Category: Early Days

Best way to start abs exercises – lie on your side!

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Are you starting out on your post-baby journey – the place where you are not sure you have necessarily even got any abdominal muscles left? Or did you find them again but now you are having one of those days where you feel heavy and bloated and like you can’t hold them in? In this post you can discover the best way to start tummy exercises.

Standing up is the hardest place to hold your tummy in

When you have just had your baby, standing up is the hardest place to connect to your lower abdominals. You will look down and see them sagging out in front of you. This is because gravity is relentlessly pulling you both down and out. Now there is no baby filling the internal space the skin and stretched muscles droop down. It is such a strong force that when you try to pull your tummy in it is easy to accidentally hold your breath and “hitch” your muscles up rather than what you really want which is to pull the lower belly in to make it look and feel flatter.

When the tummy muscles are strong enough to stay flatter they will also be strong enough to support your back and your pelvis as you do all the lifting and carrying that motherhood requires. Happy body – happy Mummy!

Best way to start tummy exercises..

My magic tip for you? The best way to start tummy exercises – Lie on your side! Nowhere fancy – roll on your side in bed, or the sofa will do.

Lying on your side is a magic position for working out where on earth your lower belly is

Notice how when you lie on your side you can SEE your belly and you can TOUCH it. Both these things help your brain to focus on where to send the exercise messages.

Feel your tummy with your hand

Let your tummy really really sag out against your own hand. Have your hand quite low, below the belly button. Not under your ribs (those are your “upper” abs). Do your worst. Only you are looking. It will be very stretched – it just did the equally magic trick of carrying a baby to full size. This is a joyous thing, don’t be too hard on what it looks like now.

Notice how your breathing and abdominals connect

Become aware of yourself breathing. Your lungs filling up and emptying air. Notice your abdominals do a very similar thing. It is weird when you notice that as you breathe in your abdominal wall will swell up, then as you breathe out it shrinks in a bit. Make this happen on purpose. First take a breath in and let the belly swell up as much as it can. Then as you breathe out (as if blowing out a candle) you will find the belly muscles want to draw in. Help them along with your brain power and with your inside muscles. These are the abdominals below the belly button which wrap around you like a wide belt.

The abdominals move similar to the lungs. And the pelvic floor moves similar to the abdominals! They are all connected! We have lots of videos to help you understand this – have a look in the Pelvic Floor School.

 

https://youtu.be/yaK0RqbU-Jw
in this video I use that colourful toy to show how the breathing, abdominals and pelvic floor work and how to co-ordinate your breathing to make them work even better

Think M&S knickers!

Think of trying to shrink wrap ourself a size smaller – or of putting on an excellet pair of M&S tummy support pants.

Then HOLD your shrunk position and BREATHE. If you can’t breathe you are pulled in too tight. Just breathe in and out a few times, just normal everyday breaths (great video of how to do the breathing here). After a minute or so you may begin to even wonder if you are doing anything at all? – but you are – you can prove it to yourself by letting go…..watch how the tummy suddenly reappears in front of you!

Now try same trick sitting up

Practice this focused drawing in sequence for a few minutes in side-lying. Then try it sitting in a chair – again hand on your lower belly (like where a seat belt goes over your lap). It will be trickier here not to hitch up the upper abs again.

Once you have repeated it a few times in these less gravity-demanding positions it should be easier to find them when standing up. If it doesn’t work standing up yet – don’t even worry. Rather use any opportunity to be sitting or lying down.

The party trick to practice practice practice…

  • If you are adept at feeding on your side, this is the ideal time to get two jobs done at the same time. Or after a seated feed snuggle up on the sofa for a cuddle on your side. Take an extra 2 minutes to connect to your belly.
  • Lie on your side to watch TV or make a phone call?
  • Sitting opportunties? Again – feeding! it comes around over and over. And anytime you are the passenger in the car! Nothing else to do and the seat belt is the perfect position to pull your belly away from and drop it back against. See how many lamp-posts you could hold in for?

It will make a difference

In short – don’t be disheartened by what your belly looks like and/or fails to do when you are standing up at the moment. Put your efforts into re-finding the belly muscles. The best way to start tummy exercises is lying on your side but quickly moving on to sitting. Then very soon you will be surprised to find yourself naturally holding them in standing too.

 

Do let me know in the comments below if this advice was useful? Do you have any questions?

standing pelvic floor exercises

My favourite standing pelvic floor exercise, ever

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This is absolutely my favourite standing pelvic floor exercise.   I love that it anchors you to the spot with a quick little routine to stop you getting distracted part way through. 

Honestly takes 35 seconds but pings your pelvic floor muscles awake.  Little and often improves muscle memory, reaction times, and encourages quick muscle growth.

  1.  Turn your toes out, like a ballet dancer, 5 squeezes of the back passage

Turn your toes out, like a ballet dancer.  Tighten your pelvic floor and notice how this position favours the back passage (the anal sphincter) just like you are stopping wind.  Pretend you are having tea with the queen and made the mistake of baked beans for lunch.  You need to effectively close the anus opening, without clenching your buttocks more than a smidgen and without it showing on your face!  Do 5 on and off squeezes, not trying to hold, just a good squeeze, then let go completely.

2.  Turn your toes in, like a pigeon, 5 lift and tucks of the vagina/bladder tube area

Then turn your toes in, like a pigeon. Now when you tighten up underneath it should feel different.  Less going on at the back and more focus at the front, around the bladder tube and vagina area.  Let the area be soft, almost a bit saggy,  then lift and tuck the vagina up inside.  Let go – completely.  Then repeat 5 on – off contractions.  Best lift you can do ….and relax. Don’t worry if your abdominal muscles join in a little bit but keep the focus on your pelvic floor.

3.  Turn your toes normal, both areas together as a unit

Finally turn your toes into your normal standing posture.  Now try to do both the previous actions at the same time.  Most people start with the back tightening and then like a big zip come forward to lift and tuck the front.  When you let go each time now it should feel like there was a bigger ‘up’ and a bigger ‘drop’.  Repeat.  If you are feeling clever add in some side to side tension too (yes, the pelvic floor is bowl shaped, see this in my video showing a model pelvis in the pelvic floor school)

When you have done 5 squeezes with your toes turned out, 5 with your toes turned in and 5 with everything together you will have done 15 really good pelvic floor muscle contractions.  NOW your muscles will be thinking – hey she doesn’t normally work us like this – we are going to need to grow!

In this video I go through the exercise with Stephanie from Kegel8 and The Knack too.

When to do it?

Perfect exercise to do little and often through an ordinary day.  It tags on really well to cleaning your teeth – or after a wee.  At home, use that quiet moment in the toilet to focus on yourself.  If you are working, linger in the cubicle for an extra 40 seconds – you are getting paid to exercise!

Important note

If you think this exercise is mad and you couldn’t feel a thing when you tried to do it – try it  lying down, not so much the feet positions but focusing first on the back passage and then on the front.  This positon  takes the weight of your organs off the pelvic floor and gives you more chance to ‘feel’ the muscles working.  If that still leaves you cold – then I would recommend you have a chat to your GP and ask for a referral to a specialist pelvic floor physiotherapist for a full assessment and examination.  There are lots of things we can teach you in clinic 1:1 to help you find and improve your muscle function.

Your perineum after birth – the same as a bad ankle strain….without the sympathy

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A NASTY ANKLE SPRAIN AND THEN RUN HOME………

Imagine the state of your ankle if you fell on an uneven pavement, gave it a nasty twist and then still had to run home – you wouldn’t be at all surprised to be looking at a hot, red, swollen, bruised and very tender foot and ankle?  Add a cut and some stitches and you would feel very sorry for it.

Because everyone can see the damage you would be lavished with care and attention: crutches to keep the weight off; leg up when you sit down to reduce swelling; tubigrip; icepacks; exercises to keep it stiffening up and plenty of willing helpers to let you take it easy for a good few days.

Everyone knows that you have to nurse and care for an injury to help healing to take place successfully, to avoid complications and to get back to normal walking again as quickly as possible.

WE NEED TO CARE FOR BRUISED SORE VAGINAS TOO

During birth the perineum (the skin and tissues surrounding the opening of the vagina) experiences a traumatic stretch and strain.  Clinically this is termed a soft tissue injury.  It would be great to care for the perineum in the first weeks of motherhood with a similar respect for the healing process.

Unfortunately, things are stacked against the love and attention needed, apart from the obvious distraction of a beautiful, demanding newborn:

  • you are high on the  birth experience so your own bottom is low on your agenda
  • nobody can see your sore bits and you don’t limp so there is no outside sign that you are injured
  • you can’t (wouldn’t?!) exactly discuss your sore bits with many people
  • most of the time you are sitting on the sore part to feed which makes it go numb
  • mothers are incredibly stoic people and don’t complain
  • it’s hard to know what’s ‘normal’ so there is a tendency to just battle on

In these posts I have pulled together  tips and tricks to guide you how to care for your perineum from day one until it is all feeling better again.  Don’t hesitate to ask if you want clarification or think of something that I have left out that would be useful for other new mums to  know?

picture of chicken self care for mums

Who’s looking after the chicken?

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KEEPING THE MOTHER CHICKEN HEALTHY IS IMPORTANT

In the early days of a newborn baby there is an awful lot to think about for the newly hatched egg.  However, don’t forget,  every day, to stop and think about the chicken.   Who is going to look after the egg properly if the chicken is tired, weak, undernourished and sore? For a truly happy family, new mothers, and especially their recently wonderfully used bodies need some love and attention too.

CHICKEN-CARE #1

Take the baby out in the pram for a pacy 20 minute walk.  Breathe deeply, stand tall and hold your tummy in.  Walk so that you hear your heels clicking (this makes your bottom muscles pert), and go fast enough that you couldn’t talk.   Baby exposed to sunlight to help regulate their sleep cycles – tick.  Posture and core muscles woken up – tick.  Cardio-vascular exercise – tick!
Do you respect your body and your own needs?  What did you do today for yourself?  What could you do to feel stronger and fitter?  
hard chair

Sore bottom? Try a hard chair

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HARD CHAIR?  HAVE YOU SEEN MY STITCHES!?!@##%

If you are nursing a tender bruised perineum after your childbirth heroics that doesn’t seem the kindest option does it?  But actually soft cushions or the sofa may press up against the sore area more than you would think, as they mould in around you. This can restrict the blood and lymphatic flow to the tissues.  It will all feel a bit numb after a while as you sit there but can feel very sore and achey when you stand up again.  Definitely NOT a ring cushion – an old fashioned solution – as they pull all your weight and pressure down into the centre just where you hurt the most.

My midwife was insistent that I sat on a kitchen chair to breastfeed to improve my posture.  I was still spectacularly unsuccessful at breastfeeding  but the positive outcome was that I noticed I didn’t ache so much in my undercarriage when my marathon feeding stint finished.

A harder surface and more upright chair works because you  take more weight through your feet and ‘sitting bones’ keeping pressure off the perineum and coccyx.  This stops the soft tissues and their blood supply from being squashed and lets air flow under.

When I worked in the hospital there were these fabulous “valley” cushions but they don’t seem to be available anymore (unless you want to splash £199 on amazon!).  Luckily I would suggest a cheaper alternative which we used to use if we ran out of the real deal: for an immediate DIY, or a subtle ‘out and about’ solution fold two matching hand towels into square blocks.  Put one under each bottom cheek leaving the perineum a few centimetres blissfully airborne in the middle.  Try it and smile as you find pressure relief!

If you have a long slow feeder or suffered with a good deal of stitches to the vagina or anal area, or are coping with piles,  you will be grateful for improved comfort for several weeks ahead.  Mother hens, be kind to your body.

How did you cope with a sore bottom and feeding?  If you have any tips to help other mums, please comment below.