If you happened to read my last post you wold have read how I am learning so much right now about alignment and natural movement and how my mind is being blown right now with new concepts. I have been working hard these last 2 weeks since getting my splint to repair my DR (diastasis recti) and correcting my alignment in my body.
It must be working because 2 weeks ago my DR was a for sure 3 finger widths apart...yesterday when I checked it was 1 at the bottom and not quite 2 in the middle and top!!!! I cannot believe how much it has changed and how quickly.
Now this doesn't mean that I am out of the water yet. I have read that the gap can measure different widths at different times and since I am pregnant I will have increasingly more pressure being placed on my abs as baby gets bigger. But the main thing that excited me is that what I am doing is working.
What am I doing? Well, first off I started wearing a prenancy abdominal splint from thetummyteam.com. I love it! It is very comfortable (for what it is). I was/ am able to wear it 24 hours a day. You can take breaks if you need to but the only reason I did was to feel the baby moving with my hands when it was really active. But you can't just wear a splint and expect to get better. So I have been doing tummy safe whole body workouts (with pregnancy in mind) from www.fit2b.us .
At first I was just wanting to workouts that focused on core work...until I began learning about the real cause of a DR. In my last post I wasn't as learned as I am now about what a DR really is and what causes it. Most people think it can be caused by pregnancy but in reality the problem was there before I got pregnant. The problem was the way I carry my body and move or don't move.
I mentioned last time about how we have trained our bodies to sit all day long. What this has done is shortened certain muscles and possibly tightened others. Our bodies adapted from the time we were children to allow us the endurance to sit all the time because that is what we kept telling our bodies we needed to do. What this has done though is altered our bodies so that when we try to do other movements like standing or walking or any type of exercise, our muscles aren't shaped the way they originally were as children when we could climb up a tree like no one's business or even just run around like banshees all day long without feeling all the aches we do now.
We see the aches and pains as normal but I don't believe they are. Yes our bodies get older and can wear down in certain areas buy why is that people living in traditional cultures can work so hard physically into their old age and before 30 we start moaning when we stand up. Its because we aren't using our bodies!
If you break a leg and have it in a cast for weeks, then you take it off. The muscles in the leg have atrophied. You wouldn't expect yourself to start working on your leg intensely and in fact a lot of people have to go through physical therapy afterwards to gradually build up the ability to use it again. We have cast our whole bodies in a sense by immobilizing ourselves. A lot of our muscles have atrophied and don't function the way they were supposed to.
Whoa..what was the point of this post again? Oh yeah, my DR. Before I get carried away writing about everything I am learning let me get back on point.
So on top of working my body, I have been learning about the proper alignment of our bodies and working to correct things that my body has adapted to doing like have my pelvis tucked out and my ribs thrusted forward. I correct myself every time I notice and I can tell the difference for sure. These little changes are what is actually necessary to heal a DR and prevent it from coming again.
Since I am pregnant and my body is shifting I won't be able to fully correct my alignment right now, well that and I have 20+ years of training my body to do the wrong thing to undo. But working now is going to ensure a healthy pregnancy and birth and will set me up for a quick recovery and starting point to continue to work on alignment after baby is born.
We, meaning Chris and I, are brainstorming ways to make our home more movement friendly (when we actually move into our own home). As if I weren't weird enough, I am really focusing on changing our lifestyle to include tons more movement in our life. I want my children to continue to move naturally and have the abilities they were created to have.
I know I always say this, but not sure how often I will keep posting. But I will try to stay up on our journey, more for me really. I want to document the changes in our life and the healing of my DR, because who knows one day maybe I will be teaching this stuff! I hope so anyways...
So go out today and MOVE! Go walk off the trail and feel your confused body waking up from its slumber.
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