Hula Hooping with Diastasis Recti and backpain after diastasis exercise

 This week I answer 3 diastasis recti related questions;

Is Hula Hooping really good for healing diastasis recti?

I answer the question and talk you through how to make sure you can do your hula hoop class safely when you have diastasis recti/or at least a gap.

Is it normal to have lower back ache the day after doing some diastasis exercises?

It is not uncommon but it's also not quite right as it shows you you're pushing too hard, to the point that your exercise becomes counter productive.

After not healing my diastasis recti properly after my last pregnancy, I now find myself pregnant again. Will my abs be completely ruined??

In short, NO, not if you do the right things now. For the longer answer about why it is essential for you to start now, you'll have to listen :)


"In the news this week" I talk a bit about this study that came out in April that shows a clear link between MODERATE levels of physical activity and a significantly lower risk of depression. It just highlights the importance of exercise again, even if you only do a minimal amount you will likely get a big impact from it.

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Playing us out this week;  Yeux Cachez by Nom Fabrique 

Transcript

Peter Lap: 0:00

Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert, peter Lap. N, as always, would be me. This is the podcast for the 18th of Feb 2024 and no, I don't have a guest on. It's from the Vault episode from 2022. Because I've had similar questions that I had this week. I've had dealt with them before, so I just pulled that one out of thin air, so to speak, out of the ether. It's actually a better phrase. Is hula hooping really good for healing diastasis? I've shown this one mentioned again this week on Instagram. Is it Normal To have lower back ache the day after doing some diastasis like the exercises, and after not healing my diastasis like the properly, my abs will surely be ruined if I fall pregnant again. It's not actually true. It's just something people tell you to make sure you're scared enough to buy their programs. Without further ado, we'll get straight into it. It's a nice short episode. Here we go. Hey, welcome to the Healthy Post Natal Podcast. This is the podcast for the 8th of May 2022. And I am joined by Buddy and Kitty, who are being particularly boisterous. So if you hear doggies playing and tussling in the background, that's what that is, because you know Kitty's only just recently started playing, bless her little cotton socks. So I encourage it as much as possible. So I'm not going to stop them. So if there's no it in the background, that is just what we'll have to put up with. But I think they'll be fine.

Peter Lap: 1:47

What are we doing today? I'm answering three questions related to diastasis recti. You know it's another nice short episode. I've got a ton of emails to send out this afternoon. Thank you very much to a lot of people that kept sending emails in. You know I always appreciate getting an email or two in right. It's always much, much, much, much appreciated Because it gives me something to talk about. I've got five or six to get back to that I'm not covering here. But you know, as I always say, if you email in Peter at healthypositivitycom, I answer them all. I just don't always get to them on the podcast. But everybody, but you're a member of healthypositivitycom or not, I always get back to you without sales, as I always say.

Peter Lap: 2:33

We're back to diastasis recti related questions, so I'll just do them in the order that I mentioned them before in the intro. I'm going to get a nice short episode. We'll bang that out. There will be a little in the news this week and all that sort of stuff.

Peter Lap: 2:48

So first question I have heard that hula hooping is good for your core. Is it okay for diastasis recti? Now, I think I covered something similar before, but you know we've done 150 odd episodes of this thing. I think this is episode 160. So you might have missed it Right. So we'll go over it again.

Peter Lap: 3:11

Hula hooping is tremendous exercise for your core and it is completely safe to do so from a diastasis recti perspective, if, and only if and this is there's always a caveat, right? You know what it's like If, and only if, you have good core muscle activation. So if the muscles in your body that doesn't mean that they're strong, just it just means that the muscles in your body are working the way that they should, the muscles in your core work and pelvic floor are working the way that they should. If that is the case, so you have good muscle contraction, there is no muscular imbalance and all that sort of stuff, your glutes are activating properly, all that sort of thing, and the muscles are doing what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it, then hula hooping is awesome, because then it becomes good core exercise.

Peter Lap: 4:06

The problem that we find quite often is that if you start doing exercises whether that's hula hooping or exercise classes or any sort of core stuff if you do stuff that is slightly too advanced for you, then you're teaching your body to cheat a little bit and your body will figure out a way to make the movement happen without using the right muscles Right. And in the hula hooping case, that is you know that rotational movement. If that is all just in your hips and there is very little glute activation, but you say you wobble your entire body around like I would on the dance floor, so to speak. You know I'm moving, but it's not dancing. If you just focus on getting the hula hoop around, no matter what, then chances are that you'll not be using the muscles in the right way. So the focus has to be on are the muscles contracting properly?

Peter Lap: 5:08

So I would always, if you're thinking of going to join a hula hoop class or something like that is, try to do the hula hoop movement and see without the hula hoop, and see which muscles are working, when and if you can swing it. You know you get the session with a PT or with the hula hooping instructor or something like that, so they can just check and make sure that everything is working properly. They don't even need to be postpartum qualified for that, because they should know If you have a good instructor. They should know when a muscle is working or not let me put it that way when the movement is being done correctly or not. I have seen some amazing group exercise instructors that are perfectly fine to just say listen this, you feel those on your left. Yes, I do, you feel this in your back, you feel this in your bum, you feel this on your right and you feel this on your front, the front bit of your core, to your abs and all that sort of stuff, and they will be able to talk you through the entire hula-hoping motion, where you should feel what and they might even be able to. You know, if they place their hands on your core, on your abs especially, and your obliques, whether that is actually squeezing and working properly when it's supposed to or not.

Peter Lap: 6:28

You don't need to actually actively be using the hula-hoop at that stage and, of course, a lot of these hula-hoop classes come with weighted hula-hoops, right, so be careful that you don't start off with a hula-hoop that's too heavy for you. So make sure all the muscles are working properly and chances are you know you don't know yourself. Most people are not that aware of which muscles should be doing what at which stage of the exercise. So ask a professional to just guide you through and I'm thinking it would only take me about five rotations before I could figure out. Are you doing five rotations before I could figure out whether all your muscles are functioning properly or not? It doesn't take that long, so it's not like you need an hour-long session and five hula-hoops and all that sort of stuff.

Peter Lap: 7:20

Now, of course, if the professional says, yeah, actually you know your obliques aren't working properly yet, then you do some oblique activation exercises first. It might even be a good idea, before a class, to do something like the little home routine that Healthy Positon body has after the first four weeks even so, the core breathing, the core breath and all that sort of stuff. So for those of you who are not members of the program of the Healthy Positon body website, you can just go to the website and, without signing up, you can download the little guide, the postpartum exercise guide or the postpartum guide or whatever. Whatever I call it years ago it's an old one, so I'm not giving new information away here, to be honest. But that includes the seven-minute home routine. So if you use that as a warm-up before starting the classes, then you'll find that you've told your body that this is what we're going to be doing.

Peter Lap: 8:23

I now need you to start using the right muscles at the right time and then you can go on hula hoop and to your heart's content, just making sure that you know in the beginning you might only be able to hula hoop for five or ten minutes, and this goes for any exercise. I'm just using hula hooping as an example because I was asked this question. So any sort of exercise. If after 10-15 minutes you find your core is no longer doing the job it's supposed to do, your glutes are no longer doing the job they're supposed to do, but you are still moving around, that's your body cheating then, and then it's time to stop right and you increase the time that you can do it week by week, class by class and all that sort of stuff. So do a little warm-up. So, very simply, see a professional make sure everything works properly. It shouldn't be that expensive and shouldn't take that long. Then immediately do a little warm-up before the classes. Do the classes for as long as you can do the exercises properly and then stop and then build it up that way, right? That is how any sort of exercise should work, and I spent nine minutes talking about hula hooping. Already. I thought that was just going to be a five-minute bit. To be honest, sorry, I apologize, a little croaky throat right.

Peter Lap: 9:47

Question two is it normal to have lower back aches the day after doing some diastasis exercises? And this kind of leads nicely into that overexertion bit that unintentionally, to be honest, leads into that hula hooping thing where I said, if you keep going for too long, your body will start to find a way to cheat. Well, that's what this is right. If you have lower back pain before the day after so doing some diastasis related exercise, that means that at some stage your back has started to compensate for your core not being able to do the exercises that you were doing by itself. So I don't know if you do a crunch or a side plank or something like that. You know a side plank is predominantly an oblique exercise. So if your obliques get tired and all of a sudden your hips start kicking in and all that sort of stuff, maybe your lower back starts tightening up a little bit, because it's trying to hold you in place when your obliques are too tired to do so by themselves. That is the point where you stop exercising because you don't want your lower back to ache the following day, because you're training your body to use the wrong muscles at the wrong time. If your lower back is constantly kicking in, it's completely normal to have that happen once or twice. But the more you become aware of what your body's capabilities are and which muscles should be working when, and all that sort of stuff, the easier it should get on your lower back, because you'll be able to stop at the right time and then your lower back shouldn't feel it anymore. So, yes, it's completely normal to have that happen, but it's not quite right. It just means she went a little bit too far and a little bit too hard, so take it a bit easier, right? The big question Some were saying that they never fixed their Diasasus recta properly, so to speak.

Peter Lap: 11:47

Whatever that means, I don't have any more caveats. And now they're pregnant again. Can they still try to minimize the damage, so to speak? She's 8 weeks pregnant. This is not her second, it's her fourth child. It says here, right? So apologies for the joining. It's been a long day, so, yes, it's a good idea to start off with. I'm not sure what you mean by saying never properly fixed my Diasasus recta. That usually refers to the GAP, the dreaded Diasasus recta GAP, and, as I've said before, and I've said this many a time the GAP is not actually the most important bit about Diasasus recta. Can she still try to minimize the damage? Yeah, you're 8 weeks pregnant.

Peter Lap: 12:51

So this is an excellent, excellent, excellent time to start exercising, even if this is your first pregnancy. You've never done anything, but you have a weak core and all that sort of stuff. You've never done any exercise before. This is a good time to start exercising, and by exercising I don't mean start going for a run, I mean do specific exercises that keep the right muscles active and strengthen the right muscles up. Now, admittedly, you can never restrict the size of the baby bump through exercise. That is just not going to happen. So your belly is going to be as big as it's going to be, because baby growing is a lot more pressure than what you could do to strengthen up the muscles and all that sort of stuff. The size of your baby bump so when you're pregnant is what I'm talking about, not your postpartum mummy tummy and all that sort of horrible phrasing. The size of your baby bump is not determined by how strong your core is. It just isn't, and that has never been the case. The size of your baby bump is determined by how much space the baby demands and how much fluid and all that sort of stuff is required. That is what determines this thing.

Peter Lap: 14:12

But your postpartum recovery is very much determined by muscle activation. I always say this, and apologies if you've heard me say this before the largest part, the most important part of any postpartum exercise program is muscle activation, and especially core, pelvic floor, glute activation and all that sort of stuff. So when I'm talking core, by the way, I'm not just talking about your belly area, right, I'm talking about everything that is not a limb. I'm talking about not your legs, not your arms, the rest of the class, that's core for this particular exercise. So you want to work on the activation of those muscles. The more active you can keep those muscles, the more you can keep them working, the easier your postpartum recovery will be.

Peter Lap: 15:07

Because what tends to happen with people who have poor muscle activation is the muscles completely switch off because you get a bit of anterior pelvic tilt or something like that, you know, or posterior pelvic tilt, whatever. Yeah, not with a pelvic tilt, most likely. You know that old man at the bar, that waddling sort of thing your glutes start to become inactive and all that sort of stuff. So whether your bum is sticking out massively or whether your bum completely disappears, that sort of pelvic tilt is very likely to happen during a pregnancy because you have that shifting center of gravity and your body compensates for that. If you can keep your glutes active and you can keep your obliques active and your TVA, your transverse abdominis, active, then you'll find the postpartum when the baby is out and you've had your six week checkup and all that sort of stuff that when you start your recovery, the first four to six weeks are a lot easier. It takes about after the first second pregnancy. It takes about four to six weeks before your muscle activation is 100%. Again, if you're on your third or fourth or fifth child and you've never done any exercises before, either before the pregnancy or during any of your other pregnancies, and you never recovered fully, then it's going to take a bit longer. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. It is never, ever impossible. You can always get those muscles active again.

Peter Lap: 16:39

I have not really come across any sort of person that's didn't benefit from muscle activation, and I've trained people who've had tummy tucks and all that sort of stuff before. Right, it is just a good idea to keep everything active. That's what I'm saying, because it makes it both part and easier. It doesn't necessarily mean that, like I said, that the gap won't get bigger. The gap is going to get as big as it's going to get because the baby needs as much space as it's going to get, but your abs won't be completely ruined is what I'm saying, and I never really are. It is really rare for someone to have diastasis to the extent that it is completely useless to exercise, and I'm phrasing that very carefully because I know there's some people listening to this. They tend to have 12 cm diastasis recti, and I'm not saying that they don't need surgery, right. I'm just saying you will benefit from muscle activation. I'm not saying that you'll be able to get that 10 cm gap back to within range, within the normal range, which is about 2 cm. I'm saying that you can really help it along. That's all I'm saying. Right, cool, so definitely, eight weeks pregnant, get exercising. It is that simple.

Peter Lap: 18:09

So in the news this week, what do we have? I have a little study here, published on the JAMA network. Basically, this was published what is it? 13th of April 2022, but I only came across it last week. I tend to be a little bit more on the ball than that, to be honest Association between physical activity and risk of depression.

Peter Lap: 18:30

A systematic review and meta-analysis done by Matthew Pierce PhD, leandro Garcia PhD and Ali Abbas PhD in other words, very qualified people. Basically, they looked at 15 studies comprising 191,000, something like that participants and in total, 2 million years a person years. So what that means today 200,000 participants, so 10 years on average per person roughly. I'll link to the study, as I always do and they looked at the link between minor amounts of exercise what do they call it? Limited amounts of small doses of physical activity and the risk of depression. How much lower that is. And they found that actually, even a small dosage of physical activity has a massive consequence. A lower level of physical activity had 17% lower odds of developing depression. Other meta-analysis reported that to be a 21% lower. So anywhere between 17 to 21%, which is huge, absolutely epic, because lower level of physical activity.

Peter Lap: 19:54

We're just talking walking a little bit and all that sort of stuff, doing some squats every now and again, doing the gardening, just doing housework, doing whatever, just being busy. Now I'm not saying that this directly links to postnatal depression. That's a different beast altogether right. So we're not in there at all. I'm just talking about more the normal level of depression that some people are prone to every now and again. So we're not talking really, really debilitating depression. Just to make that very clear. That is not why I'm quoting this study, and we can't really think of any sort of medication that will have exactly the same impact as in for a low level medication that is easy to do, that you don't have to take permanently, that makes you 20% less at risk of depression and that can help to that extent.

Peter Lap: 21:06

So I will link to the study because it's a fascinating little thing. I mean the increase that we really have to. This is the main reason I'm pointing at it. We have to be more physically active anyways. We have to be Because it is the fastest and the easiest way to improve mental health. It's an interesting little study, like I said then.

Peter Lap: 21:37

Therefore, I highly recommend you have a little breeze room and, of course, you know things like AlphaProsNatalBudgetcom, going to a gym, like I said, walking, cycling, running, whatever you do gardening, just being busy overall in a non-stress, in a stress-free way. So not running after your kids all the time, that doesn't count, right? Exercise for exercise is a sake. Physical activity for physical activity is a sake. That's what this seems to relate to. So being physically active in a non-stressful way so not running around like a maniac Seems to be a really, really powerful way of doing it. And I know a lot of people listening to this will be thinking yeah, well, we all already knew this jackass. Yeah, but it's quite often that we know stuff and we just either don't do it or we forget about it, or we already know it, but the science isn't actually that clear on it yet and this study just confirms what we already know. So definitely go for it.

Peter Lap: 22:49

Anyway, that's the podcast for this week. I'm sorry it's another short one. I'm doing a couple of interviews this week. I'm trying something out with a green screen and a whole video thing and changing the day, the podcast comes out and the YouTube videos and it's a whole thing. I'm running around like a maniac, to be honest, trying to figure out how to best improve the service, best improve the podcast for all you guys, and I'm sure I'll figure it out In the meantime.

Peter Lap: 23:21

As always, peter at Healthy Plus, natal Bodycom, if you have any questions, want to shout at me, as a lot of people these days seemingly want to do. Dr Mark Hyman's supporters were not happy with me last week Because apparently he's a god. What can you know? It's funny how people will jump to the defense of people who make millions selling them stuff. Maybe it's difficult, but you've bought the book. It's difficult to say. Actually, it turns out it was nonsense, right? Um, peter at Healthy Plus, natal Bodycom, they have a tremendous week. Send me any questions you have. I should always answer them, like I said before, and that's NewBitterMusic, another podcast for this week.

Peter Lap: 24:19

Bye, now, I try to keep my eyes on you. Why you just slip away to the blue? Yeah, you know how to hide away. Yeah, you know how to keep out the signs from everyone, everyone, everyone, lying into the night like a bird in the sky, boy, it's a lie, like a world, oh Christ. Yeah, you know how to hide away. Yeah, you know how to keep out the signs from everyone. Yeah, you know how to hide away. Yeah, you know how to keep out the signs from everyone, everyone.