It wasn’t easy and I really had to push myself hard to get back my abs postpartum. I hear after your second baby, it’s an entirely different story challenge.
I was pretty paranoid about developing diastasis recti, which is essentially when your abdominals separate down the middle. I had strong abs before getting pregnant and continued to do plank exercises throughout. I stopped doing crunches early and only did planks from 20 weeks until about 37 weeks.
At 37 weeks, I posted a photo in plank position and tons of people commented that I should be careful of diastasis recti. I honestly didn’t think planks caused it, but then when I thought about my stomach muscles essentially holding a bowling ball from dropping to the ground, it made sense. To my credit, I always engaged my core and never let my stomach “sag” down.
So if you have a strong core before getting pregnant and continue working on your core strength throughout, planks are safe to do while pregnant. If you do not have core strength, I would avoid doing them once the baby is over 2 lbs.
It’s crazy to think the photo above was taken exactly a year ago!
That being said, since I didn’t develop diastasis recti, I was able to get my abs back quicker than someone who was not as lucky. I started going to BTone Fitness which teaches the Lagree Method. This means I did a lot of planks.
Here is a sample DIY Abs Lagree Method workout you can do at home.
I wish I could still go to BTone because it is such a good ab workout but the class with babysitting is at the same time as Tommy’s morning nap.
Then I was trying the Kayla Itsines Bikini Body Guide program to review which is NOT postpartum safe at all. The abs day always killed my back.
I can’t recommend against doing the abs in the BBG program enough to new moms.
I had to start with my own ab exercises and modified the workouts until I got stronger with these exercises.
This 7-minute postpartum ab workout is great for any new mom or anyone just getting back into fitness after having a baby, even if your youngest 1 or 5 year old. If you did develop a diastasis recti, these are safe to do but please take the easier modifications. Try doing it 3 times for 21 minutes of core work spaced out throughout the day if you are home on maternity leave.
I now take classes throughout the city and do not usually need to do any postnatal modifications.
