PREGNANCY CORE WORKOUT | Transverse Abdominal Breathing + Pregnancy Safe Ab Exercises

Hi. Okay. I've been getting a ton of questions about pregnancy. Safe core exercises, what you do for pregnancy, what you do for diastasis, recti. All things with this big old pregnant belly. So I'm 20 weeks pregnant and with my second. So this is about twice as big as I was last time I was pregnant, I was about half this size. But my stomach is growing a little faster this time. So I, I'm going to walk through a couple things. First I'm going to tell you the number one exercise that I'm doing right now that I was doing before I got pregnant now that I'm pregnant and what I'll continue to do after I'm pregnant that all women should be doing. Okay. It's called the transverse abdominal breathing. And then we're going to add onto that by adding pelvic floor connection. So I'm going to walk you through that, what it is and how you do it. And then I'm just going to give you a couple pointers on things I'm starting to avoid, things I'm doing, how I'm modifying. I just got done teaching class so I'm all sweaty and I got my curly hair from sweat that like my curly hair comes out when I get pregnant. It's kind of fun for summer. So let's first talk ta transverse abdominal breathing. If you haven't heard of it before, you should be doing it if you're a woman. I mean everyone should just do this in general. So talk about one exercise everyone can do whether you're pregnant, postpartum, whatever you're doing. And you can do this throughout the day. It's kind of like, to be honest, it's super boring. It's not earth shattering stuff, but it's one of those things that. So good for you. Right? We talk about what we should be doing, but we just don't do it because it takes time and it takes a mental, you know, like you actually have to make time for it. So I'm going to pull my shirt up so you can actually see a little bit better probably with this gray. I'm all sweaty from teaching class. But okay, so transverse abdominals. So your transverse abdominals are your deep abdominal muscles. So they're basically what creates a core set for your belly. Your rectus abdominis is your six pack ab muscles that lay over that. So, so when you talk about diastasis recti or separation of the abdominals from pregnancy or previous pregnancies, that's your rectus, that's the layers on Top. We're talking about your deep core set muscles here. Okay. So you really want to target your transverse abdominals. So transverse abdominal breathing looks like this. So big inhale, belly expands, exhale, Pull that baby towards your back. That's pulling it in. Big inhale, exhale. My transverse abdominals pull around. So I like to use my hands as an actual visual indicator of what's happening to pull them in. And if you're wondering, okay, how do I even know if my transverse abdominals are firing? So a good indicator and I'll actually just go like this. So find your hip bones, go about, take your two fingers and go in from your hip bones right here. So you're going to feel like you're basically the pelvic floor muscle. So when you talk about round ligament pain that you get during pregnancy, that's where this would be. You're put your fingers on here. So inhale, relax. They're soft. It's soft right there. Right? Feel it. Soft. Now you're going to do your exhale, your transverse abdominal breathing. Pull it in. So inhale, soft. Exhale, pull belly in. Do you see how hard it gets right here? It should get really nice and tight. Okay, those are your transverse abdominals. You can physically feel them pulling in and getting nice and tight. And now how you strengthen them, the hard part. Can you hold your transverse abdominals so you inhale Now I exhale, pull it in tight. And I'm going to hold this. I got to keep breathing through it. So I'm not holding my breath. I'm going to continue to breathe through holding these transverse abdominals tight. Okay, so this is a breathing exercise you can do. See how long? Try for 10 seconds. You can continue to breathe through holding your transverse abdominals. Your abdominals should be nice and fiery right now, maybe even starting to get a little bit shaky. You're like, who? I don't know how much longer I can hold this and talk through it or breathe through it. Okay, that is a really awesome way to strengthen your transverse abdominals. And now we're going to layer onto that. So that's a good place to start. And now if you want to layer onto it, I'm going to connect my pelvic floor so my lady parts up to my transverse abdominals. So we're going to add transverse abdominal breathing with pelvic floor. So you going to pull it all together. So big inhale, belly goes long, exhale, pull them tight. Hold my transverse abdominals right here. And now I'm going to pretend that I'm picking up a blueberry with my lady parts. Okay. So I'm picking up a blueberry with my lady parts. And I pull it up, 2, 3, 4. Connect my pelvic floor to my transverse abdominals. See how baby's sucked in nice and tight. And this is starting to get shaky. And I'm going to relax it, but not all at once. Down, 2, 3, 4. So, like most muscles, so you're working your biceps, you pull up and you think, oh, I can just let them go down. Muscle building happens on the way down as well. It's what we call the eccentric motion. So I pull up on a slow 2, 3, 4. Connect my pelvic floor to my transverse abdominals. And now I want to go down slow, 2, 3, 4. Okay, so muscle building happens in both directions. So this is an easy exercise. And it's kind of boring, I know, but it's an easy exercise you can add on to while you're sitting at your desk working to. While you're just hanging out with your kids, while you're watching Netflix, doing whatever. You can do this literally while you're sitting. Inhale, exhale, Pull your transverse abdominals tight. Pull baby in. Or maybe your postpartum. Pull your abs back together. Or maybe you're just an everyday woman who's preparing for pregnancy. Or postpartum. Or maybe you're, like, three years down the road postpartum, still working on healing diastasis recti. Transverse abdominal breathing is awesome for everybody. And then when you add that pelvic floor connection, it's a whole nother layer. Okay. And it takes a while to get familiar with, like, what it feels like, what these muscles feel like, building that up. So it's just a really good way to get to know your body. So I hope that's helpful. And transverse abdominal breathing is so important because you want to pull that into all exercises you're doing. So I'm doing a bicep curl like I should be Ta breathing, like, pull it in nice and tight. My transverse abdominals are the stabilizers for bicep curls, for squats, for everything I'm doing. And. And as we get tired and we fatigue during a workout, it's really easy to let that layer fall off. And that's when you dip into your low back, and that's when you start to get injuries and things. It really all starts with your core and your foundation. So that is the number one strategy that I'm using to heal my diastasis recti from my previous pregnancy as well as protect this baby and protect my core this time around. And it's something I'll continue to do postpartum as well to strengthen my core and strengthen my pelvic floor. And so I just got done teaching classes and it's time for me to admit it's really hard for me. It's like I have to swallow my pride, but it's time to drop to my knees for planks and for plank and row and things like that. And so it's just every pregnancy is so different. So it's hard to specifically tell you what you can do, what you can't do based off of. If it's your first pregnancy, if it's your second, third, fourth, fifth, it changes. Your body changes, your fitness level changes as you come in and out of pregnancy. And, and so there are a lot of variables, but just a couple keynotes. So, you know, my body is happy or isn't happy with this exercise. So if I go into a plank right now my stomach is going to dome. So when I had my first pregnancy, I was about half this size at 20 weeks and I could still plank at this point. It still felt good for me. My transverse abdominals were still strong enough to pull everything nice and tight, but now I have like a 1 1/2 to a 2 finger diastasis recti separation from Brody my previous pregnancy. And my stomach has grown a lot faster this time. So planking causes a doming effect in my stomach or intra abdominal pressure that actually will separate my abs farther. It's not something not ideal, so I'm going to show you. It's kind of hard to see, but because I still try to use, I'm trying to use my transverse abdominals, right? So I'm still trying to pull everything nice and tight. But if I go into a plank, you're going to see my stomach dome, almost like a football shape. That's something you want to avoid. Anytime you have doming, you want to avoid that exercise. So one way I can avoid it is dropping to my knees in plank. I can now pull my transverse abdominals in and you're not going to see the doming when I drop to my knees. So it's still okay for me to do a modified plank from my knees because I'm not getting that doming because my transverse abdominals are still coming in. So yes, I have like a two finger diastasis recti separation. But then when I engage my transverse, so that's my, my over layer, my rectus abdominis. When I engage my transverse abdominals, it actually comes up and fills that gap. So it bridges that gap for me. So it still holds everything nice and tight. Because I've been working on my transverse abdominals and they're fortunately pretty strong. So I'll kind of show you. It's kind of hard to see on here probably, but okay, if I do a plank, my stomach goes into like a football cone, it domes, right? So now if I reset myself up, I engage my transverse abdominals and I go into a modified plank on my knees, I'm not getting the doming effect, right? I'm not getting the doming effect. So that's still exercise, that's safe. So you want to avoid anytime you have doming that's creating inter abdominal pressure that you don't want. So you want to avoid the doming in your stomach. And another way to know that your internal pressure system isn't happy with you is if you're leaking urine or incontinence. And I know that can happen throughout pregnancy because baby's sitting on your bladder. For me, it specifically happens when running. So around 20 weeks pregnant, I stop running or I really cut back and I do much shorter intervals. So instead of going for just like a 3 mile run, I'm going to do a 5k this weekend, but I'll probably walk, jog it instead of just going for a three mile run, I'll do like one to two minutes interval run and then I'll come off and do some strength. So running causes my bladder and my body to not feel good or not feel happy. And if I leak urine then I know my internal pressure system isn't exactly happy, but probably another exercise to avoid. So those are just a couple of the quick tips for how I am treating my core during this pregnancy. But transverse abdominal breathing and then connecting your pelvic floor, awesome place to start. And then you also have knowing if you're doming or causing an internal pressure that causes the doming effect, avoid that. And if it still feels good in your transverse abdominals and you're not getting that doming effect, you can still do it, right? Obviously, if anything doesn't feel good, don't do it. And just be aware of your internal pressure system. Your body is so smart and the more in tune you are with your body, the better off you'll be, right? The better off you'll be during pregnancy and in recovery mode too. So if you're leaking urine, you're seeing doming, it doesn't feel good. Don't do it. Find a modification. So I hope to share more information about all of this on the blog soon, but hopefully you guys found this somewhat helpful. And do your transverse abdominal breathing. Okay, bye you guys.