Class 4: Connection

Hi, my name is Georgia and this is class four in a series of six for c-section and traumatic birth recovery. In this class, we're going to focus on reconnecting to the core. It's really important after pregnancy to give yourself time to really recover, but once you've been given the okay by your doctor and a good amount of time has passed and you're really ready to turn your muscles back on, the first thing to do is coordinate your abdominals with your entire body. So let's start lying on our back right now. Find yourself in a comfortable position with your knees bent, your feet flat and your hips in a neutral position. We're going to start with a breathing exercise here.

I'll get you to rest your hands right below your ribcage and reach your baby finger down towards your hip bones so your entire abdominal space is covered. All right, so we're going to think about the pelvic floor now. So right at the very base of your pelvis, there's a sling of muscles, and as you breathe in Nice and deeply, I want you to imagine a flower blooming outwards. As you exhale, imagine that flowers bloom closing and then pulling back up and into your body. Inhale, the flower opens and blooms outwards, and as you exhale, gently close the bloom and pull it back up and into your body.

Try that one more time. Big Breath in. The flower blooms outwards. As you exhale, the bloom closes and pulls back up and into your body. From here, let's think about the transverse abdominis. So this space underneath your hands, we're going to take a nice long breath into expand. Think about a three dimensional breath, almost like a balloon expanding evenly in all directions.

And as you exhale, gently feel your hands hugging into the space. Big Breath in, expanding three dimensionally and as you exhale, hug gently pressing into your fingertips. Feel that nice contraction. Try that one more time. Big Breath, expanding like a balloon in all directions and as you exhale, a gentle hug through the entire abdominal space. Now we're going to try and coordinate those two actions. So as I inhale, I feel the expansion like a balloon and the flower blooms outwards. As you exhale, the bloom closes and pulls in.

As you hug through your middle, big in, bloom out and expand. Exhale, contract, gently hug and pull the bloom up and into your body. Let's try that again. Big Breath. Expand three-dimensionally as the bloom opens up, and as you exhale, closing the bloom, pulling it in and hugging through your middle. Finding that coordination is the first step to a healthy recovery through your core. Let's use that throughout the next few exercises. We're going to use that now with a pelvic Tuck, so finding your feet hipbone with distance apart.

Hands rest gently by your sides. Take that three dimensional breath in. Feel your flower bloom out words, and as you exhale, pull the bloom in. Hug The midline, gently flatten your low back into the table. Big Pelvic Tuck. Inhale, feel the bloom opening as you expand through your abdominals, and as you exhale, close the Blum. Pull it in, hugging the midline as you tuck your pelvis deeply. Feel a gentle activation through your bum. Release all the way back. As you inhale, there's a full expansion. The flower blooms outwards.

Really feel the release of your pelvic floor. Exhale, pull the bloom in as you hug the middle. Tuck your pelvis to gently contract. Inhaling, release back to neutral. Feel the pelvic floor that bloom releasing big expansion. Let's add a bridge. As you exhale, the bloom closes and pulls it.

You Hug your midline, you tuck your pelvis, peeling your spine up right to the base of your rib cage. From here, imagine reaching your knees over your toes. Find a little bit of length through the front of your thighs. Take another breasts in here as you feel that three dimensional expansion flower blooms outwards, and as you exhale, close the bloom. Pull it in, hug the abdominals, and then articulate bone by bone, by bone. Lots to think about.

Take a breath in as you bloom outwards and expand three-dimensionally. Exhale, pulling in the bloom, tucking the pelvis. Think of hugging the ABS, peeling up bone by bone, by bone. The knees reach over the toes that might help you activate your hamstrings. Take your breath.

Three dimensional expansion blooming outwards through the pelvic floor. Xcel. Close the bloom. Pull it in. Hug of dominoes. Gently articulate back down, own by phone. Let's do one more big. Expand the bloom. Open through the abdominal space. As you exhale, pull the bloom into your body. Hug abdominals, slow peel of the spine, up bone by bone.

Bring it right to the base of your rib cage. Let's take a moment here. Make sure the shoulders are nice and wide. My knees are reaching over my toes, glutes and hamstrings are awake from here. Take your breath in three dimensional expansion. The flower blooms open as you exhale, soften through the spine and round down bone by bone, by bone. Great job. Let's reach the arms up with a breath end. Feel that expansion.

So from here, let's keep our arms back here and check that the ribs haven't popped upwards. We want to keep the ribs really anchored into the mat. Underneath this great. The arms reach back up and the bloom closes the abdominals. Tighten in hell. The ribs are going to stay heavy. With that 3d breath.

You can feel the pelvic floor blooming outwards and as you exhale, bloom Posen abdominals, hug and arms pull back to vertical inhalation as the rib stay heavy. 3D breath bloom presses out. Exhale and abdominals hug. Bloom closes and pulls into your body. All right, so keep your arms up here. We're going to work now with our right leg and left arm. Okay, getting our brain turned on now. So as I inhale, I'm going to reach my left arm back and my right leg long on the mat.

As I exhale, I pull my pelvic floor, the bloom in the abdominals, hug arm and leg, drag back to the center. Let's do the other side, right arm, left leg. Inhale, expand three-dimensionally. Feel that bloom outwards of the pelvic floor. Exhale, the bloom closes. You Hug your abdominals and you drag the limbs back to center. Inhalations 3d breath blooming outwards.

That should feel like a release of the pelvic floor. Exhale, the bloom comes in of Jami annals. Tighten and back to center with arm and leg. Inhale, expand the right arm and left leg reach and then exhale. Find the bloom into the body as the ribs hugged down abdominals. Tighten. Open your arms out to a t shape.

Find a long breath to expand, and as you exhale, big hug bloom in. Interlace your fingers at the top. We're going to do a small amount of rotation here. So as I inhale, I feel my 3d breath. I reach my arms and ribs over to the right. As I exhale, abdominals, hug, bloom pulls in. We come back to center. Inhale to the left. Feel big.

Expansion, hips and legs. Stay centered. Exhale, the bloom pulls in. Hug through belly button and center. One more each way. Big Breath. Rotate the upper body. Only exhale, feel that bloom. Pull in, feel the abdominals, tighten as you come back to center. And then inhale, upper body goes to the left.

Fill the balloon. Exhale, pull it back into your body. Find a hug through abdominals. Reach the arms gently back. Circle them out to the sides and all the way down towards your hips. Good job. From here, let's gently roll onto our right side.

You can use your bottom arm like a pillow. So for our next breath, I'm going to give you an image of a desk. My entire body is the frame of the desk and my belly button is the handle of the desk drawer. So from here you're going to imagine as you breathe in, you pull the desk drawer out and just allow the contents to drop to the floor. As you exhale, pick up that desk drawer and slide it back into the frame of your body.

Inhale, expand opening the desk drawer and let it fall to the floor. As you exhale, lift the desk drawer and slide it back into your body CV and coordinate that with your pelvic floor. Now in how the desk drawer slides open and down. As you exhale, you lift, pull, or push the desks or a back into the frame. CV can can find that bloom of your pelvic floor pulling up into your body as well.

So much to coordinate in how the dust or opens and gums to the floor. Xcel lift the desk drawer and slide it back into the frame. Feel the bloom, pull in at the same time. Let's try that one last time. Big Breath in. As I open the desk drawer. As you Xcel, you lift the desk, Doris, slide it back into the frame and then slowly pull the pelvic floor up and in to your body. Let's try use that breath as we now do some more coordinated exercise. Take your top hand to your top hip and feel that your hips are one on top of the other.

Gently use your hand to push your hip away towards your feet a little bit. Now that you're in this position, we're going to keep our feet together the whole time. You're going to take the breath, feel the dust door open, and as you exhale, lift desk drawer, pull it into your body and just the top knee is going to rotate up towards the sky. You've kept your hips stacked. Inhale, the desk drawer opens. As you exhale, push that desk door back into the frame, find your pelvic floor and then lift the knee. Try really getting that coordinated abdominal activation before you move. Inhale, expand desk drawer falls down as you XL lift.

Pull it into the frame. Find that bloom back into your body and then rotate your top knee upwards. Inhale, expand. Find the desk drawer. As you exhale, press it back into your body. Find that pelvic floor activation to lift the knee.

Let's do one more here. Inhalation. As that belly button pulls open, and as you exhale, pull it back into your body. Find that pelvic floor blooming into the body as you lift your knee. Perfect. Slowly bring that leg all the way down. Okay, so one more thing to coordinate. Your top arm goes up to the ceiling. You're going to find an inhale. As the desk drawer opens, you reach your arm behind you. As you exhale, search, push the Destro back into your body.

Find the pelvic floor and move your arm all the way to the floor in front of you. Inhale like spans low belly. Open the drawer. Move that top arm behind you. Exhale as you pull that Destro back into the frame. Rotate your upper body all the way to the floor in front of you. Inhalation desk drawer opens. You rotate your upper body backwards.

Exhale, desk drawer closes. Pelvic floor activates your upper body rotates forward. All right, so can we do this and add the clamshell a lot from mommy brain right now we're going to inhale the upper body behind us as the desk drawer opens. As we exhale, Destro closes, bloom pulls into your body. Upper body rotates forward and clamshell top knee floats.

Inhalations you expand three dimensionally. Feel that drawer open. As you exhale, the upper body rotates forward. The desk drawer closes. The pelvic floor pulls in. Your knee floats in the hell. The nigos down arm reaches backwards. Low belly expands. Exhale, knee lifts, arm reaches forward, desk, door closes, pelvic floor engage as, let's try one more. Really coordinated everything. Inhale, as the Destro expand or upper body goes back and the knee falls down.

Exhale, the desk drawer closes. The pelvic floor activates. Upper body rotates forward and knee floats up. Bringing yourself back to the center. Release and relax. Okay, so that's a lot. Let's come up onto our forearm from here. So in this position, I want to make sure that my elbow is directly underneath my shoulder.

Fits out too far. It can cause a lot of tension. So tuck your elbow directly underneath you, lift through the spine and feel really neutral. All right, from here I'm going to bring my bottom hand to my bottom rib and I'm just going to sink all the way down. As you exhale, bring yourself back to a neutral spine. So this should be a diastasis safe exercise. But keep in mind that every body is different. So this is where our self chat is going to come in really handy.

So I take a breath in to drop down, seeing really lifted and tall off of my forearm. And as I exhale, I lift my spine back to neutral. Here you want to start to feel down the middle of the abdominals. If there's any doming or gaping, anything that feels pain or an increase in your symptoms, that's a sure sign to bring it back down. So as we inhale, we're gonna breathe down and as you exhale, hug through your abdominals, lift the pelvic floor and find neutral. Inhale slump down. And as you exhale, slowly lift up to a neutral spine.

Okay, so that's three. Let's take a big breath into expand, staying neutral through your spine, your head, ribs, and hips are in a nice diagonal. And on your next XL hug through abdominals. Find your pelvic floor activation and then lift your hips an inch. Another good place to feel for any doming or any space. If you feel any pain increase in symptoms, bring yourself back down.

We're going to inhale, dip the ribs down towards the Mat as you exhale, lift to neutral first. Make sure you're hugging through abdominal, lifting your pelvic floor, and then the hips lift. Self check every time. Make sure there's no doming. Slowly down. Inhale side, bending the rib down towards the floor. Exhaling back to neutral and then hug, pelvic floors active. And then lift your hips. Bring it all the way down.

Lie On your side from here, let's turn to face the other direction. So lets do the same thing on the second side. I've got my desk drawer ready to open as I expand and drop to the floor and as they exit I lift desk drawer and slide it back into the frame. Think now of your pelvic floor. Almost like a straw, sucking all the way up into your body. Inhale, the desk drawer opens and falls to the floor, and as you exhale, lift it and then press it back in, sucking the pelvic floor back up into your body. Inhale, dust store opens. Exhale, it pull pushes back into your body as you suck the pelvic floor back up through a straw. Let's see if we can use that image throughout this next exercise.

So we'll take our top arms straight up to the ceiling. We'll inhale open the chest or reaching the arm behind us. The desk drawer opens. As you exhale, the desk drawer closes. The pelvic floor pulls up through a strong, any rotate all the way forward. Inhaling big expansion Destro opens.

Exhale, pressing that drawer back in, sucking the pelvic floor back up through a straw. Inhale, expand. And as you exhale, Tuck that desk drawer back in. Pull the pelvic floor up through a straw. One more big breath opening dust drawer to reach your arm behind you. And as you exhale, tuck the dust roll back in. Pull the pelvic floor up through a strong, come all the way back to center and place your top hand on your top hip.

Press the hip gently away from you. Find length through your top waist band. Our feet stay together. We'll take a breath and open the desk drawer and as we XL we close the desk drawer. We pull the pelvic floor up through a straw and rotate the top knee upwards in hell. Desk drawer opens. Exhale, it closes. The pelvic floor, draws in and knee floats to the sky. Inhale, expand. Exhale, Tuck the desk drawer back in.

SIP The pelvic floor back up and into your body. Lift your top knee. Inhale, expand. Exhale, press desk drawer. Pull pelvic floor up through a straw and then lift the top knee. Now to coordinate everything together. As I inhale, my arm reaches behind me. The desk drawer opens up in front.

As we exhale, you're going to Tuck the Destro back into your body. Reach your top arm all the way forward as your knee floats upwards. Inhale, expand. The knee comes down, the arm reaches back the or opens up as we XL. The arm reaches forward. The knee reaches up desk drawer, Tuckson pelvic floor sips up into the body. Inhale, lower knee reach arm. Expand the belly button forward. Exhale, desk drawer.

Tuckson pelvic floor activates knee lifts. Arm reaches forward. Let's do two more. Inhale lower than he reached the arm. Expand low belly. Open the Jaguar. As you exhale, reach the arm up the knee. Lift the desk drawer, tucks in the pelvic floor activates. Inhale and open the drawer. Reach the arm, lower the knee. Exhale, Tuck the drawer, sip your pelvic floor up. Reach the knee up.

Reach the arm forward. Good. Bring that back to the center. Slowly release. Okay, so from here, let's bring it up into a side bridge. We're going to make sure the elbow is directly underneath your shoulder. Your neck is long, your spine is neutral. Go from here. Take your bottom hand to the bottom rib, and then just drop your rib down into your hand. Take a big breath in.

As you exhale, lift that rib up into a nice neutral spine. So nose, chest, pubic bone in that strong diagonal inhalation desk. Door opens. We drop the rib all the way down. Exhale, you can tuck the desk drawer, pull up through the pelvic floor, bring yourself really in a nice neutral spine. Inhale as you drop the ribs all the way down. And as you exhale, low belly tucks in, pelvic floor lifts up.

Find your neutral spine. And I do a little check here to make sure that there's no doming and definitely make sure you're checking with your fingers because if you do use your head to look down, you will likely get some doming just with that extra bit of flection. Okay, so let's add in. As long as there's no doming or pain, we're going to add the hip left. Take your breath, expand open desk drawer, lower the red as you ax hail, Tuck in the Destro, find your pelvic floor. Be neutral in your spine and then press the hip up. Doing that self check here to make sure there's no doming and there's some tone through the middle.

Inhale as you lower down the rib drops down, acts, desk drawer, tucks in, pelvic floor lifts up, we're neutral, and then the hip left. I'm going to check every single time to make sure that I keep my pelvic floor, my transverse abdominis nice and tight, and I don't have any doming happening. Inhale down hip, down ribs. Exhale, rib comes up to neutral, press and lift, finding the pelvic floor transverse activation, and then slowly bring it all the way down. Get bring yourself all the way lying on your side.

Great. Let's get ourselves up onto our hands and knees. So press yourself up through Seton. Make sure that your hands are directly underneath your shoulders and your knees are directly underneath your hips. We're going to stay tall and neutral in this position. So tiny dip in your lower back, tall off your arms, long through the back of your neck. So for this breathing exercise, and we need to expand your belly button down towards the floor.

But notice I haven't changed the arch in my lower back. As we exhale, we're gonna lift the belly button back up into the body. Inhale as you expand downwards with belly button towards the floor, and as you exhale, lift the belly button back up into your body. Again, not changing the frame of your body. Inhale, low belly reaches down towards the floor. Exhale, lift it up into your body. Now let's see. Get that flower blooming at the same time. So as I have a low belly reaches to the floor and I feel that flower blooming outwards towards the heels, this should feel like your pelvic floor is opening up as you axo closing the bloom, pulling it back into your body. As you lift your belly button up.

And in inhale, belly button reaches to the floor. Flower blooms outwards. Sometimes it helps to sit back slightly towards your heels to really feel the pelvic floor opening. As you exhale, pull the bloom into your body belly button. Lift up into the frame again. Inhale, belly button reaches to the floor, bloom reaches towards your heels. Exhale, the bloom pose in and belly button pulls up.

Let's try it one more time. Inhale, low belly to the floor. Bloom expands towards the feet. Exhale to close the bloom. Pull it into the body as low belly lifts. Let's add that to the cat cow.

So I'm going to take a breath in and actually arch my back as a reach my belly button to the floor and that bloom expands and as I ask Sam to round my tail bone in spine, I lift my belly button into the frame and I'm pulling the bloom up into my body. Okay, inhale, releasing that nice long breath as a arch. Low belly expand bloom reaches outwards. Axel, the bloom pulls in low belly poles up. We round the spine and just look towards your belly button. Two more. Inhale, look up arch back.

Belly button expands to the floor. Pelvic floor blooms outwards. As we exhale, we tuck the pelvis, lift belly button, close the bloom and around the spine. Good. One more big breath opening the bloom opening through abdominals. Look up and then exhale. Close the bloom around the spine.

Pull the belly button up and in rounding your spine completely. Sit back all the way towards your heels. Allow your spine to rest. Take a moment. Find a natural breath in here. This is a really great position to allow the pelvic floor to open and release completely. Let's take three breaths.

Two, fill that release of your pelvic floor, and one more. Okay, good. Bring yourself a right back onto your hands and knees. Hands under shoulders, knees under hips. This time we'll stay nice and neutral through the spine. Let's take the right arm straight out to the right. Take a look at it.

As you rotate upwards with the breath. As you exhale, hug the abdominals, close the bloom, and then scoop your right arm down and through until you're reaching your shoulder to the floor. Take a breath in. Expand three dimensionally, see if you can open the bloom of your pelvic floor. Exhale hugging through abdominals. Pull the bloom into your body. One more big breath in. Expand all the way, and then exhale. Pelvic floor little belly tightens. As you slowly come down towards your right shoulder, press up to neutral. Again, hands under shoulders, knees under hips, really tall on your arms. Neutral Spine Gad. Let's look at the left arm.

Reach it up to the ceiling as you expand through the abdominals. Open through the bloom of your pelvic floor. And as you exhale, dive down, hug through abdominals, close the bloom of your pelvic floor. Inhaling up big expansion. A lot of coordination here. Find abdominals, find pelvic floor, bringing it together, keeping that coordination. One more big, wave up, expand.

And then pelvic floor and abdominal. Tighten gently as you slowly bring yourself down towards the floor. Good. Bring yourself back to the center again. Sit back onto the heels. Take a moment. So the next couple of exercises, we need to find some wall space.

So let's go do that now. So here we are at the wall. We're gonna use the wall for some balance and support. Place one hand on the wall. Stand with your feet parallel and hip bone with distance apart. So we're going to start with the left leg as our support leg.

We're going to make sure that we're standing nice and tall on that leg. My right leg is going to reach backwards as a gesture leg. I'm going to do the same with my opposite arm now. So it should be your right leg back and left arm forward. I'm really going to hold onto the wall for support here.

As they take a long breath in, I expand three-dimensionally. Feel your flower blooming outwards. As you exhale, pull the pelvic floor in, hug to the abdominals, and lift your right leg as your left arm reaches up towards your ear. Inhale to bring the arm down to shoulder height and your toes touch the floor. As you exhale, find your pelvic floor and abdominal coordination and lift those limbs up. Inhale, expand. Release your pelvic floor is your arm and leg.

Come back down. Exhale as you hug your abdominals, lift the pelvic floor, reach left arm, right leg, and then slowly release them back down. Let's try that one more time. As you exhale, the low belly draws in the pelvic floor lifts you reach your opposite arm and let, we want to make sure that we're not arching the back here, but really maintaining a stable core. Slowly bring the limbs back down. Release and we're going to turn the other side so I'm standing tall, feet parallel and hip bone with distance apart. This time I left arms here for support.

My right arm is straight out in front. That makes my left leg the gesture like stand tall in your right leg. Stay really lifted there and strong. We'll take our three dimensional breath in and let the pelvic floor open up and release. As you exhale, hug through the abdominals, pull the bloom inwards, lift left leg and right arm. Inhale, expand as you release the limb. Exhale, low belly first. Then pelvic floor, arm and leg reach. Inhale, expand three-dimensionally. Release your pelvic floor. Exhale, hug, abdominals, lift, pelvic floor.

Reached the limbs long again, no arching in your spine and then down. One more big breath and exhale abdominals, pelvic floor first. Then lift the limbs and slowly release. Okay, let's do one more using the wall. We'll turn to face the wall here and I'm going to place both hands on the wall.

We're going to take a long breath in as we bend our elbows, reaching the crown of the head towards the wall and as we exhale we coordinate low belly and pelvic floor and press away in how bend your elbows. Bring your head towards the wall. Exhale, coordinate your abdominals and pelvic floors. You push away. Inhale slowly towards the wall. Acts, hail, coordinate abdominals, pelvic floor. Press up. Here's a place we can check for any domains. One more breath in as you bend your elbows and as you exhale, cord abdominals, pelvic floor, push away.

So there's your modified push up on the wall. From here. Guys, let's just take our arms up for a long breath in and then slowly release all the way down to here and find that lift of your pelvic floor, that activation of your abdominals. Good standing tall and relax. Great. Have a great rest of your day.