Need some gentle core exercises to help you regain strength in your abs? One of my favorite areas of the body to work pre-kids was my core. I could do the P90x 15-minute Ab Ripper in my sleep! Post-kids, not so much. I’ve lost a complete connection to my core muscles and struggle with my diastasis recti. It is hard work trying to regain strength in this area and rebuild my confidence about my strength and capacity for movement. It requires time, consistency, and dedication to build muscle and I struggle to find all of these things with young kids in the house.
That’s why I love these gentle core exercises. They are effective without making you feel like you’re totally failing. There are no sit-ups, so you can be confident knowing that as you consciously work on your core you aren’t going to make diastasis worse. By the way, just because you have diastasis recti doesn’t mean you have to live with it forever. While your core may never look/feel the same as it did before you had kids, you can rebuild your core connection and continue to live a fabulous, healthy life full of movement. Don’t give up!
While not all of these core exercises are yoga per se, a lot of them can easily be factored into a yoga-inspired practice. You’ll work your body gently while also challenging your muscles and brain and connect your movements with breath. That’s yoga in my book!
Your Core is More than a 6-Pack
Yoga is more than just the poses and the “core” is more than just your 6-pack rectus abdominus muscles. Most people think of the core as the sheath of muscle down the front of your torso that can create the 6-pack (which, by the way is a genetic predisposition that has everything to do with how your particular muscles and connective tissues are built and nothing to do with how many sit-ups you can do). There are also your internal and external obliques that shape the sides of your torso, and your transversus abdominus, a deep layer of muscle that assists you in postures like Plank. This transversus muscle plays an incredibly important supportive role in most movement, though strengthening it won’t result in an aesthetically pleasing, toned “look.”
Expand your definition of the “core” beyond these three muscles. Your core is also everything else in the middle of your body, including muscles in your legs, hips, and back, and your core organs like your intestines, kidneys, liver, bladder, and stomach. These organs are responsible for digestion and help convert the food you eat into energy and nutrients for your body to function.
But your core is also your soul, your beliefs, and your way of life—the things that matter most to you. If you’re interested in working on your core muscles, you need to do more than just a few Planks. You also need to work on optimizing your digestion (of both food and thoughts), and maintaining a solid connection to your beliefs and dreams. This establishes a true connection to your core and translates to a more confident, healthy, and exciting life. A strong core provides the foundation to everything else in your life. So prioritize working on it every day, even if you never hit the mat.
5 Gentle Core Exercises
When you are interested in strengthening actual muscles, try one of these 5 gentle core exercises to help you re-establish a connection to your center.
Heel Slides
This exercise is a great one to start with when you’re first trying to re-establish a connection to your core. Start by lying down with the soles of your feet on the ground and your knees facing up to the ceiling, arms by your side. Exhale and slide your right heel out in front of you until your leg is straight while maintaining a strong connection to your core muscles, especially on the left side of your torso. Be careful that you don’t rock weight over to the right as you slide the right leg out. To make the exercise slightly more challenging, raise your left arm overhead as you slide your right heel out. On an inhale, slide the right heel back and bring the left arm back down by your side. Switch to the other side. Repeat for 8-10 reps or set a time for 30 seconds and see how many you can do (with control) in that time frame.
Clamshells
Lie down on your side with your hips and knees stacked. You can rest your head on your arm and use your other hand to help keep you balanced. Lift your top knee up off your bottom knee and then lower it back down like a clamshell opening and closing. Only lift the knee up as high as you’re able to without rocking your weight back and forth. This exercise will work your hips as well as recruit the muscles of your core to keep you balanced. Lift 10-15 times on one side and then switch to the other side.
Quadruped Beast
Set up on your hands and knees with your shoulders stacked over your wrists and your hips directly over your knees. Curl your toes under on the floor and hover your knees a few inches off the ground. Hold for 5-10 breaths. The longer you hold, the more challenging this will become. Be sure to keep your core muscles engaged while leaving enough space to breathe into your ribcage. This requires stabilization strength and will work your core muscles all around your torso.
Wall Sit Squeeze
Lean against a wall and slide your back down until your thighs are about 90 degrees to the floor. Place a block or small, squishy ball in between your thighs. As you sit, gently squeeze the block or ball in between your thighs. Repeat for 8-10 reps or for as many times you can in 30 seconds. This exercises is challenging and requires some of the deeper core muscles connected to your pelvic floor and inner thighs. It’s all connected!
Standing Marching
This is one of my favorite stealth exercises. Start by standing with your feet together and your arms out in front of you holding a block or ball in-between your hands. Lift your right leg up so that the thigh comes parallel to the ground, with the knee at 90 degrees. With the leg lifted, squeeze the ball of block in between your hands. Slowly lower that leg back down to the ground, shift you weight into that foot, and lift the left leg up. Try to minimize weight shifting between the right and left side as much as possible. This exercise requires a lot of concentration and coordination of many different muscles in the body. The core forms the stabilized foundation for this exercise to work.
For more gentle core exercises, check out my YouTube video that will walk you through an 18-minute practice of gentle core exercises including the ones listed above. And if you’re interested in practicing more, make sure to sign up for the Yoga Mom Online Studio where you can take some time to move your body and clear your head as you re-establish that connection to yourself. Your first week is free!
