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Are you sick of feeling like your stomach muscles are made of jelly and disconnected from the rest of your body?
Are you itching to go to your favourite exercise class, but your diastasis, aching back and hips are holding you back?
Trying to heal your core and pelvic floor can feel scary and overwhelming.
You're worried about moving wrong and making it worse.
You're not sure that you're doing the right exercises or if you're even doing them correctly.
Are you actually going to get better?
You could try to go it alone and hope for the best.....
Or you could get a personalized rehab plan and know you're going to heal your diastasis the right way.
Hi there , I'm Maritza Linzey
and I know just how confusing looking for the answers to heal your diastasis can be.
You just want some straight answers about what you should avoid and which exercises you need.
And that's exactly what I do.
I specialize in empowering moms to rehab their core and pelvic floor so that they can feel stronger, heal their diastasis and stop leaking.
But it wasn't always this way.
After my second c-section I was left with a deep diastasis and leaking.
My back pain that was so severe it stopped me from pushing my baby around the block in his pram.
As a fitness instructor and Personal Trainer with over 20 years experience in coaching health and fitness, I felt broken and lost.
I wasn't being the active mom I wanted to be.
And going back to work, lifting weights with clients and teaching fitness classes every week seemed like Misson Impossible.
After months of doing "core and pelvic floor safe" exercises and reopening my diastasis 7 times, I learnt to look beyond the obvious and see what was really stopping my diastasis from healing.
Have you ever felt like you are searching for a missing vital link?
Or felt frustrated that the basic core and pelvic floor exercises aren’t working for you?
There’s so much more to healing your diastasis than doing pelvic floor contractions or abdominal exercises.
You need to solve the puzzle of what’s causing YOUR diastasis, so you can feel centered and strong.
Confident that your core and pelvic floor will do their job and support you when you need it.
As a Core and Pelvic Floor Rehab Specialist I have learnt some valuable lessons that I think every mom with a diastasis or leaking should know.
Lesson 1: Closing your gap won't heal your diastasis
Take if from me, closing your gap doesn't mean you're fixed.
I closed mine 7 times.... and it always came back because I hadn't learnt to control the pressure inside my core.
Everytime I asked too much from my body, BOOM - the gap and the aches and pains were back.
Your takeaway:
You need to uncover what's really going on with your core and why you keep pushing out on your midline when you lift and carry things.
Lesson 2: Diastasis is a symptom, not the cause of your problem
This follows on nicely from lesson 1.
Disatasis Recti means that your body is mismanging the pressure in your core and pushing it out into your belly and stretching out you midline.
So the next question is why?
What's going on that your central stablizing system isn't working properly?
The answers can suprise you.
You have to follow the lines back to your core and pelvic floor.
In my case, I had a weak arch in my right foot.
The weak foot caused my knee to twist slightly when I walked (ouch!) which meant my glute and pelvic floor muscles had to work overtime to try and stabilze me.
With my hip and pelvic floor muscles exhausted all the time, they couldn't do their jobs and help me control my core pressure.
Volia... a disatasis that won't heal by only focusing getting stronger abs.
If you'd told me at the beginning that my feet were partly responsible for stopping my diastasis from healing, I would've thought you were crazy.
Your takeaway:
Look beyond your abs and your pelvic floor.
Look at what's happening above and below your core to see what might be interfering with your control of your core pressure.
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Lesson 3: You need the right amount of stress to improve.
For the best results you want to be like Goldilocks. You need just the right amount of stress on your core and pelvic floor to get stronger.
Two common mistakes I see are getting stuck in Rehab-Land or doing too much too soon.
The Rehab-Land Mom
Ahh......the comfort and safety of sticking with your easy and familar rehab exercises.
I get it, it can be scary to stretch your boundries with harder exercises that demand more from your core and pelvic floor.
There's also the fear that you might make things worse if you do too much.
The truth is you're not broken.
Your body needs to be challenged to adapt and get stronger. You need to gradually progress your exercises to heal your core and pelvic floor.
The art is in knowing when to stretch yourself and when you need to stay put and build strength at your current level.
The Speedy-Gonzales Mom
When you're dying to get back to the exercise you love, this is a common mistake.
It can show up in 2 different ways.
Either you skip your rehab altogether and go straight back to running, lifting and jumping.
Or you do some core and pelvic floor rehab, then assume you're all good and do exercises that are too advanced for you right now.
(I did this by rushing back into teaching my Zumba classes and undoing all my hard work).
Either way, your body needs time to build more strength before you jump back in.
Your takeaway:
Your body will adapt to the load you put on it.
You need to find the sweet spot between too easy (which means no improvement) and too much too soon (which can make your symptoms feel worse ).
Not sure where your sweet spot is? Get professional help and guidance.
Lesson 4: Everyone has different needs
When it comes to rehab, there's no one size fits all and that makes it frustating and confusing when you're looking for answers.
How you like to load your body and your movement habits are unique to you.
You'll have different strengths and weakness than the next mom.
This is why some ladies can do planks with a diastasis and be fine, while for others they're off limits for now.
Your takeaway:
"It Depends" is my best answer to general questions about which exercises you should do.
To find out, you need to be assessed to see where you're strong and where you need to build more strength in your body.
Then we can make a plan designed especially for you because what your body needs to come back into balance is as individual as you are.
Lesson 5 : Be resilient and be patient with yourself
Setbacks are are part of the journey and totally normal.
Any stress or tension you feel will show up in your muscles......especially your pelvic floor.
(72 hours of nonstop travel to New Zealand with two active kids in tow will teach you this.)
Your symptoms returning or feeling worse isn't the end of the world.
It means you need to take stock of what's going on and make adjustments to your rehab plan.
Your takeaway:
Set the expectation that you'll have some setbacks and you'll be mentally prepared for them when they happen.
Uncovering what you need to heal your core and pelvic floor can be complicated.
I'm here to help you sort out exactly what you need and discard the rest.
The Offical Bio
Ready to escape from the “Pee My Pants Club”, kiss goodbye to your abdominal separation (a.k.a Diastasis) and get back to rocking it in your favourite fitness class again?
Then you need Coach Maritza Linzey in your corner….
As a Core and Pelvic Floor Rehab Specialist and Personal Trainer with over 20 years experience, Maritza teaches moms to reprogramme how they load and activate their core so they can ditch the aching hips and lower back pain.
Working with Maritza has helped moms reconnect with their tummy muscles (so they don’t look five months pregnant anymore) and rebalance their whole body while healing their Diastasis.
When she’s not helping moms get stronger and feel confident they can chase runaway toddlers downhill without leaking, you can find her with her hands in the dirt in her the garden, shaking her hips like Shakira (‘cause strong abs and hips don’t lie) while teaching her Zumba classes or answering her kids when they ask “Why?” for the twenty seventh billionth time.