Diastasis Recti, DRA, or a gap or separation of the six-pack abs, is a worrisome topic for many during their pregnancy and postpartum! There is a lot of pressure to close the gap, and tons of programs target shrinking your waist and healing diastasis.
But, what actually causes diastasis? If we want to “heal” or “fix” diastasis recti, or the separation of the rectus abdominal muscles, it would be helpful to understand the underlying causes of diastasis!
Let’s explore three causes of diastasis and why your diastasis may not be healing postpartum!
3 Causes of Diastasis Recti (DRA)
If we can better understand the cause of DRA, we can better address managing it during pregnancy and healing from it postpartum.
Three Causes of DRA:
- Pregnancy (Surprise)
- Postural Tendencies
- Breathing Pattern
And if you have great posture and breathing, but you still are having issues with diastasis, it may be because you are NOT challenged enough, as opposed to doing too much!
Let’s explore these causes and how to advance movements to finally “close the gap.”
1) Pregnancy. Surprise!
Throughout pregnancy, our belly grows and grows as our baby grows! We need our abdominal muscles to separate as the tissues stretch and thin to accommodate your baby!
Diastasis is a normal adaptation to pregnancy!! If you carry to term, you will have diastasis. But not everyone will maintain diastasis postpartum.
So, just begin pregnant can be a cause of diastasis. Not a whole ton we can do about it, other than give birth.
BUT we can do a lot to minimize the damage that we cause to our tissues during our workouts and how we move throughout our day.
The biggest thing to focus on during the day is to minimize or avoid coning with exertion (also known as a hard cone). This is when the center of your abs tent or push out further than the rest of the abs when you are under demand, such as doing an exercise or coughing.
If this happens repeatedly, it could be causing excessive damage to the tissue which may make it harder to heal postpartum.
2) Postural & Movement Tendencies
Our postural tendencies, or how we tend to stand and move our bodies, can support our core integrity or worsen diastasis.
We are meant to move; we are definitely not saying that we need to stay in a stacked, neutral position all the time. But, when we live in a posture all the time, it can cause a muscular imbalance that may be problematic.
In addition, if our movement patterns are causing coning, it could be worsening a diastasis.
If you are living in an anterior pelvic tilt, where the ribs are thrusted upwards and the belly is stretched, we are thinning the abdominal wall even more which may make it more susceptible to pressure changes.
This could cause more coning than normal, prompting an imbalance in the core musculature, and may promote a belly breathing pattern (read more on this in the next cause).
If we are going the opposite direction, where we are favoring more of a sway back posture, where the ribs are shifted backward as the core and pelvic floor clench, then we could also be inhibiting healing from diastasis.
Ultimately, if we are trying to optimize pressure management of the core, we need the rib cage stacked over the pelvis! Pressure management is how we can manage diastasis throughout pregnancy and heal from it postpartum!
In addition to the front to back shifting of the ribs and pelvis in our postural tendencies, we also need to consider the lateral and rotational postural tendencies!
We may have more of a tendency to compress in the right-side body and flatten the upper left thoracic. This could affect how our diaphragm moves, and thus influence how well we can optimize pressure in the abdominal cavity.
This course explore your pelvic floor anatomy, function, and how to prepare your pelvic floor for birth! This course includes educational videos, mobility exercises, relaxation drills, and how to relax your pelvic floor during labor tips.
- 2+ hours of on-demand videos
- Immediate and lifetime of the course access
- Watch on Mobile Device
Watch the video below for a quick mobility exercise to release right-side rib compression and find upper back expansion to support better diaphragm movement!
Learn more mobility routines in our pelvic floor prep for birth course.
3) Breathing Pattern
The final thing that may be causing diastasis is our breathing pattern! How we manage pressure in the core depends on how we breathe!
If we utilize a diaphragmatic breathing pattern, we tend to optimize the pressure in the core, which can support core integrity and heal from diastasis.
When we diaphragmatically breathe, we inhale to expand in the rib cage (remember how thoracic mobility is important for the core and pelvic floor) which pushes the diaphragm down and out.
This expands the abdominal cavity 360 degrees: the abs, back, and pelvic floor. This increase in pressure stabilizes the spine and eccentrically loads the core so that it can recoil to generate power with an exhalation.
When we exhale, we lift up and in in the pelvic floor and lower abs, which increases the muscular activation of our core to help stabilize the spine and counter an increase in pressure from exertion.
The diaphragm is going to move best in a stacked position, which is why postural tendencies are important for management and healing from diastasis. Watch the video for more of a breakdown on diaphragmatic breathing.
All of our fitness programs come with an educational course to teach you how to position yourself and breathe to support your core and pelvic floor during your pregnancy and postpartum!
If we favor a chest breathing pattern, we tend to inhale up and then exhale down. When we exhale down, we tend to increase pressure against the abdominal wall and pelvic floor, which may cause more issues if the core is in a weakened state (hint, it is during pregnancy and early postpartum).
If we favor a belly breathing pattern, we tend to push pressure forward into the belly as we inhale, which may be putting too much pressure against the weakened abdominal wall.
Watch the video below for more of a breakdown of dysfunctional breathing patterns and why they may be causing issues!
Why is diastasis not healing?? You may not be challenged enough!!
But what if you have great postural tendencies, movement habits, and breathing patterns, but your diastasis is still lingering?
It could be that you are NOT challenging yourself enough! If your workouts are focused on body weight, and supine movements, then we need to up the challenge to increase the demand.
The more demand we put on our bodies, the stronger they will be. If we do not increase the demand, we may experience a plateauing in our healing postpartum.
Some easy ways to progressively increase the challenge (without overdoing it too fast):
- Change the setup: go from supine to seated to standing. Change how gravity is working against your body!
- Increase the loading! Add weights or resistance! This is an easy way to gradually make a movement more challenging.
- Increase the complexity. If you are doing a seated strict press, try doing it standing (more joints working), or adding a push press!
Here is an example of how we can progress a floor-based movement to something more upright!
The opposite press is a supine cross-body movement. This exercise is one of our favorites to incorporate for diastasis and core reconnection, but we cannot do this movement forever! We need to advance it.
We can advance it by gradually moving to an upright position in the reverse lunge. Then we can add some resistance by holding a weight and rowing with a band (which also adds some complexity).
And then we can incorporate the same knee press in a really different, and more challenging setup!
If you are unsure how to progress your workouts beyond supine heel slides that you learned in physical therapy, check out our postpartum fitness programs!
We have created programs with feedback from our in-person fitness clients and physical therapists to progressively help you return to fitness postpartum!
Causes of Diastasis & How to Manage + Heal!
Diastasis is a normal adaptation to pregnancy! We all will get diastasis if we carry our pregnancies to term. We need our abs to separate to accommodate for our baby’s growth!
But, our breathing pattern and postural tendencies may also be contributing to a worsening in our diastasis or lingering postpartum! Focusing on how we move our bodies and how we manage pressure are two helpful strategies to support healing postpartum.
If you are still having issues postpartum, it could be that you are not challenging yourself enough! Try to increase the demand for your workouts so that we can increase the density of the tissue to promote healing!