How to Really Know Which Exercises Are Safe for Your Diastasis Recti (Free Cheatsheet)
Many women have diastasis recti (DR ). While it naturally occurs during pregnancy (in 100% of women) and should resolve on its own within 12 weeks after birth, oftentimes it doesn’t. About 39% of women still have DR at 6 months postpartum and 32% still have DR at 12 months postpartum.
If that’s the case, there are postures, strategies, and exercises that can encourage things to get back to where they should be for a stable core and pelvis.
But if you’ve looked online for diastasis recti exercises, you’ve probably noticed there are a lot of do’s and dont’s. Many women wonder, do I really have to follow all of those restrictions forever?
In this post, I'll be sharing:
How Diastasis Recti occurs and why some women struggle with it while it resolves spontaneously in others
Symptoms and side effects of Diastasis Recti
How to Check Yourself For Diastasis Recti
Common Do’s and Don’ts for DR…Are They Really For.Ev.Er?!
Nutritional & Lifestyle Considerations for Diastasis Recti
How to Really Know Which Diastasis Recti Exercises Are Best For You
When to Get Help
Free Printable - Diastasis Recti Cheatsheet
So if you’ve been bothered by Diastasis Recti at any point and want to make sure you’re doing the right things to resolve it for good, keep reading.
How Diastasis Recti Occurs and Why Some Women Struggle With DR While It Resolves Spontaneously in Others
As I mentioned earlier, diastasis recti occurs in 100% of pregnant women. The linea alba naturally widens and thins as the abdomen expands to allow for baby to grow. This becomes a problem when the core becomes overstrained and can no longer maintain strength and stability. And when this happens, it’s not just a poochy belly that is the issue. Diastasis recti becomes a whole body problem which always involves the pelvic floor, diaphragm, ribcage, pelvic girdle, and spine.
So you can see that diastasis recti is definitely not a standalone issue. And while it sounds like it’s a normal occurrence in pregnancy, the problem comes when it doesn’t spontaneously resolve within a few months postpartum.
Which begs the question, why does it resolve in some women and not others? Of course, like anything else, the answer is, it depends. A lot has to do with pressures and load management which you can read about in this post. Other factors are strength of the tissues as it relates to fitness but also nutritional components. Tissues need good nutrition to be able to generate force without injury. Also, size of the baby, how you were carrying, the birth itself…all of these are contributing factors.
The best way to keep a diastasis recti from sticking around is to prepare your core and pelvic floor before and during pregnancy and to follow some specific modifications to help protect your body as it’s more vulnerable after birth.
Symptoms and Side Effects of Diastasis Recti
There are many symptoms that may accompany diastasis recti. And while some are thought to be a direct result, there are others that may be side effects or just part of the bigger problem.
The most commonly promoted one is a belly pooch that makes you look pregnant even when you’re not. Also, doming or caving in down the midline when you do anything sit-up related - like a crunch, sit-up, or sitting up from a lying down position.
Other symptoms can include:
Pelvic floor weakness or tension
Incontinence
Back pain
Pelvic girdle pain (SIJ, symphysis pubis)
Rib pain
How to Check Yourself for Diastasis Recti
Say you have some of those symptoms but aren’t sure you have a diastasis recti. I mean, you can have back pain or incontinence as a standalone issue without DR. So the simplest way to know is to just check yourself.
Lie on your back, knees bent and feet on the floor. Use one hand to feel your midline at your belly button (palm facing you with your fingers pointing down towards the floor). Slightly lift your head and shoulders off the floor and feel the space between the two sides of your abdominal muscles. Notice how deep your fingers go, how many fingers wide the space is, and if you have any tension under your fingers or if it’s just squishy.
Repeat this same thing up closer to your rib cage and then again down lower below your belly button towards your pubic bone. Note any differences in the three areas tested. (note: the area where the belly button is is naturally wider/deeper).
So now you have a good idea of how well those muscles in your core are stabilizing.
Common Do’s and Don’ts for DR…Are They Really For.Ev.Er?!
If you have a diastasis recti you can never do sit-ups, crunches, or jack-knife again. Have you heard this one? If you’ve researched diastasis recti at all, I’m guessing you have.
So, like I mentioned in my 5 Little Known Truths About Diastasis Recti post, this is simply not a hard and fast rule. If you have a diastasis recti, you will have precautions to not do these exercises and movements UNTIL you’ve built up enough core strength to do so. And as I also mentioned in my other post, it all depends on your individual level of strength.
And while typically that’s where a post ends and says to contact a pelvic health PT/OT near you. Just for the sake of giving you the DIY option (cause that’s how I roll), I’m going to keep on going here and let you in on how EXACTLY to be able to tell which exercises you should and shouldn’t be doing based on your specific core strength level.
Nutritional & Lifestyle Considerations for Diastasis Recti
But first, I need to preface this to say that if you really want your strength, endurance, and tissue healing to be at its peak performance, you must also support your tissues at the cellular level. I mean, if your tissues are weak from lack of use only, then using them again will strengthen them. But if your tissues are weak because they don’t have all the minerals, vitamins, and nutrients they need to build strong cells and muscle fibers, then progress will be slow and movement is not going to be the only answer. The going will be much faster if you give your body the foundational building blocks to be able to grow strong cells and tissues to have the ability to build strength.
So first and foremost, to support healing of diastasis recti, you need to have all of these components going for you…
Eat plenty of real food. Preferably at least 90% plant-based as to avoid unknown toxins and diseases from secondhand food sources (animals). Best thing to do is go with non-processed foods exclusively. I know, it’s serious. But if you follow this bit of advice alone, you’ll be amazed at what a difference it makes in your overall health and hormone balance.
Better yet, grow your own food! I’ve been working on this one myself, and while I do have a garden in the ground, I absolutely love having a Tower Garden on my deck for quick access to fresh garden produce like leafy greens, cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes when I’m prepping meals. Life-saver!Drink enough water (or herbal tea) + minerals. Yes, water. No, to most other liquids. Why? Because many things like caffeine and sugary drinks actually deplete your body of needed minerals which means you have to play catch up even more with supplements and crazy good nutrition (and stellar gut health to make sure you’re actually absorbing the nutrients in your food). So…water or herbal tea. The occasional fresh squeezed juice. (Smoothies count as food, so I’m not ruling those out here btw.)
Lemon water is awesome first thing in the morning or about 30 minutes before meals to help get your stomach juices flowing for better digestion. You can use a straw to protect your teeth (I’m pretty lazy about the straw thing so just rinse with water or salt water after drinking lemon water). Also, make sure you eat a pinch (or more) of Celtic or Himalayan salt with each glass of water for great mineral balance. Makes a HUGE difference!Sunlight, fresh air, rest, whole body movement…just lumping all of these together cause I go into much more detail in my programs (coming soon!) for whole body health and hormone balance which supports muscle healing, tone, and strength-building potential. You NEED all of these things. Every. Single. Day.
Castor Oil Packs - not technically a nutritional thing, but an invaluable tool to help your body heal as it is a powerful liver detoxification support which helps with general inflammation and overall balanced hormones and health. For those of us (it me!) who are not genetically great detoxifiers, aka MTHFR mutants (not a cuss word), castor oil packs can be life-changing. I’ll share more on this in a future post cause I find them to be A-Mazing! They can be super simple with little mess, but do take some preparation and planning to get started.
Breathing and postural alignment - huge, huge, HUGE factors in diastasis recti prevention and reversal. I go over these specifically in my Women’s Health coaching program as well as in this post - #1 Habit Change That Could Make Your Prolapse Better. But in a nutshell, you need to be breathing into your ribcage (360°) with pressures distributing evenly throughout - not pressing forward through your belly or down into your pelvic floor. Spread the load.
How to Really Know Which Diastasis Recti Exercises Are Best For You
Here’s where I share a trade secret and am supposed to tell you to go see a Pelvic Health PT/OT who specializes in DR so you can get a personalized exercise program. But since I’m an advocate for DIY health, I’m going to go ahead and let you in on how to figure this out for yourself if you want to.
It’s not super difficult to do but does take awareness and creativity to adapt your exercises (and daily activities) to meet your current level of fitness and help you build, not break down your core strength.
First, pick an exercise, any exercise. Let’s go with a plank as an example. Instead of going into a regular plank on hands and feet, start in a more vertical position, like against a wall. Place one hand on the wall with your feet out a bit so you’re slightly leaning forward in a semi-plank position.
Use your other hand on your belly to feel for bulging or gapping while you do the exercise. Feel up and down your midline - from ribs/sternum to pubic bone, testing for muscle tension/activation (which is good), squishiness, and/or gapping or bulging all along the connective tissue. If you feel like there’s a weak spot, see if you can engage your transverse abdominis (TA) (draw up through your pelvic floor to draw your belly up and in) and see if that resolves the weak spot. If not, don’t do that exercise just yet and try something less challenging to the core.
If it’s challenging but you can engage your TA and get good tension to correct the weak spot, bulge, or gap, you’re good to go with this exercise as a way to strengthen those muscles and can continue increasing difficulty as your strength improves.
If this was easy and no problem with the midline, take it to the next level and test again. Use a table chair, bed, or couch, etc. and try a plank at that level - between vertical and horizontal. (Also be aware that a squishy or unstable surface - like this crazy swively chair I used - will make it more difficult so you can adapt level of difficulty that way as well). Again, one hand on belly, one hand on the table/chair. Try a plank, see what you feel.
Can you engage your core so there’s tension in the midline or is it too difficult to do so? If it’s too difficult, go back to the upright position or somewhere between the two levels. If it’s difficult, but you can do it for a bit, this is a great exercise to stick with to build strength and endurance. If it’s super easy, try the next level down to a lower surface - maybe down to the floor at this point - and try again.
Like this…
Once you find an exercise that you can engage your core to where the midline has a bit of tension, doesn’t bulge/gap, and is still a bit of a challenge, that’s the level you should start with and can work on increasing your time for endurance and changing up position/surface stability for a functionally strong core.
In my test, I could do each of these positions with an engaged core but found the middle one on the unstable chair to be the most challenging. So I would definitely keep doing that one for the challenge and perhaps the regular plank on the floor for building more endurance.
Also, if it’s an exercise like a plank that uses your arms, make sure you test with and exercise both sides.
You can do this test with crunches, dead lifts, chest presses…anything where you can have one hand free to assess your midline and see how it’s keeping up.
Give it a try and see what you can do!
When to Get Help
Like I’ve said before, I’m a big believer in the DIY approach and have gone that route myself on numerous occasions with a ton of research and experimentation. But it definitely helps to reach out for support to make sure you’re on the right track and to help keep you motivated. Working with a Women’s Health Coach can be just what you need to make it to the next level. If you’re feeling discouraged, stuck, or have severe diastasis recti (very wide, deep, or where you can’t feel the tissue tensing AT ALL when you’re attempting to contract your TA), reach out for more support.
Free Printable
Be sure to grab this free printable cheat sheet so you can easily self-check for Diastasis Recti during your workout routine.
Note: For educational purposes only. Not to take the place of or be taken as medical advice.
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