In this 3 part series, I'm going to be covering a complicated subject that effects many people; Diastasis Recti.
What is Diastasis Recti? Essentially this is a herniation of the Linea Alba (the facial separation of the right and left rectus abdominis muscles) and a bulge will become visible when pressure in the abdomen increases. Often most noteable when laying down your your back and flexing the upper body part way up from that position.
Why does it occur? This occurs because of dysfunction of the core and an inability to handle intraabdominal pressures. By core I'm referring to the diaphragm, the pelvic floor, and the muscles that make up the cylinder between those two structures.
This is why so many women post pregnancy deal with this issue. Their musculature is slowly stretched to the max over the course of 9 months, and in a matter of hours, the baby comes and the body is left with that cavity. Although the soft tissue will recoil in a relatively short period of time, the strength and coordination of those muscles to work properly in the context of breathing and bracing are often lost.
The big focus on recovery should be restoring coordination and function of the diaphragm, pelvic floor, and the outer rim of your core cylinder.
In this Part of the series I almost left out an important subject about the potential complications that can arise from Scars. Whether they are from the birthing process, or surgical scars, if they are really tight and tact down several layers of tissue, your brain gets poor neurological feedback from these tissues.
When there is poor feedback, the body has hard time communicating with and getting proper engagement out of the musculature around the scar. In those scenarios, you end up getting a "deadspace" of activity which can make developing a proper brace or strong pelvic floor contraction very difficult.
To improve this, you can increase the neurological feedback of the scaring site by performing regular mobilization techniques around the site. This will limit the amount of scar tissue and promote better proprioceptive feedback.