No pun intended!
And believe it or not, I get asked this one ALL THE TIME!!
I will take an except from diastasis rehab for this one!
“I tell my clients that your transverse muscle should be your best friend. This is because you use the transverse muscle with every breath you take and every move you make! So you must think about using your transverse with all your activities of daily living. But I forgot about one very important activity of daily living……having sex. It was not until a client who was not progressing as fast as she should have with the program, who was very sexually active, asked me if having sex would affect her diastasis. I knew immediately that this was the reason she was not progressing in the program. A light bulb moment! Having sex does effect the diastasis. I told her how and she then made remarkable progress in a very short time.
So how does sex need to be modified so that it does not make the diastasis larger?
It is all about the “positions” when having sex. If you have a diastasis, the hands and knees position is OUT. In this position all the weight of the organs presses on the weak connective tissue not allowing it to heal. Closing a diastasis is all about healing the connective tissue. Besides the pressure on the connective tissue, in this position it is very hard to hold in the transverse muscle.
A backlying position with the legs in the air is also a challenging position. Gravity makes it hard to hold the transverse in when on your back with the legs NOT in the air. That is why the Tupler Technique® strengthens the transverse in a seated position for three weeks before headlifts are started. That way you have transverse strength and the awareness of how to use it in a position where gravity makes it hard to do. Even if you have a strong transverse and no diastasis, the combination of backlying AND legs in the air is a very difficult position to hold the transverse in. If you can’t hold it in it is going forward forcefully putting intra-abdominal pressure on the weak connective tissue and separating the muscles.
So the best position is to be seated on top. The next best position is sidelying with a pillow supporting your belly. With that in mind…..enjoy”
