Pregnancy

Knowing what is happening anatomically and biomechanically in your core during pregnancy is a critical part of preventing common pregnancy-related issues. Using this knowledge to guide your exercise choices can also improve delivery and postpartum rehab tremendously. Letting go of any uncertainty or fear through proper education is the first step we take towards healing in The Core Recovery Method®. So, let’s begin by understanding what happens to your core and pelvic floor during pregnancy.

The pressure in your abdomen is continuously increasing over the course of your pregnancy. One of the most important functions of your core muscles is to manage the pressure in your abdomen. During pregnancy, the pressure is constantly increasing over the course of 10 months, and your core never gets a break. This can stress the core muscles to the point of max fatigue, which puts you at higher risk for core and pelvic floor dysfunction. When the load from all of the inevitable increased pressure is taken on by your organs and spine instead of being absorbed by your core muscles, this then leads to lowering of the pelvic organs, especially the uterus, and compression on the pelvic floor muscles. When the pelvic floor muscles are compressed, they get less blood, lymph and nerve flow. This leads to pelvic floor dysfunction, and the many symptoms associated with it. So it’s critical to perform the proper exercises that relieve your core and pelvic floor muscles of this pressure. This helps reduce the risk of core and pelvic floor dysfunction during pregnancy, labor, and postpartum. 

Your abdominal muscles will separate to accommodate your growing baby. Every woman gets a diastasis during pregnancy. The abdominal muscles have to separate in order to accommodate the growing baby. It’s when the abdominal muscles don’t close after delivery that this becomes a problem. Exercises that focus on strengthening the fascia of the core, especially the linea alba, will help the abdominal muscles close faster after delivery and will speed up postpartum recovery. Hint: strengthening the core fascia has everything to do with reducing the pressure in the abdomen!

Your ligaments and fascia will soften and stretch to prepare for delivery. The hormone relaxin will increase throughout your pregnancy, and into the postpartum period as long as you are breastfeeding. One of the effects of relaxin is softening of connective tissue. This is necessary to allow the pelvis to increase in size to carry your baby and also helps the dilation and opening that has to occur for delivery. However, softer fascia and ligaments means your core and pelvic floor muscles need to work harder. To properly handle this extra task, they need to be able to sustain a prolonged activation without you having to think about it. Core training during pregnancy therefore must target these involuntary muscle fibers of the core (which make up 80% of all your core muscles). Exercises like kegels and drawing your belly button to your spine will only get you so far because they fail to activate these involuntary muscles. Sustained involuntary core muscle activation is what's necessary to maintain optimal core strength and function throughout pregnancy, which is best done through specific posture and breathing exercises.

Core training is incredibly important during pregnancy, but often misunderstood. I get a lot of questions about whether or not you can train your core during pregnancy. And the answer is YES, but not all exercises are safe. 

High impact activities, running, jumping, or heavy weight lifting. Performing these types of movements during pregnancy is harmful because they greatly increase intra-abdominal pressure. Since your abdominal muscles are constantly stretching during pregnancy, this leaves your core in a vulnerable state. If you regularly expose yourself to significant and repetitive increases of intra-abdominal pressure during this sensitive time, you also put your pelvic floor and organs at risk. This can lead to symptoms such as urinary incontinence, bladder frequency/urgency, hemorrhoids, pelvic pain, pubic symphysis issues, low back pain, tailbone pain, and hip dysfunction.

Kegels are not the only answer. Women are commonly advised to just perform Kegels during pregnancy and to stop any other form of “core training”. This advice is outdated and can actually cause more harm than good. Performing only Kegels (without any other functional core training) can actually create pelvic floor muscle spasm and lead to pelvic floor dysfunction. This is often the case because when the pelvic floor is continuously loaded overtime with increasing intra-abdominal pressure (which is exactly what happens during pregnancy), it actually gets tighter and can get stuck in a contraction, or Kegel. So performing too many Kegels during pregnancy can make this situation of high intra-abdominal pressure much worse. Instead, we want to ensure the pelvic floor is moving through its full range of motion in unison with the diaphragm and abdominal muscles so that intra-abdominal pressure is appropriately managed as baby grows.

Since your core and pelvic floor change drastically during pregnancy, it’s important to choose exercises that will do the following:

• Lift and center your uterus to optimize blood flow to the baby and reduce pressure on your pelvic floor muscles. 
• Reduce the pressure in your abdomen to provide relief to the connective tissue of the pelvic floor and abdominal muscles as they continuously stretch.
• Improve strength of the spine, hips, abs and pelvic floor so that your body can most efficiently carry your growing baby.
• Decompress your spine to reduce back pain.
• Achieve full range of motion of the abdominal and pelvic floor muscles to improve their ability to stretch in a healthy way as baby grows.
• Optimize breathing mechanics and strengthen the respiratory muscles in order to reduce pressure in the abdomen.
• Prevent diastasis postpartum.
• Prepare your pelvic floor for delivery.
• Optimize whole body circulation to prevent swelling and varicose veins.
• Prevent common pain syndromes like back pain, pubic bone pain, hips pain, sciatica, pelvic pain and pubic symphysis pain.
• Improve daily posture and breathing patterns to improve efficiency of uterine contractions during delivery.
• Prevent bowel and bladder issues such as incontinence, urgency, frequency and constipation.
• Improve cardiovascular capacity to best manage increased blood volume during pregnancy.
• Improve postpartum recovery, specifically pelvic floor function and waist line reduction.

The protocol taught in The Core Recovery Method® achieves all of this through the combination of powerful physical therapy techniques that are safe and effective for pregnancy.

The foundation of the core and pelvic floor exercises I teach in The Core Recovery Method® protocol is BREATHING! If you follow me, I probably sound like a broken record by now, but I’ll say it again — the absolute best way to train the core (especially during pregnancy) is through breathwork! Core training during pregnancy needs to incorporate the whole body in order to make it functional and truly effective. It also absolutely must focus on posture and breathing simultaneously. Hypopressive Training is the best method I know that achieves all of these aspects — it uses various postures and poses to reduce the pressure in the abdomen, incorporates strengthening of the fascial planes of the entire body, and is centered around optimizing breathing mechanics. 

Yes! The Core Recovery Method® is absolutely safe during pregnancy. In fact, it can greatly improve your pregnancy and postpartum healing. Each section of the protocol is extremely beneficial for pregnancy and can serve as a valuable resource after delivery as well. There are a few modifications made to the hypopressive training and abdominal massage aspects of the protocol during pregnancy that are explained in depth in the program. Other than that, the protocol is the same for pregnancy and into postpartum. It is very helpful to develop the healthy core habits during pregnancy, in order to make it easier to continue them postpartum.

The Core Recovery Method® is centered around optimizing organ position. This is done through reducing pressure in the abdomen and reflexively strengthening the core and pelvic floor through breath work. The Core Recovery Method® is the only pregnancy core training program I know of that makes organ position a priority. Prioritizing organ position and reducing pressure is exactly what the pregnant body needs because it has to withstand 10 months of constantly increasing abdominal pressure, and continual stretching abdominal muscles. So having a protocol to follow that regularly relieves your body of this inevitable pressure increase can be a game changer during pregnancy. Optimizing organ position will improve blood/lymph/nerve flow to your growing uterus and baby, leading to improved strength and efficiency of contractions during labor as well as less aches and pains during pregnancy.

Yes. The Core Recovery Method® is safe and beneficial from the moment of conception until delivery and beyond. The gentle yet powerful techniques taught in this protocol prepare your body to make the transformations into pregnancy, and out of pregnancy smoothly and with the least complications.

The best plans for pregnancy are the All Access and Premium plans. These will provide you with the necessary modifications for pregnancy. The All Access and Premium plans both provide 1 year access, which is necessary given that pregnancy lasts up to 10 months. The Premium plan provides additional support through monthly live group meetings and direct access to Dr. Angie.

The Core Recovery Method® prepares your body for birth in a number of ways. This first is that it trains your core muscles to keep your uterus in her ideal position, so that she will receive the best blood, lymph and nerve flow allowing her contractions to be stronger during delivery. Strong uterine contractions lead to a reduced pushing phase, and often lead to smoother and more efficient labor. Second, practicing the breathing techniques and exercises from The Core Recovery Method® protocol during pregnancy will improve your stress tolerance, core muscle strength and pelvic floor health- which directly translate to an easier delivery.