5 Mummy Tummy Facts Your Doctor or Your Gym Instructor Won’t Tell You
When it comes to losing your mummy tummy, baby belly, jelly belly, pooch, muffin top or whichever is your preferred affectionate name😊 there are a number of areas of confusion.
A quick search on YouTube and Google produced the following:
- “an exercise for diastasis recti which showed a pregnant woman doing oblique crunches
- an eminent plastic surgeon stating categorically that a mummy tummy was caused by “muscle weakness that no amount of exercise will improve”
- and a number of ‘postpartum exercises’ that involved lying flat on your back and crunching into a sit-up type movement.
PLEASE STOP RIGHT THERE! If you’re doing these things you are wasting your time and you will not get flatter abs after having babies, even a long time after having babies 🙁
5 mummy tummy facts your doctor or your gym instructor won’t tell you
1. Sit-ups or crunches (including oblique crunches where you twist as you raise your upper body) are NOT SUITABLE for any woman who has had a baby.
The reasons why are covered extensively on this blog (they make diastasis recti worse and exert pressure in all the wrong places). But it is important to understand that you are not ‘waiting for the gap ( diastasis recti) to close’, so that you can then do them. You never need to do them! Crunches are absolutely, categorically, without question, not the best exercises to get flatter abs.
2. *Going through the motions* of Pilates-style or core exercises without ensuring that your transverse abdominus muscle is correctly engaged, or *just sitting* on a Fit Ball / Balance Ball now and again is not going to flatten your abs.
It’s better than nothing, in the sense that your transverse muscle will need to ‘wake up’ a little. But Unless you consistently focus on correctly ENGAGING and WORKING your Transverse Abdominus then whatever exercise you’re doing, isn’t working. Note: whilst this will be a very conscious effort at first, it won’t always be so. Your weakened muscles simply need to re-learn their job!
3. Unless your pelvic floor muscles are integral to all your ab exercises, you won’t get a flat tummy. This applies if you had a c-section too!
Your ‘core’ is made up of your transverse abdomnius, your diaphragm, the multifidus muscles of the spine and your pelvic floor.
They are all connected and they all need to be strengthened following pregnancy and childbirth (regardless of the type of birth(s) you had). There is more to strengthening your pelvic floor than ‘squeezing as if you’re stopping yourself from urinating’. Newsflash: there is more than one hole down there!
4. Except in the case of an excessive gap (or hernia), You DO NOT need surgery to repair a diastasis or abdominal separation.
But also remember that surgery will not solve all your tummy problems. A tummy tuck (Abdominoplasty) fundamentally involves cutting away loose skin. It may also involve (“while you’re in there Doctor… ;)”) suturing the gap between the 2 halves of muscle, and maybe a bit of liposuction for good measure. You can strengthen your abdominal muscles and close a diastasis with corrective exercise – however long ago you had your babies and however weakened they might be. They’re MUSCLES. So you can strengthen them like any other. But you have to do it correctly, and in the right direction, if you want a flat tummy.
5. Diastasis Recti is not the only reason for your mummy tummy.
Unless you tackle nutrition, digestive issues, correct your posture and core strength AND lose the flab that sits on top, don’t blame it all on the gap in your abs!
So there you have it. Our 5 mummy tummy facts your doctor or gym instructor won’t tell you.
Do you still have questions?
Comment below and let us know. 👇👇👇
Hi, how do you know if you have a hernia or just diastasis recti?
Hi, Hernia, prolapse and diastasis recti are all results of excessive intra-abdominal pressure. This means that your abdominal and pelvic cavity cannot withstand the pressure within, resulting in pushing away, out or down at the weakest points – such as your pelvic floor or the mid-line of your abdominal muscles. By adjusting your alignment to allow your body to support itself more effectively and your muscles to work optimally, along with learning to connect with and engage the deep muscles of your core and pelvic floor… you can enable your core to become stronger and more stable. Read more on Hernia here.
Hi I had a tummy tuck repairing diastis rectify also, can I still keep it strengthen my tummy with your program? Just to keep it strong n healthy?
Hi I had a tummy tuck repairing diastis rectify also, can I still keep it strengthen my tummy with your program? Just to keep it strong n healthy?
If you have a hernia can you still see results in flatting your stomach? Do you still need to do abdominal exercises?
If you have a hernia can you still see results in flatting your stomach? Do you still need to do abdominal exercises?
Hey this is a great article and hopefully people will listen to this as all the crunches and sit ups in the world wont help but only cause you huge back pain.
You need to build your core muscles deep inside you and there is no exercise more effective than doing the plank, this is an isometric exercise so is done statically and really helps to work core strength and pull in your stomach by increasing the strength of your deep abdominals.
Anyone not knowing the plank needs to just google “the plank” and you will see many examples, nothing beats it.
Hey this is a great article and hopefully people will listen to this as all the crunches and sit ups in the world wont help but only cause you huge back pain.
You need to build your core muscles deep inside you and there is no exercise more effective than doing the plank, this is an isometric exercise so is done statically and really helps to work core strength and pull in your stomach by increasing the strength of your deep abdominals.
Anyone not knowing the plank needs to just google “the plank” and you will see many examples, nothing beats it.