Keeping The Core Safe During Pregnancy By Engaging TA Muscles

Learning how to engage the Transverse Abdominal- TA Muscles during and after pregnancy is so important for abdominal and pelvic floor health.  When not engaged during simple daily life movements, household tasks, and exercises, these muscles and those supporting them, tend to get strained and injured, leading to some major problems.

Let’s first start by talking about what the Transverse Abdominal muscle is.

 

Transverse Abdominals- TA Muscles: 

The transversus abdominis – TA muscle is the inner-most abdominal muscles that lay behind the rectus abdominis and the oblique muscles. It wraps around the abdomen between the lower ribs and top of the pelvis, functioning like a corset. This muscle gets neglected a lot but is a real important supporting abdominal muscle.  It is the muscle that gets pulled apart in the postpartum issues of diastasis recti (when the separation of the abdominal muscles never closes fully.)

The function of the transverse abdominal muscle is to stabilize the low back and pelvis BEFORE movement of the arms and/or legs occurs.  When this muscle is compromised, the body can experience a whole host of issues such as low back pain, pelvic floor pain, prolapse, hip pain… and the list goes on.  (If you have had a larger then normal diastasis recti postpartum, please take a look at my Momma Pelvic Core Rehab Program to help recover and heal from it).

Where are these transverse abdominal muscles?

How to engage them:

1. Imagine a line that connects the inside of your two pelvic bones (front of hips). Now think about making that line shorter and pull your hip bones together.  Your belly button will go in toward your spine slightly but do not focus on that. You’re not sucking in your stomach, you’re just giving your baby a hug. After you get that “hugging” feeling, try to also contract your pelvic floor by pulling it up and inside your body.
2. Start with engaging your TA muscles (hug your baby) and pelvic floor (pulling your vagina and anis up inside the body) for 3 seconds and breathe, then release and repeat (working your Fast-twitch muscle fibers). Then work your way up to 15 seconds with full breaths, and repeat for a few minutes (working your slow-twitch, endurance, muscle fibers).

What you want to avoid

You want to avoid conning your abdominal muscles.  When you sit up out of bed (more here) pick something up, kick a ball, exercise… all these basic movements of daily life can make the abdominal muscles cone when the proper muscles are not engaged.  This conning then strains the linea alba (that connective tissue sheath that separates the right and left rectus abdominal muscles).

The linea albas job is to hold the abdominal muscles in close proximity and to remain firm or to soften and widen at different points in our lives. During pregnancy is one of those points when we want the linea alba to soften and widen.  This allows separation to occur in the rectus abdominis (so our babies can grow and our organs can still function).  It is called diastasis recti.  Diastasis means separation.  Recti is referring to the straight rectus abdominis muscles.

Usually, this separation will close on its own after having a baby, with proper body mechanics and strength (aka, learning how to engage your transverse abdominal muscles, as well as your pelvic floor).  However, sometimes it doesn’t. Improper body movements… movements we did while pregnant or postpartum may have stressed and strained our abdominals, linea alba, and pelvic floor muscles. That’s when the separation is NOT good and when you hear about diastasis recti the most.   This can lead to abdominal, pelvic, and back pain/problems, incontinence, painful intercourse, belly pouch…among other things (read more here).

 

Check out this video on conning and how to avoid/ fix it

What now?

Avoid conning your abdominals.  Pay attention to what your abdominals are doing as you move through your daily life and as you perform specific exercises.  You’ll be surprised how easily it happens, even when you’re just playing with your kiddos.

Work on engaging your TA muscles before and during pregnancy.  Then you can stop the conning from happening and prevent discomfort and injuries to your core and pelvic floor postpartum. Plus, doing so will help your body feel stronger as your stomach gets bigger to support your growing baby.

 

For more information

Check out my Momma Pelvic Core Rehab Jump-Start blog post and 8 Week Program for more information.  Also look into my post explaining Diastasis Recti, if that is a concern for you.  And lastly, check out my post on How to Get Out of Bed Properly While Pregnant to avoid conning the abdominals as well.