Mythbusting Or "the nonsense people talk about diastasis recti!"

I made the mistake of searching "diastasis recti" in my social media feed on Threads this week and boy-oh-boy..did I come across some nonsense.

So that's what I'm doing today, another "mythbusting" episode.

Can you heal within 28 days by doing only 4 exercises?

Is breathing useless?

Why do people use meaningless jargon?

Do posture and alignment REALLY mean as much as "they" say?

And why high-protein diets are not required for postpartum recovery.

And so much more.



As always; HPNB still only has 5 billing cycles.

So this means that you not only get 3 months FREE access, no obligation!

BUT, if you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS! That's $50 max spend, in case you were wondering.

Though I'm not terribly active on  Instagram and Facebook you can follow us there. I am however active on Threads so find me there!

And, of course, you can always find us on our YouTube channel if you like your podcast in video form :)

Visit healthypostnatalbody.com and get 3 months completely FREE access. No sales, no commitment, no BS.

Email peter@healthypostnatalbody.com if you have any questions, comments or want to suggest a guest/topic   
 


Playing us out this week; "Sky Walker" by Grace McCoy

Transcript

Peter: 0:00

Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert, Peter Lap. That, as always, will be me. Today is just little old me again and I'm doing diastasis myths again. I was looking around Threads the meta Twitter thing today and it made me cry a little bit. So we're talking diastasis, recti myths, posture and alignment myths and all that sort of stuff. I promise you it's going to be great fun. So without further ado, here we go. Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with little old me. This is a podcast for the 2nd of June 2024.

Peter: 0:59

And time flies and I know the last few weeks I've been putting out some from the vault type episodes and interviews that I've done before. But today it's a little old me again. I've got Kitty here, I've got Lola here. I am insanely busy with the thing I still can't talk about, which is so annoying because it does take a bit of time, away from the podcast and even from the website and all that sort of stuff. By the way, peter, at healthypostnatal bodycom, if you do have any questions, I still respond to emails quite quickly, usually within about two or three days, um. So you know, I like to think that that that is quite quick, um, and if you need a bit of extra assistance, like some of you have been getting in touch and hey can have a quick, uh, quick chat, uh, then I'm always happy to help. Uh, I never charge for that stuff, right? Um, it is always one of those that I just like to then use what we've discussed for like a podcast episode or a blog or something like that, if I ever get around to writing blog posts again.

Peter: 2:01

So today I was. I was looking online, uh, as I am prone to do every six months or so, because I hate the internet and I especially hate looking around for anything to do with Diastasis recti, because there's just so much bad information out there, there's so many bad accounts on social media, and it just annoys me. It annoys me beyond belief. So I I tend to I tend to avoid it because I don't want to end up arguing with people about, you know, they're just promoting their business, and I don't want to argue with people on online because it, you know, gets me in that argumentative mindset that I'm really trying to avoid.

Peter: 2:50

However, there are some myths that came up and I thought, you know, be worth discussing, because you might have come across some of these things. So to start with something I saw someone else mention. They said you can heal diastasis recti within 28 days by doing four exercises. That's kind of what this person was telling First of all. No, you can't. You can't heal diastasis recti within 28 days at all. Right, this goes back to the how long does it take to heal diastasis recti and I've written about this extensively recti and I've I've written about this extensively and uh for for many years now.

Peter: 3:31

The first four to six weeks of any diastasis recovery program is kind of just getting muscle functionality back. You can't close the gap within 20, 28 days. That is just not a thing. This is why I tend to not like all the 30 dayday diastasis challenges, because it implies that within 30 days it can be fixed. It's great to put a stretch of days together that you're exercising and it will help, and you should definitely build up a stretch of days that you're training, but it doesn't mean that at the end of that your problem is resolved, right? I always say this that you're training, but that doesn't mean that at the end of that your problem is resolved, right? I always say this Diastasis rectal recovery programs should all follow the same structure, every single one of them.

Peter: 4:14

It doesn't matter whether it's the healthy postnatal body one or MUTU or whatever. First four to six weeks is predominantly muscle activation stuff, so that's four to six weeks. Then after that you start strengthening stuff up, which is another four to six weeks, is predominantly muscle activation stuff. So that's four to six weeks. Then after that you start strengthening stuff up, which is another four to six weeks, and this is a best-case scenario sort of deal. So by the time you get to the three-month stage, which is where the trial for HPMB kind of runs out, that 13-week stage, you should have made tremendous progress.

Peter: 4:52

And if you have very standard diastasis and you're fairly early on, uh, postpartum um, so fairly early on in in your postpartum recovery, then then you can say, okay, my diastasis is almost completely fixed and I can do whatever I want to do now and everything else will just help heal it, um will help um heal my diastasis recti significantly. So I don't need to follow a postpartum specific program anymore. You can kind of just go back to doing what you want to do, as long as you're aware of your breathing and all that sort of stuff and your muscle activation when you do certain exercises, then that's completely fine, but you're already three months down the line and that's in the in the. I don't have a large separation and I'm fairly young and early in my postpartum recovery sort of stretch. It's 12 weeks, so 28 days is absolutely nothing. It is nowhere near enough time to recover from diastasis recti. Like I said before, diastasis recti can almost always be healed by exercise. It just takes longer than what these people are telling you. Now what this account also said was or this influencer also said, was do these four exercises to help heal diastasis recti or to heal your diastasis recti within 28 days, because that was actually the specific claim. There are not four exercises that you should be doing for 28 days that will heal diastasis completely.

Peter: 6:28

If you look at the Healthy Postnatal Body Program, I believe including the breathing exercises, we do six. We do six every four weeks in the home program and then we do different ones in the strength routine program. So for those of you not familiar with the HPEB program, very quickly it's a it's. We do a 10 minute home routine which is just one little circle to six exercises that you do every single day, and then we do two what I call strength sessions, which are which take longer, anywhere between 25 and 40 minutes or so and you do them twice a week, right? So that's a group of exercises and we keep adding progression to that. So after four weeks the system changes, the sessions change and they get a little bit more difficult.

Peter: 7:26

If you just do four exercises the whole way through, then you're not going to add the progression to it. So you need to add I don't know weights. So the best way to progress a squat, for instance, is doing 10 squats. If you can do 10, then you can either do more or you can add some weight to it. That is what the progression is.

Peter: 7:47

Um? This is why I'm also not a huge fan of people saying I have a four-week um beginners program, usually free, right, it's like a pipeline that a lot of coaches have. And then so you have a four-week beginner's program and then after four weeks people don't switch to the next program, right, you can't do a four-week program for three, four, five, six months. You need to increase the layer of difficulty, otherwise you're not going to make any progress. If after five months, you're still struggling with a the initial four-week program, then either the program is just terrible and not right for you at all, or you've not been following it properly.

Peter: 8:35

Um, but what happens nine out of ten times is people get the first four-week program and they do that for five, six, seven months because they don't want to spend the first, the next, however, uh, however much the the next program is, they don't want to spend the 50 bucks or whatever it is and and invest that in themselves. So they keep doing the the same exercises for three, four, five months. You You're wasting your time doing that. Just because something worked for the first four weeks doesn't mean it keeps working. That's kind of the whole point. You should always make it a little bit more challenging. So to do four exercises for four weeks, you're not going to make the progress you want to make. And the problem with that quite often is that people do that for three to four months. They stick at it and they're doing really well, as in with regards to. They build that stretch, they build that winning streak, so to speak. They build that up nicely, but they find that it doesn't work and then they say, ah, you see, it doesn't work. So that's why those things are not great. So if you're going to do a program. If you're going to do any sort of exercise routine, make sure that there is a level of progression to it and that it consists of more than just doing four random exercises that technically in themselves help train your abs and help train your core, but are not going to be sufficient to actually make any sort of really, really big uh big dent in in what you're trying to do Right?

Peter: 10:26

Something I saw from a similar account was a question that was asked of this person, and you can tell I'm trying to be really careful. It was asked of this person is I have had this for 32 years, can I still recover? The answer, of course, was yes, and this person will say it was right in saying that. And then they said but you need to be, you need to do your exercises and be in a calorie deficit to make that happen. Right, make let's make this very, very clear most people with diastasis recti do not need to be in a calorific deficit to be on a diet to help heal their diastasis recti, be on a weight loss diet for diastasis recti.

Peter: 11:10

There is no need for 9 out of 10, maybe 99 out of 100 people with diastasis recti to be in a calorie deficit to help heal their diastasis recti. The only way, the only time that that might be necessary, is if you have and you've mainly seen this with guys. To be fair if you have diastasis recti, which is mainly like beer, belly related type stuff and there's a lot of fat around the organs and all that sort of stuff and and and you know, uh, you have a lot of visceral fat and and you want to get rid of some of that to alleviate the pressure on the abdominal wall a little bit, right? Um, for most postpartum women that is not the case at all. And for me, someone 30 years later, 30 years postpartum, there is not inherently a need to be in a calorific deficit. It's not a weight loss thing, it is a muscular thing. And you know it's like saying can I get stronger biceps, can I get my biceps working better again after not having used them for a while, and then saying, yeah, but you need to lose a bit of weight to do that. No, you don't. It's not at all what it is.

Peter: 12:38

Diastasis recti is caused by internal pressure on the abdominal wall. That is fundamentally what it is. It's internal pressure, right, and as Anthony Lowe, the physio detective, rightly says it's an adaptation during pregnancy for the body to, you know, to separate the stomach muscles. Otherwise the baby needs to go somewhere right and you want it to go forward because you don't want it to go up and you don't want it to go down right, because then you're go up and you don't want it to go down Right Because then you're looking at prolapse and well, it doesn't. It never really goes up, does it? No one's ever vomited up there, baby, sorry, but it's, it's so. It needs to go, it needs to go out Right.

Peter: 13:19

So if that pressure is removed, then there is no reason why you can't heal the diastasis rectus. So unless your weight is causing a tremendous amount of pressure on the abdominal wall, you don't need to lose any weight. It makes no sense extra pounds or few extra kilos that women carry um, like during perimenopause and on all that sort of stuff, or just postpartum. Even um has no effect on your diastasis recti. It really, really doesn't. This is diastasis is not usually not a, especially not postpartum, is not a weight management issue. So you know, treat people who say that it is a little bit carefully.

Peter: 14:14

The reason I talk about food and diet regularly to do with diastasis recti is to do with bloating. It has nothing to do with diastasis recti is to do with bloating. It has nothing to do with weight management. Right, bloating isn't great because that is increased pressure on the abdominal wall. So bloating isn't ideal if you're constantly bloated when you have diastasis recti, because the recovery is much more difficult if you're constantly bloated. But that's the only reason. Never, ever believe somebody or listen to somebody that says you need to lose weight or else you can't heal your diastasis rectum after, especially years after, giving birth. That's just not the case.

Peter: 15:02

This person, this particular influencer, was really, really wrong on quite a few levels. Also, be a little bit aware of jargon. This is a post I came across today from someone who posted this in February. So you know, a diastasis is not improved through specific, through specific. Yeah, jesus, english Pete. A diastasis is not improved through specific rehab exercises or breathing a certain way. A diastasis is improved through adjusted movement mechanics, pressure distribution and progressive overload. That sounds, sounds clever, doesn't it? A diastasis is not improved through specific rehab exercises or breathing a certain way. So, basically, you know what most people recommend you do for diastasis that doesn't help is what this person is saying. That's wrong. Right, it's an old influencer trick. A diastasis is improved through adjusted movement mechanics, pressure distribution and progressive overload right now.

Peter: 16:11

We spoke about progressive overload earlier already. Now, this is something, uh, influencers do and coaches do if they want to sound slightly contradictory, so say, oh, what the other person is saying is actually wrong, what I'm teaching you is actually wrong. But what all these other guys are teaching you is actually wrong. But what I tell you is the truth, right? Okay, so let's break this down, because this is a jargony sort of phrase that is used to trick people into buying programs from people who are usually full of it. They say a diet is improved through adjusted movement mechanics yes, specific rehab exercises that is, adjusted movement mechanics, that's why we do these exercises. Pressure distribution yes, that's why we breathe a certain way. And progressive overload now, progressive overload, we spoke about already.

Peter: 17:10

That takes a little bit of time, but this person is essentially saying the things that don't work are the specific, are exercises and breathing, and the things I need you to do is move differently and and spread the load differently. So, pressure distribution right, to decrease that internal pressure, which is what breathing is for. This person is trying to be very, very clever by using phrases that sound better than they actually are. What they're actually saying is the old stuff works, because we know it works. There's a reason that we're telling people that listen, do these exercises in this order and breathe a certain way and there are some disagreements on whether I've spoke about this before.

Peter: 18:05

Diaphragmatic breathing helps. I don't think it's the most effective way to do it, but we know that the core breath and all that sort of stuff does help, not just because of that pressure distribution that this person talks about, but just because you're getting used to your body, your muscles. You're teaching your body and your muscles to function in a certain way, and that's what we're going for. I need people who come to me with diastasis recti, the where we're starting, like I said, with that muscle activation. The muscle activation isn't just because your muscles don't do what they're supposed to do in the right order. Quite often it's about getting you feeling how your body should be feeling, right.

Peter: 18:55

Most people and I saw this online today most people have no idea, um, what their body used to really feel like prenatal, before they had a pregnancy and therefore postpartum. It is really difficult to go back and say it should feel a certain way. If you don't know what your normal is, it's really difficult to feel your normal. Do you know what I mean? That level of awareness that needs to be created a little bit, and that is what that breathing is partly for. It teaches your body that through an exercise, as you exhale, the muscles should contract in a certain way, and it teaches you how movement should feel, how breathing should feel, and that's why I'm a huge fan of the core breath. There is more to it than just air in, air out, right, and that is an important thing. So be aware of people just throwing out phrases like it's not improved through specific rehab exercises and then they come out with adjusted movement mechanics. It's the same thing. It's just just stop it. Stop it already.

Peter: 20:30

Also, very quickly, I saw someone say that they'd never come across anything out diastasis rectal wise outside the two to three fingers range. Never anything below two fingers other than her own. One finger diastasis, right, and the reason you don't come across people with a one finger, so one and a half centimeter ish. Because let's again let's move away from the we're using fingers sort of thing right. Measure that stuff properly. Use a finger to measure and then get a tape measure to tell me how wide it actually is, because your fingers are smaller or bigger than my fingers Likely smaller if you're listening to this podcast, because my fingers are giant six if you're listening to this podcast, because my fingers are giant six foot four, man sausage fingers, right. So you need to be aware of that. So we use centimeters for this.

Peter: 21:26

There's a reason you don't come across this person doesn't come across a one finger, one centimeter, one and a half centimeters diastastasis. It's because it's not diastasis, and when people tell you they've they only ever come across two or three fingers, they're also either not as experienced as as an expert would be or they kind of just don't know what they're talking about. Right? I have said this before. I have had clients where they've had an entire hand that could basically squeeze in between the gap of their abdominal muscles and they could still recover from that through exercise. It just requires more patience through exercise and just requires more patient. It is not the end of the world if you have a large diastasis. Let's be very, very clear about this. If your friends all have two to three centimeters and they're all okay and you have four or five. That is not the end of the world. It needs a bit more work, right for you to bring it back to where your normal is, but it really is not that big of a deal from a rehab perspective.

Peter: 22:51

We don't have to be too scared about diastasis. I spoke about this before. You don't need to fear diastasis recti. It is not the scariest thing in the world. It can be annoying, sure, it comes with a whole heap of issues. Yeah, absolutely, it absolutely can do. It doesn't always right, but it can do. There's a clear link between back pain and diastasis. Yep, absolutely, but that doesn't mean that it's something to worry about. It's something that can be addressed and with the help of someone who knows what they're doing, it's not usually that difficult.

Peter: 23:29

I've been working with this lady once every couple of weeks for about a year now and she couldn't get out of the sofa. She couldn't get off the sofa, let alone off the ground, without rolling over. You know that pregnancy roll that they have you do when you're very pregnant and what they tell you to do when you're newly postpartum. She was doing that and she was five years postpartum after three kids, and she was still doing that. She could not get off the sofa by herself. Five years postpartum and she's completely fine.

Peter: 24:03

Is she in 100% true full control of her core? Yeah, pretty much for day-to-day activities. Doesn't mean she can do loads of strenuous gym stuff we're still working on it but she only sees me once every two weeks and then she does her own 10-minute every day, or most days, to be fair. And you know, holidays and life gets in the way and all that sort of stuff, so sometimes she doesn't exercise for a week. So for her to be able to be in control of her core, her gap is back to her normal. But the main thing is she can walk around and, knowing that she can sit down, she can get back up and and all that sort of stuff. That is what we're working on, um, and it's fine. It's 10 minutes a day and, like I said, she's been with me for about a year. Uh, it didn't take that long for her to get off the sofa again. To be fair, it took about six. Right, it's nothing to be worried about.

Peter: 24:56

It can almost always just be recovered through exercise and if not, you know and I shouldn't say this is a PT but tummy tuck surgery, so abdominoplasty, are ridiculously successful. You still need to exercise on top of it. But I have seen some beautiful work done by by surgeons with regards to diastasis, recti, uh, recovery and and uh surgery and and all that sort of stuff. Um, I mean, I've seen some phenomenal work the way, in a way, some surgeons out there have have given, uh, women with severe dystocia I mean we're talking really, really, really huge separations, a flat stomach, and then with a bit of exercise we get everything working again. It's phenomenal, it's almost always successful, but it's expensive, right, and not everybody can afford it. And I'm not saying to have it, I'm just saying that there you go, there's nothing to worry about with diastasis.

Peter: 26:02

Finally, posture and alignment. Just very quickly, does posture matter and alignment matter when it comes to diastasis? Yes, it does Right. Yes, it does Right. In an ideal, the pressure on your abdominal wall is less if your body is in a neutral alignment. This is why we do a lot of glute work in the HPMP program. There's an awful lot of glute stuff in there.

Peter: 26:35

Just because it pulls things back a little bit and it's a better alignment, that doesn't mean that you will have diastasis if you have slouchy shoulders. Now, in an ideal world. You don't have slouchy shoulders. You have better core activation if your shoulders are back a little bit, rather than the slouchy ones, right? That is why, uh, we do some. We do that type of stuff and this is why we focus on it, especially because when you're breastfeeding, you know your posture can be affected a little bit. Right, you're lifting heavy things, babies, travel systems, all that sort of stuff a lot for a prolonged duration. You're pushing prams and buggies and all that sort of stuff, and those things are a nightmare, especially in a city like Edinburgh, where I live. Everything is uphill or downhill, so you know it's much more of a struggle.

Peter: 27:21

And does posture matter and alignment matter? Yes, but not to the extent most people think it does. Like you need to walk around looking like Robocop and maintain good posture all day, every day. No, maintain comfortable posture all day, day now. Maintain comfortable posture all day, every day. If your back hurts all the time, then that's something that needs to be addressed. That's something that needs to be fixed, but that is hardly ever fixed by fixing your posture right.

Peter: 27:46

Everybody's posture is a little bit different and the the importance of posture in in diastasis rehab uh, diastasis recovery online right now is greatly exaggerated, up to the point where almost the same as high-protein diets and diastasis recovery. There is no need for you to be on a high-protein diet if you have diastasis recti. It is not going to help your recovery to be on a high protein diet if you have diastasis recti and are doing exercises for this right. It is so marginal but this stuff helps, yeah, so just don't worry too much about it. Anyways, that's me done. I've waffled for half an hour. That's pretty good.

Peter: 28:33

Going peter at healthypostnatalbodycom. If you have any questions or comments or anything like that, or want to be a guest. I have loads of more cool new interviews coming up, so that's going to be awesome. So I'm sending out invites for that this afternoon. You take care of yourself. Here's a new bit of music and you know I'll be back next week.

Peter: 28:52

Bye, now Sink your teeth in. Grab on by the heartstrings. What if they're resisting? So deceiving? Got a map around your finger While it's on the trigger. Your secrets are burning up. Can't pretend to cover up the demons inside your lungs, inside your guts, skywalking and you're up for it. Smoked up, but you're out of mind, skywalking, taking on no stand Even for the trick.

Peter: 29:49

Now to watch you lose your grip, skywalking, and you're up for it. Smoked up, but you're up for it. Throw a dagger, put your weapon right. Skywalking taking a noose Egon's gonna trip. Wanna watch your lips recline. You're so reckless A wolf in pretty clothing, but deep inside you're broken. Consequences have got you in their senses. Make you serve your sentence. Skywalking, and you're up for it. Smoked on the butcher at the mine. Skywalking, thinking I'm no slave. Egon's on a trip. You know what. To lose your grip. Skywalking, and you're up for it. Smoked on the butcher after mine. Skywalking, taking on no shame. Ego's gonna trip. Wanna watch a losing crowd Skywalking at your absolute height. Skywalking at your absolute height. Smoked on the butcher at the night. Skywalking, taking up no space. He's on for the trip. Wanna watch her lose her grip, skywalking at your absolute height Outro Music.