I’ve seen a bunch of folks “attending” the 30-Day Ab Challenge Event (or whatever it’s called) on Facebook. And I would totally do it (kudos to accepting the challenge, peeps!), but after having four babies (the two oldest so close together — 16 months — along with the two younger littles just about as close), I’ve discovered I suffer from Diastisis Recti.
Do you know what that is? It’s a separation of your lower abdomen muscles, which results in a gap that can vary in size. It turns out that one out of three women who have been pregnant suffer from this. I can’t find the page where I originally read this exact statistic, but I did come across a blog that references it.
Source: The MuTu System
When I first discovered it I didn’t know what it was, just that I would sometimes have a shooting pain after I did crunches or when I bent over to tie my shoes or pick something up and that when I sat at a certain angle, there was a protrusion up the middle of my stomach, and at another angle a gap into which I can fit my fingers. When I showed the hubs he told me to ask my OB about it. She didn’t diagnose me. Only said if it caused me enough pain we could operate (thinking it might be a hernia, which, by the way, if you don’t take care of/improve the Diastisis Recti, you could end up getting). I thought that was a bit extreme and decided just to deal with it. But she also didn’t tell me how crunches, planks, and certain yoga and pilates moves can make the condition WORSE.
Olas & Chanclas 