Stop The Endless Crunches! How You Really Flatten Your Mommy Tummy…

Are you trying to lose weight after having a baby? Getting in shape after having children can be a struggle and many women (myself included) get frustrated trying to get rid of the extra fat on our bellies. To help us, today we have fitness expert Alison Marie with us to share her expertise.

Ah, the postpartum mommy tummy. We all get it! As weeks go by and we are cleared for exercise, for many of us, our first thought is to get rid of it! So naturally we start doing crunches right? Wrong!

Endless crunches are not going to flatten your mommy tummy AND they could be making it worse. Keep reading to learn what the mommy tummy REALLY is and how you can go about fixing it.

Understanding What the Mommy Tummy Is:

As we all know all too well, during pregnancy our belly grows and grows. The extraordinary rapid growth combined with wonderful pregnancy hormones causes the connective tissue along the midline to stretch and thin. Thankfully (for many reasons), our baby comes out. Once hormone levels return to their pre-pregnancy levels, that thinning generally improves but the result is dramatically weakened, often separated, core muscles.

Crunches are what people know, so it’s the first thing you think to do when trying to tone those muscles. However, the crunch is probably the worst possible move for this situation. When we crunch, or do anything that forward flexes, it pulls the already stretched piece of tissue apart. Think about what happens to the zipper when you are wearing a zip up shirt and you bend over; the zipper pushed out and folds over itself. Crunches do the same to that stretched out midline, over and over again. It only makes it worse!

In addition to potentially making this gap worse crunches over-focus on surface muscles instead of deep core muscles, critical aspects of the spine, and the stabilization role our core plays in the whole body. Pop culture may have you craving 6-pack abs but building up your core strength after having a baby is so much more than that. Weak core (including pelvic floor muscles) also comes with:

• Low back pain – repeatedly picking up and holding your little one is bad enough, a weak core only makes it worse!
• Loss of bladder control – don’t forget to cross your legs when you sneeze