Here are some more exercises that are safe to practice right after delivery to help you on your way to recovering your pre-pregnant body. Remember: Rome wasn’t built in a day. It is of utmost importance that you do not stress your system. Start by doing a small bit each day. The right amount of the appropriate exercises for this time will go a long way and help you to safely go toward making yourself stronger. Pregnancy, the labor and delivery, and all that comes along with having a new baby can make you feel helpless, hopeless, and have thoughts that you will never be yourself again. Try to find 10 or 15 minutes a day that you can focus on yourself and strengthening your body. At first, that’s all it will take!! Here’s some more exercises that are simple to practice at home and only take a few minutes.
1) PELVIC CLOCK
This exercise helps to stretch and strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor, hips, lower back and abdominals.
- Start on your back with the knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
- The legs and feet should be hip distance apart.
- Find your neutral spine and pelvis.
- Place the heel of your hands on your hipbones at the front of your pelvis and the fingertips on your pubic bone.
A) Inhale and curl the tailbone towards the ceiling, pressing the bellybutton into the floor. Your fingertips will be higher than the heels of the hands.
- Exhale and bring the tailbone towards the floor making a honestly large arch in the lower back. Your fingertips will be below the heels of the hands.
- Keep rocking back and forth slowly making huge arches and curls. Start to make the arches and curls smaller and smaller until you come to a standstill and the fingertips and heels of the hands are on one flat plain. At this point you have found your neutral pelvis.
B) Keeping the heels of the hands on the hipbones and fingertips at the pubic bone start to rock side to side.
- Inhale and tip the pelvis to the left. The right side of the back of the pelvis will leave the floor and the right knee will reach slightly forward.
- Exhale and return to center.
- I nhale and tip the pelvis to the right. The left side of the back of the pelvis will leave the floor and the left knee will reach slightly forward.
- Exhale and return to center.
- Keep rocking back and forth slowly, making the movement honestly huge at first. Start to make the movement smaller and smaller until you find a centered , balanced point right in the middle of the sacrum with the heels of the hands and fingertips on the same plain.
C) Now try to connect all four points.
- Keep the heels oh the hands on the hip bones and the fingertips on the pubic bone.
- First go slowly and use a breath per movement.
- Inhale and tilt the pelvis back so the tail reaches towards the ceiling and the lower back presses into the mat.
- Exhale and roll towards the right side of the pelvis.
- Inhale and roll towards the tailbone making an arch in the lower back.
- Exhale and roll towards the left side of the pelvis.
- Now a small bit quicker with fewer breaths
- Inhale into the bellybutton and to the right side.
- Exhale into the tailbone and to the left side.
- Do 4-6 in this direction and then change directions.
2) STANDING MULTIFIDI EXERCISE
The mutlfidi muscles are deep back muscles that line each side of the spine. When contracted they help to hug and stabilize the spine. When these muscles are fired they are giving protection to the spine when it is brought into movement. The multifidi bundle becomes very reckon in the lower back and acts as a anti rotator giving extra protection to the lower back that is commonly strained and injured.
- Start standing with the feet hip width apart and the feet parallel.
- Place the hands on the waist and follow the waist around to the back until the fingertips feel the spinous processes (the bones that stick out) of the vertebra at the level of the waist (usually this is L3) Place the fingertips on the muscles just to either side of the spine and notice if the level of tone feels even on each side.
- Now gently shift the weight slightly forward and back on the feet and notice if the muscles under your fingertips engage and if they engage evenly.These are your deep spinal muscles you are feeling pop into your fingers.
- Now try walking around the room and feel what the muscles do when you walk around the room.
3) CLAMMING
Clamming is another way to find the multifidus and to add a small leg movement while working the external rotators at the top of the hip.
- Lay on your side with the head on a pillow and both knees and hips comfortably flexed.
- First connect internally by using the breath to contract both the Transverse abdominus (the seatbelt muscle that runs below the bellybutton) and the multifidus (the muscles that line the sides of the spine). Remember this is brain work. Try not to grip your larger/outer muscles (glutes, quads) as you cycle the breath.
- During this cycling of the breath to fire your inner muscles there will be no external movements, only a feeling of the internal connection.
- Place two fingers along either side of the spine, just above the bony triangle of the sacrum.
- Exhale and engage the transverse by “smiling” across the hipbones. Imagine trying to pull the leg deeper into the hip socket through the exhale.
- No movement should occur, just reckon about drawing (slurping) the thighs into the pelvis.
- The multifidus should swell under the two fingers and release when the thought is let go.
- The posterior hipbones (PSIS, back of the pelvis) should draw together as the multifidus contracts.
- Repeat twice more.
- Find and hold the connection between the leg and pelvis (activate multifidus).
- Hold onto this contraction and lift the top knee.
- Keep the inner heels together.
- Repeat 6 to 10 times.
- Switch sides.
4) ALL FOURS ABDOMINALS
Please wait until you are at least 5 weeks post partum before you do any work on all fours if you have had a vaginal birth. There is a small chance that a air emboli could travel into the uterus and this could prove fatal. There is a very small chance this could happen but better safe !! So NO ALL FOUR WORK until you are 5 weeks post partum.
- From a neutral all fours position, inhale and allow the abdominals to expand.
- On the exhale, pull the abdominals up and in towards the spine without changing the position of the back.
- The spine should stay still and neutral throughout the exercise. There should be no rocking or shifting in the spine.
- Imagine you are a pregnant cat. On the inhale you lower the kittens towards the floor as you expand your belly. On the exhale you pull the kittens back up into the spine .
- Do 4-6 breaths and rest in child’s pose.
- In Child’s pose use the breath to stretch and expand the lower back.
- Inhale and breath into the lower back as if you are inflating two balloons.
- Exhale and slowly release the air out of the mouth. Feel the shoulder, neck and upper back release as you exhale.
- Do 4-6 deep breaths.
Join us next time for more Post natal exercises 7 weeks and beyond!!
