Diastasis Recti Abdominis Rehab Program

Our Diastasis Recti Abdominis Rehab Program will get rid of your mommy pooch! We are experts at assessing and treating DRA

Are you tired of your mommy pooch?  Wondering why your abdomen has a bulge? Unhappy with the appearance of your abdominal wall? Worried that you might have an umbilical hernia (belly button) and need surgery? Are you noticing your belly button is spread apart more than it should be?  You have found the right place to help you recover from a diastasis recti abdominus (DRA). Our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program will help you restore your abdominal wall appearance, integrity and strength.

We offer a systematic, progressive diastasis recti abdominis rehab program to help you close your diastasis recti and bring integrity to your abdomen!

If you are  interested in learning about our DRA recovery program, contact us at (616) 516-4334 or fill our this online inquiry so we can chat about your needs.  We treat people in person at our clinic in Grand Rapids, Michigan and also online via telehealth.

Our patients come to us many times knowing there is something wrong with their abdomen, but not knowing what to do about it.  Recently a patient summed up the state of getting help for your DRA best when she said

“I know I have a DRA.  They told me I have a DRA.  That’s what they said, yep, you have a DRA.  Then they didn’t tell me anything else.  Nothing.  Nothing.  They didn’t tell me one thing to do to get it better.  They just told me I could make it worse so I’d better be careful when I exercise.”

When you come to Purple Mountain PT  for our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program, you will experience a full, comprehensive assessment and very clear guidance regarding what you need to do to heal your DRA.

To assess and treat a diastasis recti abdominis is a higher level skill.  This is why other providers don’t really know how to advise you.

This is why our patients come to us frustrated or having received outdated and frightening (incorrect) guidance about all the horrible problems they will have if they worsen their diastasis recti abdominis.

What does a Diastasis Recti Abdominis Rehab Program Entail?

Every appointment is private, upto 55 minutes in length and with the same doctor of physical therapy

One of the hallmarks of the high quality care you receive at Purple Mountain PT is the individualized attention your get during your private appointments with our expert physical therapists.  We never leave you to exercise alone or under supervision of a lesser trained person.  Everything we do here at Purple Mountain is designed to give you results, including you having the same PT every time.  We go into great detail to figure out how to help your abdominal wall and to customize your diastasis recti abdominis rehab program.  If you had to see a new therapist or lesser trained person at some visits, you won’t experience the results, there is loss of continuity of care.

We begin with a very thorough evaluation of your entire core

This means we assess and treat your low back, ribcage & thoracic spine, diaphragm, hips, pelvic floor and thighs, in addition to your abdomen.  We identify exactly where you are having difficulty engaging your abdominal wall effectively.  If you would like to learn more about getting started with our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program contact us at (616)516-4334 or submit this online inquiry and we will be in touch.  We work both in person at our clinic and also via telehealth.

Are your hips or low back or ribs or thoracic spine contributing to your mommy pooch?

We will assess and treat all of these areas because they each play an important role in recovery of abdominal wall integrity.  We know that the low back muscles work in coordination with the abdominal wall.  Therefore, we assess and treat the low back for our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program.  Your glutes may not be strong and effective, either.  If this is the case, then your entire hip girdle and pelvis is not as stable and strong as needed and you may be straining your abdominal wall with daily movements.  Your posture, including in your head, thoracic spine and rib cage, greatly influences your breathing and diaphragm engagement.  We will assess and treat these areas because if the ribs are held in a flare, then you are widening and straining your abdominal wall.

We check your abdominal wall for ongoing elongation problems that are a consequence of pregnancy.

You know all those muscles got stretched out, the question we want to know is whether they came back to a less elongated shape?  If not, this our diastasis recti abdominis (DRA) rehab program will provide very targeted and specific exercises to rehabilitate your internal and external obliques, rectus abdominus and transversus abdominus muscles.

We check your abdominal wall for load transfer capacity!  In other words, can your abdominal wall handle all the moves your body must do on a day to day basis?

We look very carefully at your abdominal wall as you move in a variety of positions so that we can see exactly where the load transfer failure is occurring and we can determine how to beneficially load your abdominal wall.  To be properly assessed you will find us, your physical therapists, lying on the ground to watch you move and to see if your abdominal wall and linea alba can tolerate these movements.  We will have you bend, twist, rotate, perform a variety of abdominal exercises, breathe, raise your legs, raise your arms, contract your pelvic floor and more.  Our assessment is much more thorough than anything you will receive anywhere else.

We assess and treat your pelvic floor and figure out how it is working in coordination with your abdominal wall.  This is key to resolving your DRA!

The pelvic floor muscles work in conjunction with the abdominal wall.  Every time your abdominals contract, your pelvic floor muscles should also be working.  We find that our patients who have a mommy pooch also have pelvic floor dysfunction.  To effectively resolve the bulge in your abdomen and restore integrity to your core, we must rehabilitate your pelvic floor also, which is one thing that renders our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program more effective than anything else you will try.  If you are interested in learning more contact us here or fill out this online inquiry and we will be in touch.  We offer in person appointments in Grand Rapids and online appointments via telehealth.

A huge bonus of our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program is that any pelvic floor symptoms you are having, such as incontinence with laughing, pelvic pressure, urinary urgency, painful intercourse or constipation will improve.

We aren’t tooting our own horn here.  We are simply telling you what our patients have told us, which is

“no one has ever looked at my abdominal wall in as much detail as you did.  And no one knew how to tell me what I should be doing and what I shouldn’t be doing.  But, you told me exactly what I should do and I followed your recommendations and I see the progress.”

We have helped fitness professionals overcome DRA, other medical providers, other physical therapists, men, older women and postpartum women.

Our founder, Dr. Maureen O’Keefe, DPT healed her own DRA.  She had a stubborn one that was not an easy fix.   She has trained all the Purple Mountain PT staff in best practices to recover the abdominal wall.

Dr. Maureen O’Keefe developed a problematic DRA with her own pregnancy and had to complete rehabilitation that took a long time.  She troubleshooted her own abdominal wall and was able to recover her DRA.  At times she wasn’t sure it was recoverable.  Her progress was slower than many of her patients’ progress and because of this she questioned if she had a problem that was fixable.  But, she persevered and just committed herself to doing the exercises that she knew should be working to help herself.  Every. Day. For. Months.  You read that right, she did corrective exercises daily for many, many months, while working and raising two babies.  She knows how hard this is and because of her personal experience and her professional experience, which includes taking ongoing continuing education to keep up with diastasis recti abdominis best practices, she and the team at Purple Mountain PT (who are all trained by her in DRA recovery) can help you overcome your problem.  If you would like to learn more about our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program contact us at (616)516-4334 to learn more or submit this online inquiry and we will be in touch.  We treat people in person at our clinic in Grand Rapids, Michigan and also online via telehealth.

The research on DRA has changed in the last 5-10 years. Our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program follows the latest guidance so you experience the best results!

There is outdated information readily available on the internet.  This condition is one where not self-treating and not googling would be advised because you are likely to get incorrect information.  Instead, when you get properly evaluated by us, we can help identify your body’s needs and weaknesses, cut through the uncertainty, give you specific corrective exercises customized to your abdominal wall and will dispel any outdated myths.

We work with pregnant and postpartum women everyday who have elongated abdominal walls and diastasis recti abdominis.  They also have pelvic floor dysfunction, deep core weakness, lower back pain, urinary or bowel problems and may have pelvic pain.  If we can help these women, we can help you, also.

We wrote an article regarding exercise in pregnancy and detail some of our approach to helping people who have DRA.  You may be interested to read the article by clicking here.

A Diastsis Recti Abdominis (DRA) is a thinning, weakening and widening of the linea alba that causes load transfer problems in the abdominal wall.

A diastasis recti is a thinning, weakening and widening of the linea alba connective tissue that lies between the right and left rectus abdominis muscles causing ineffective load transfer capacity through your core muscles. You transfer loads from your legs, through your pelvis and into your abdomen and core when you walk, bend over to pick up your baby, climb stairs and shift your position to feed your baby. If you have a diastasis recti abdominis and your load transfer capacity is dysfunctional, you may experience not only the appearance of a poochy abdomen, even after you have lost your baby weight, but also problems with low back pain, hip pain, pelvic girdle pain, urinary incontinence and constipation. We know how to help you get your body back and heal this problem. We can guide you through a diastasis recti abdominis rehab program that facilitates the closure of your DRA, resolves ongoing abdominal wall elongation, restores pelvic floor integrity and improves your ability to load transfer effectively.  To get started, contact us at (616) 516-4334 or fill out this online inquiry and we will be in touch.

We have been treating DRA for years and helping people overcome this problem.

For years we have been helping men and women with diastasis recti recover from this condition. We follow current research, which seems to evolve and reveal more interesting components of a DRA each year! We attend professional conferences regarding DRA and how to best treat it. Having a DRA is so important to us and to your pelvic health concerns, we assess every single patient we see for a diastasis recti. It is a problem that greatly impacts your pelvic health, back pain, urinary control, bowel control and overall sense of looking good.

We can help pregnant women learn how to protect their abdominal wall to prevent a worsening DRA.  We help postpartum women strengthen their abdominal wall, close their gap from their DRA and resolve their elongated abdominal muscles.

If you are pregnant and want to be proactive, to avoid developing a DRA early on in your pregnancy and to learn how to protect your abdominal wall as you lift and move, we are here to help you.  Call us at (616)516-4334 to learn how to get started, or submit this online inquiry and we will be in touch.  If you are post-partum and want to recover your body to include restoring your abdominal wall integrity and your pelvic health, we are specialists in this area. If you are a man or woman who comes to us with a pelvic pain, back pain, abdominal pain or hip pain condition, we will assess you to determine if you have a DRA and, if you do, we will take you through a progressive rehabilitative program to help heal it. Knowing how to accurately assess whether a DRA is present and how to properly manage it to foster its rehabilitation is our expertise and is often missing in standard orthopedic treatments for musculoskeletal pain, such as back pain. If you have bowel or bladder conditions such as constipation or urinary incontinence, as DRA may be a contributing factor.

At the heart of our specialty at Purple Mountain PT is pelvic floor dysfunction.  The pelvic floor muscles work in partnership with the abdominal wall.  Because of this, we are experts at assessing and treating abdominal wall dysfunction.  This is our jam!

Purple Mountain Physical Therapy, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a specialty pelvic health clinic.  We treat women, men and kids who have pelvic floor dysfunction, pelvic pain, bladder and bowel problems.  We also treat men, women and kids who have TM joint disorders involving myofascial pain, cervicogenic headaches and neck pain.  When we work with pregnant and postpartum women we help overcome pelvic floor dysfunction, pelvic pain, bladder control problems, bowel troubles and intimacy related pain.  Our diastasis recti abdominis rehab program is for all of our patients because even children and men can have a DRA.  When you choose Purple Mountain Physical Therapy you are choosing pelvic health experts who treat you comprehensively and holistically. We are here to help you and are privileged to be in your corner through your journey to looking and feeling your best!  For more information contact us at (616) 516-4334 or fill out this online form and we will be in touch with you.