Thank you ladies for joining us. I am here with two, tutu new mama and we’re getting ready to do some postpartum core rehab strength training kind of moves to really put everything back together so that you’re going to be able to be strong and be the supermom that you want to be. So let’s go ahead and lie down on your mat. The best way to do this is to use those arm muscles that are nice and strong from holding babies and to go down sideways and then flip over to the back. You don’t ever want to come up and down from the ground. With that forward forceful movement, it puts so much pressure on that connective tissue that there really isn’t any reason to do it. And it’s just functionally the safer way for your bodies. So Tutu’s lying down on the mat. You are comfortable on your mat at home.
You can go ahead and walk your feet up, close to your behind, and you want your hips, knees and feet equal, distant apart. And you can, even if you have an extra yoga block, put that between your knees to help activate your pelvic floor a little bit and keep things in good alignment. So the first one we’re going to do is just breathe. Honestly, as new moms are holding babies, everything is stiff and tight. So we’re just going to practice an inhale breath, where you let the belly expand all the way and on the exhale everything’s going to deflate. Naturally.
When you inhale, you shouldn’t have your shoulders coming up by your ears, putting all of that pressure up into your diaphragm. You really just want to let everything inflate and deflate on the exhale. Now, if you make a football player kind of sound or you cough, you feel that deepest layer of abdominal muscles tense up. That’s the muscle that we want to try to activate here as we do our next exercise. So we’re going to inhale and inflate, and then we’re going to blow out and pull the belly button away from our hand towards our floor underneath us. And my hand rise when I inflate and exhale, drawing the muscle down. And then, yes. Fantastic. And hands on your belly, you’re just going to let everything inhale and inflate like a balloon hand rises, and then exhale. Use those abdominal muscles to pull your belly button down in a way from your hands.
Great, excellent. Tutu and inhale. And ladies at home, you’re doing this with us to zip and pulling the belly away from the hand. We want to keep that muscle engaged while we’re breathing and talking. I’m not holding my breath. And then you’re going to pick up your yoga block and we’re going to add a little arms, overhead and movements. So we’re going to bring that yoga block overhead, and then imagining that we’re pressing it down towards our knees. And as I do this, I don’t want to let my ribs come up off the floor. I’m using my muscles to hold everything together and then pulling it back towards my knees. Let’s go through a few more reps of this. I’m going to come over here and check on tutu
Good keep going. Okay. And then exhale, pulling the belly away from my hand. Good. See if you can keep your ribs glued to the mat underneath you. It’s really hard. And a lot of us have an issue with rib flaring and it really kind of pulls that connective tissue a part at the top. We want to activate the muscles all the way here. Good. You can bend your elbow slightly. If it’s difficult for you to reach the floor, if your elbow shoulders don’t have that flexibility and a couple more inhale overhead and pull the belly away from my hand down, down, down. Yes. Excellent. Good. All right. We’re going to continue with this and add a single leg pickup. So as she brings the yoga block, she’s going to lift one knee up, keeping it bent, and then both come back down to the floor.
Vent. Good and exhale. Bringing the other knee stays bent like a 45 degree angle. Inhale back down to the floor. Good and exhale, bringing knee and hands together and inhale, sending everything back down good and exhale. And for the breathing, you can use the purse, slip breath, like a, or whichever one works best for you. Sometimes you feel that muscle sort of tense up. Okay. Take a break for one second. As you’re doing this at home and take a break for just a second, continue with your slow, relaxed breathing as you’ve just had a baby. And these muscles have been really stretched out they’re lax. They’re not really doing what they want you to do. It takes focus to connect to them and make sure that those muscles are activating. And when you do a few of these, a lot of times you lose your form, your belly starts to shake and you have a hard time drawing that muscle. Again, so we just, we’re going to take a break for a second and then we’re going to go back to it and do a few more reps with good form. So take one, inhale breath. Let your belly rise into my hand and then exhale, bringing your hands and knees back together. Yep. Good. Yes. And inhale down. You can just let the muscles go in between and then exhale. Draw the muscles down down. Good. You can go ahead and alternate legs at home as well, just so that we’re even on both sides.
This is going to work your transverse abdominal muscles and direct us abdominal muscles, your crunch, six pack muscles. So the trans versus protecting your back, pulling everything up and in, but bringing the top and the bottom also shortens those rectus abdominal muscles and tones them as well safely without putting any pressure on your back. Last one, pulling the belly down in, in there you go get, I could tell she was being a trooper. And if you start to notice that bullet happening in your belly, then that’s just too many reps for you. You need to take a break and as you get stronger, you can do more and more of those. Okay, fantastic. We have one more exercise on the mat. We’re going to go ahead and come sideways. So we’re going to do a little side plank modified with our knees bent instead of on straight legs, please still use your arms to lower yourself down to the ground.
No crunching. We’re actually going to have form here to stabilize us. Our knees are bent and we’re going to aim for getting to a straight line, sort of like a Z formation with your body. And then if you want to extend that top leg is more comfortable. You can, or you can keep it bent in inhale exhale, make sure you zip and draw that muscle in. As you lift your hips off the floor in a straight line can reach up to the ceiling, watch that your ribs aren’t popped out. You’re going to pull those in and you should feel that flattening her abdominal muscles in the front and zipping from here. We’re going to do a little hip dip. So we’re going to lower our hips to the ground and exhale and lift again and lower to the ground and exhale lift again. Watch this top arm that is not floating up by your ear, that you’re pressing it down in a way.
And one more perfect. And we’re going to switch sides. So two, two, you can go ahead and start and demonstrate the other side. And I’m going to come over here and check you out. Okay. So flip to the other side. Yes. Ma’am I know this is, this has been one of our conversations today. That moving is not easy. All right, fantastic. So we’re on the opposite side. Just going to bring your feet back a little bit, leaning sideways. Excellent. You’re going to inhale and as you draw the belly up, and then you’re going to lift your hip up off the floor and reach this top arm towards the ceiling. Excellent. And you can drop your head. So it’s in a straight line. You’ll want to put any extra pressure on your neck there. Fabulous. So you’re going to inhale, or you’re going to touch the ground with your hip lowering down and then exhale and lift as high as you can. Great. You guys feeling this at home? We’re working our obliques here and using our transverse abdominal to pull everything together. So we’re not putting any strain on that connective tissue in the front. Good, lower and lifting a little higher. Awesome. Good. And let’s do two more.
No holding your breath. Make sure you’re exhaling. Good and lower down. Fantastic. Okay. You can have a seat. Great job, ladies. You should be proud of yourselves. You may not feel a ton of soreness, but a lot of times you will start to feel those muscles. Wake up again and start to notice some more tone happening there. Are you ready to get moving? Okay. We are going to grab a sip of water and we’re going to get set for our workout. So you’re going to want some sort of light to medium weight. Whatever is going to be comfortable with you. If you are not sure. Always go with the lighter weights. You can add more weight and more reps later. So take a little quick water break and find a nice space to join us for our postpartum workouts.
