Have you got a diastasis recti?
Do you know how to measure your abdominal separation?
Diastasis recti occurs when in the membrane joining the ‘6 pack’ abdominal muscles together stretches and the abdominal muscles move apart creating a gap.
Knowing how to measure separation helps you manage diastasis recti repair and understand when you may benefit from diastasis recti exercises.
This short video shows you how to measure the size of your diastasis recti.
Video duration: 2 minutes 54 seconds
Suitability: general
Please scroll down below this video for written guidelines for measuring diastasis recti and links to abdominal exercise videos
Strength & Core video is a pelvic floor friendly core exercise workout with Physiotherapist Michelle Kenway
This whole body workout that strengthens your core abdominal and pelvic floor muscles in addition to whole body strength and posture training.
Strength & Core Workout includes exercises designed to:
Diastasis recti is a separation of the two rectus abdominis or 6 pack muscles where they join in the midline. These two abdominal muscles are joined together by a strong membrane called the line alba.
When the abdomen is stretched during pregnancy or labour, the joining membrane can stretch causing a diastasis or separation of the rectus abdominis muscles.
During pregnancy the abdominal muscles stretch and the linea alba widens.
The linea alba can stretch apart in pregnancy or during labor when the abdominal muscles contract forcefully.
A number of factors can cause or increase the likelihood of diastasis recti including:
The diastatis or gap is measured by the number of fingers that fit in between the two rectus abdominis muscle bellies.
Normal separation = 1 finger space separation or less
Diastasis recti = a muscle separation or gap between the rectus abdominis muscles of 2 or more finger spaces or a distance of 25 mm (just less than 1 inch).
This means the tissues joining the rectus abdominis muscles have stretched apart. The wider the gap, the larger the separation of these two muscles. Some women can have very large abdominal muscle separation of greater than 4 finger spaces.
Women with diastasis recti usually benefit from Physiotherapy treatment including safe abdominal core exercises.
Step 1
Lie down on your back with both knees bent
Step 2
Place your index and third fingers directly above your navel (belly button). Your fingers should be aligned side by side and pointing in the direction of your feet.
Step 3
Raise your head and shoulders off the supporting surface and feel for any gap or dip under your fingers.
Step 4
Lower your upper body back to starting position.
Unfortunately many women return to the gym after pregnancy and childbirth and perform inappropriate abdominal exercises to flatten their belly. Many standard core abdominal exercises delay healing or worsen rectus diastasis.
Exercises for rectus diastasis are those core exercises that retrain the control and support of the deep core abdominal muscles (e.g. transverse abdominis).
Exercises to avoid with diastasis recti are similar to those unsafe core abdominal exercises to avoid with pelvic floor problems. These are the core abdominal exercises that involve strong and/or repeated contractions of the rectus diastasis or 6 pack muscles.
Diastasis recti exercise to promote healing typically starts with relearning how to activate the core abdominal muscles correctly before progressing to safe core abdominal exercises that are progressed over time.
Diastasis recti is a separation of the rectus abdominis or ‘6 pack’ muscles in the mid line of 2 or more fingers spaces.
The size of this muscle separation is readily measured by feeling for the gap when lying down and raising the head and shoulders off the supporting surface.
If you have a diastasis recti avoid intense and repeated abdominal core exercises involving the rectus abdominis muscles as these exercises can potentially delay diastasis healing.
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