacted by pregnancy and birth, which can result in tightness, weakness or lack of coordination. Your pelvic floor muscles are the bottom of your core, and work with the lower abdominal muscles when your body is doing something hard (like holding a plank or lifting a baby). If your pelvic floor muscles aren’t working properly, your lower abs probably aren’t, either.
Over the weeks, Katharine started to show me less wavy, “so-so” hands, and more thumb’s up signals when I asked, “are you feeling this in your belly?” doing core work. By week 6, the wavy hand was gone.
Here’s what helped Katharine find her missing core:
360 Degree Breathing
Pregnancy disrupts normal breathing patterns. The more your baby grows, the more your baby pushes up on your diaphragm, which disrupts your ability to get a good inhale. Muscles have to fully lengthen in order to fully contract. A shallow inhale doesn’t allow your lower abs or pelvic floor to lengthen, which means you won’t get a good contraction of those muscles, either.
The key to getting your abs firing again is reestablishing your breathing. Your breath doesn’t go back to normal just because you delivered your baby. You have to work on it.
To get a good inhale, visualize sending your breath all the way down to the bottom of your pelvis. As your breath moves down, allow the entire circumference of your ribs to expand.
As you exhale, your belly, ribs and chest should soften- in that order.
It takes time and consistency to reestablish good breathing patterns. Pick something you do multiple times a day, like feeding your baby or rocking your baby to sleep, and use that as a time to practice your breathing.
Learning to contract from the bottom up
Most of us don’t contract our abs correctly. We push from the top down, or, we suck our belly in. Both are poor strategies for recruiting your abs, and can create abdominal dysfunction.
A good abdominal contraction starts with a good inhale- which is why you need to work on your breathing first. On your exhale, lift your pelvic floor and gather your abdominal muscles toward your midline. It’s like zipping up a pair of pants.
When you contract from the bottom up, you get your lower transverse, internal obliques and lower rectus firing- hello, low abs! Nice to meet you! It can be helpful to add a sound to your exhale, like “ha” or blowing the air out of your lips like you were blowing through a straw.
Then, you can add this to your strengthening exercises, like when you are tilting your pelvis back in a pelvic tilt, lifting your hips into Bridge Pose, or working Dead Bugs and Leg Lift progressions.
Please don’t lift your pelvic floor and contract your abs with every exhale. That’s not healthy for your abs or pelvic floor, either. Use it during hard movements, like picking up your baby, or when you need to stabilize your trunk in a movement like Bird/Dog.
The right cues
“Engage your abs”is a stupid cue.
Why? Most people don’t know how to engage their abs. It’s a good cue if people know how to do it, but it’s not a good cue for people who don’t.
Here are some better cues and techniques that I use with my students to help them learn how to properly recruit their abdominal muscles:
Draw your two front hip bones toward one another
Diamond of the low belly- picture the shape of a diamond between your pubic bone, naval and two front hip points. When you want to recruit your abs, make that diamond smaller by gathering those 4 points together.
If you are squeezing a block or a ball between your thighs in a crunch, Bridge, wall sit, or hands and knees position, as you exhale, think of pulling your low belly away from the block/ball.
Postural awareness
Something else I noticed right away about Katharine is that she had a tendency toward an anterior pelvic tilt, and trouble keeping her neck in a neutral position. Both your neck position and pelvic position affect the way your abs work.
When you are re-learning how to find your abdominal muscles, the best way to start is from neutral spine and pelvic positions. The best way to find this is to think of your sacrum (the flat bone at the base of your pelvis in the back), shoulder blades and back of your skull in one long line. Start with supine work of the floor, because you will be able to feel those bony landmarks against the floor. Then, try it from hands and knees (keep your ears above your shoulders!) and eventually, progress to upright positions. Low Bridges with a neutral spine (so, pretty low) is a great way to get your abs firing.
If you’re ready to get your core working again, like Katharine, Yoga for Moms with New Babies starts in September.
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