First Way to Reconnect with Your Core: Diaphragmatic Breathing!
6 Early Postnatal Core Exercises: We can do diaphragmatic breathing exercises as one of our first core exercises postpartum. Focus on gentle inhalations to feel mild expansion and increase in pressure, and then gentle exhalations to feel the pelvic floor muscles and core engagement up and in.
This is VERY gentle.
We can also try breathing in multiple positions, such as supine, reclined, side-lying, all fours, seated… each of these positions will present a different demand on our core!
The supine position uses the floor as support for the entire core. It may be easier to relax in this position, and since it is supported by gravity, it will likely be one of the easier movements on the pelvic floor. You could even elevate the hips if you wanted even less demand on the pelvic floor, such as putting a pillow under your hips.
The side-lying breathing position will change the demand of gravity on the core as you breathe. We can also play around with hip positioning to adjust the tension in the pelvic floor, such as shifting the right hip forward (drive right knee forward) or drive the left hip crease backward.
The all-fours breathing position puts more demand on the front abdominal wall, since the core now needs to work harder to maintain the neutral spine position. If we relaxed, you may find that the belly drops to the floor, or the back arches. When in the all fours position, we want to focus on the bottom of the rib cage and top of the pelvis drawing towards one another on the front. This will help turn the core on much more!
Next: Reintroduce Core Stabilization
We can start some gentle, floor-based core exercises around 2-3 weeks postpartum. Again, no rep scheme or rounds, just move for a few minutes connecting with your core. These are very gentle core exercises, and you shouldn’t feel sore after doing them. We are just looking to help you learn how to maintain your torso position (aka core stabilization) as your arms and legs move.
These movements are the starting core warm-up movements in our postpartum fitness programs. As the arms and legs move, we want to ensure that the torso maintains its position; no arching in the back! Exhale as you extend the arm or leg, inhale as you bring everything back towards the center.
The exercises include:
Deadbug
Side-Lying Hip Abduction
Bird Dog
The deadbug is similar to the supine breathing exercise, where the back is supported by the floor. There is little demand from gravity, so we are able to focus more on connecting our breath to movement. Exhale as you extend the arm overhead. This will help you engage the core so that we can keep the ribcage down, as opposed to arching in the back. We want to focus on maintaining the torso position as the arm extends. Inhale to bring the arm back up, and then switch sides. You can either put the feet up on a supported surface, such as your couch or place your feet on the floor.
The side-lying hip abduction is similar to the side lying breathing exercise, but we are going to be working the side glute and obliques. Align the ankle, hip, and elbow, as the knees sit more forward. Place a pilates ball between the thighs. Exhale as you extend the hips forward, to find full extension in both hips, as opposed to lifting the hips towards the ceiling. Inhale to sit back. As you move, ensure that the ribs and pelvis stay aligned in the side body. There may be a tendency to bend in the side as you lower.
The bird dog is similar to the all fours breathing exercise, where we have more of a demand from gravity on the front core. We want to focus on maintaining the connection between the ribs and pelvis by drawing them towards one another. Exhale to extend one leg back, focusing on keeping the hips level. We want to avoid arching in the back as you extend, so really focus on that rib-pelvic connection. Inhale to bring the leg back in. After you do the legs, you can do the same breathing with the arms. Exhale to extend one arm forward, inhale to draw it back in.
Watch the video below to see the movements in action and for a breakdown!
We offer several postpartum return to fitness programs. Our main program is our 16-week program that is delivered via the Teambuildr app with demo videos. This program is offered both in a gym version and a limited equipment version.
We just released our on-demand postpartum fitness program, where you follow a video to do your workout.
And, we have several sport-specific programs depending on your fitness goals! We have Olympic weightlifting, running, and even ACFT improvements for our military folks.