Abs after a baby

The first part of their body that women generally think will 'never be the same again' after a baby is their stomach. Hang on... maybe one other place too. But luckily for me and most other women, that bit also returns to a pretty 'normal' state.

I've always had a naturally flatish stomach. Don't hate me. It's just that I hold my excess fat around my thighs, legs and backside instead. Everyone has a pre disposition to storing fat in different places. My mum had a flat tummy and so I was blessed with one too, but I hated my chunky legs and bum.

When I was a teenager naval piercing became all the rage and I happily skipped to the local hippy shop that sold dream catchers and hemp rugs for my first pink iodised belly ring.

I loved it. I was so on trend at sixteen years old... but then disaster struck.

One night I got horrendous shoulder pain and could hardly breathe. My dad rushed me to A&E and I woke up twelve hours later to find an eight inch cut running from just below my naval up to my sternum, held together with frankenstine-esk stiching.

My piercing was gone, my perfect little insy bellybutton was now unrecognisable - neither in nor out. Piercing ofcourse gone.

Now, I'm ok with what happened. The scar I have saved my life as it turned out I had air trapped under my diaphragm which was life threatening. They never found out what caused it and I've never met or heard of anyone else having had it to this day. Although I remember hearing that cows can get it and often die. (?!)

Soooo you probably weren't expecting that twist when you started reading this, but there you go.

Anyway my stomach returned to a flatness I was happy with, I had surgery to improve my naval - although it is still a bit wonky, and I don't and never have hidden my scar. It's faded a lot with time anyway.

I'm adding this because perhaps there will be women reading this who have c section scars and are worried or feel self conscious about them. Although I think they make them pretty discreet now but still, you will see it in the shower so I just want to say - don't worry, they fade. They had a purpose. Possibly like me they saved your life or better still, brought you a baby.

I was never actually sure if I could get a six pack. I suppose I wrongly assumed that the surgery somehow damaged the muscle and it wasn't possible. And with training you tend to focus on the bits you don't like. So I never really pushed myself with core/ab exercises.

Post baby however, I HAD to work on my core. Honestly I hated having a big tummy. It was ok when it had a baby in it but after I couldn't wait for it to go down.

However before you start ANY core exercises post baby you MUST check if you have diastasis recti or separation of the stomach muscles. if you can, find a woman physio who can check. I'll do a whole post on this later. If you are sure you do not have an excessive one (more than two fingers width) you can exercise safely but start easy. You must always include pelvic floor and transverse abdominus exercises which are simply zipping up and holding from the inside. Do this EVERY time you exercise. I started working out a week after Sonny was born. Light cardio and light weights at first and built it up each week.

Right from the get go I worked on my core. Plank and other light core exercises to start with and then slowly introduced crunches.

What I found was that bodyweight alone soon became easy - so I started using weight. I have a 10 kg medicine ball which I used for Russian twists and crunches, but I'd grown used to it, the weight wasn't a challenge anymore and what I did next was absolutely KEY. I grabbed my 12 kg kettlebell and started using it.

I also started doing leg raises with weight and more advanced core exercises like crunches on an incline or hanging leg raises. (Find all these on my Instagram page.)

I hear a lot of people saying you don't need to train core every day and it's better to give it a full 45 minute session once per week, rather than sticking a few crunches on at the end of a workout. For me I trained it around three times per week but always did 3 - 4 sets of two or more exercises and worked to failure/overload.

So that might look like this;

Exercise 1: Weighted crunches (12kg)

Exercise 2: Bicycles

3 sets to failure

Exercise 3: Plank

3 x holds to failure

I'd do it in a circuit so Crunches - Bicycles - Plank then rest and repeat 3-4 times.

3 sets, 8-12 reps

And hey presto, what has emerged, is a little visible six pack.

I'm not lean enough for it to pop as I'm walking around - but I'm not a bikini competitor! I love the feeling of it though or seeing it when I'm lying back in a crunch position.

As a treat to myself and as a kind of recognition of my hard work, I just had my belly pierced again. It might sound silly but this made me so happy. My own little goal realised and perhaps a bit of making up for my disappointment at what happened to me when I was sixteen.

I guess what I want you to take from this article is this: anything is possible.

You have to work hard, keep your body challenged, INCREASE the weight or the reps, NEVER stay in your comfort zone - your body does not progress here. It stays stagnant or can even regress. Scars fade, don't get hung up on them. I hope that my muscles are what people will notice before my scar.

Have goals that are personal to you, for me I got it in my head I wanted my naval pierced again. Ones that are relevant and achievable but aim high because you only have to look at a few transformation pictures to see that our bodies are capable of extraordinary things.

It took me twenty years and a pregnancy for me to get a tummy I'm sort of happy with again.

It's NEVER too late.