Postnatal Core Workout for 6+ weeks Postpartum- includes modifications for Diastasis Recti
Video
Description
This Postnatal Core Workout – from Lindsay Brin’s Postnatal SlimDown DVD – helps create a flat stomach after having a baby. Also includes modifications for Diastasis Recti. You must have your doctor’s permission to exercise, which usually occurs at 6 weeks postpartum. As with any exercise program, please stop if you do not feel right.
This workout can be performed daily. If you have moderate to severe diastasis reci, you should work one on one with a physical therpist or physiotherapist and not use this workout.
Get the full program
This Core #1 workout is the 1st of 5 in the core progression to get a flat stomach after pregnancy, all 5 workouts can be found here on YouTube, subscribe at
Lindsay Brin, creator of Moms Into Fitness DVDs and Downloads, Pre/Postnatal Research Expert, is a mom of 3. You can find more about her and her products at
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Postnatal Core Workout for 6+ weeks Postpartum- includes modifications for Diastasis Recti
This workout is perfect for everybody, but it is also so helpful for after pregnancy for core stabilization and realigning everything after you’ve been frontloaded for so long.
We’re going to start off. We’re going to be doing sets of 10 of everything. But first, we’re going to start off getting the core a little bit warm.
And all I want you to do is place a hand on your belly. And as you inhale, then exhale, I want you to think about flattening your belly.
So inhale. Exhale. Flatten your belly. Tighten that transverse abdominis. That’s the deep, innermost core muscle.
Inhale and tighten and pull down here.
Okay. So stay down here. Keep that transverse abdominis, the innermost muscle, contracted by pushing your back down. Belly down.
And what we’re going to do is pelvic tilt nice and slow. With the pelvic tilt, all I want you to think about is hips coming to rib cage.
So go ahead and lay your head down. Your TA, your transversus abdominis, pulled in and down.
Just enough to contract that inner core as well as the pelvic floor.
Halfway there. And if you find that you’re tightening your glutes, your cheeks, as you do this exercise, what you can do is you could open your legs as you do this and release.
You’ll notice you don’t use your cheeks as much because I want this all stemming from the core. Nothing from back here. This should be nice, loosey-goosey, and jiggly right now.
So you can do it from this butterfly position or back up where our knees were up.
And 1 more. And this time, hold the pelvic tilt. Hold the pelvic tilt.
Now, you’ve got the tilt. You’ve got the transversus abdominis where your belly button is pulled in, down, and flat.
And I want you to go arms up. Down. Around. Down.
And as you do this—so it’s up, down—you’ll notice my core is staying stationary. I’ve got the tilt and my belly button is pulled in and down.
Now I want you to place your arms overhead just as we did prior to this and still keeping that pelvic tilt, belly button pulled down, keeping your arms over your head.
Now you’ll notice this is very different from traditional core training. And that’s because we’ve got to get that inner core.
Last 1. All right.
Now bring the arms down and we’re going to come into what I call the 90 zone.
So bring one leg up at a time. And now that also made it easier to keep your back flat but keep your knees at 90. I don’t want them to come in or come out. Keep them right at 90.
Belly button pulled down. Kind of a little pelvic tilt here
And now, what I want you to do is take this into a reverse march. Only as far as you feel you can, which might not be touching those toes all the way to the ground.
Because I don’t want you to necessarily engage the rectus, which is your outer muscle. I just want you to pull that belly button in.
Now, I want you to make sure you just don’t do this workout and run off and start doing core plank jacks or any crazy core stuff.
And if you’ve mastered this workout, you can then move on to core #2, core #3, core #4, and #5 because we progressively adding core strength where we use the rectus and the obliques and all that stuff.
We’re not just going to all of a sudden throw some crazy stuff at you because that could kind of undo all the health and integrity that we just built. So I want you to slowly progress in your core progression, and I promise you will get that core back.
