美国国家公共电台 NPR Flattening The 'Mummy Tummy' With 1 Exercise, 10 Minutes A Day

 

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Today in Your Health, we're going to tackle an issue that affects about half of all mothers. The technical term is diastasis recti, but many of us know it by another name - mommy pooch - you know, that soft belly¹ that bulges³ out a bit. Well, ladies, now a fitness trainer and a doctor say they have come up with a quick way to fix it. NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff tried it out to see if it really works.

MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF, BYLINE⁴: OK, so I admit it. I have mommy pooch. I had my first baby about a year and a half ago. And my stomach - well, it feels a bit like pudding even though I've lost all the baby weight. So when I saw an ad on Facebook for a class that could possibly fix the pooch, I thought, why not? A few weeks later, I'm rolling out a yoga mat on the floor with a dozen other moms in San Francisco.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Hi.

DOUCLEFF: The class is led by Leah Keller, a personal trainer from New York City.

LEAH KELLER: Thank you so much for coming. I'm excited to...

DOUCLEFF: She's decked out in yoga pants and cowboy boots. She's in impeccable shape and has seemingly endless knowledge about abdominal⁵ muscles.

KELLER: We're going to get the obliques⁶ to fire along with the transverse rectus when we're doing the core compressions.

DOUCLEFF: She starts off by explaining what causes mommy pooch in the first place.

KELLER: So if you've had a baby - and all of you in here have mentioned that you have babies or children - you probably had some degree of abdominal separation.

DOUCLEFF: Abdominal separation - that's the key. Basically, when you're pregnant, the growing fetus⁷ pushes apart your abdominal muscles right around your bellybutton. In some cases, the separation closes on its own. But often, it stays open.

KELLER: So if you have this condition, you will have somewhat of a pooch.

DOUCLEFF: Because there's a gap in the muscles, there's nothing to hold in your stomach and your other organs, so they just kind of bulge² out.

KELLER: When the muscles don't come back together, you kind of look like you might be, like, four months pregnant, five months pregnant, depending on the severity.

DOUCLEFF: And so to help moms get rid of the pooch, Keller has developed an exercise - one key exercise that is supposed to pull the muscles back together. She says all you need to do is this exercise 10 minutes a day. And then...

KELLER: We will see dramatic change. You can easily expect to see two inches off your waist in the - in three weeks of time. That's not an unrealistic expectation.

DOUCLEFF: OK, wait a second. Two inches off my belly in three weeks - are you kidding? This sounds too good to be true. So I started digging into the science behind Keller's claim and called up one of the doctors who helped develop the method. Her name is Dr. Geeta Sharma. She's an OB-GYN at Weill Cornell Medical in New York City. And she's seen hundreds of women with abdominal separation.

GEETA SHARMA: This is such a ubiquitous issue.

DOUCLEFF: Which, she says, occurs in over 40 percent of new moms. And Sharma says abdominal separation is not just a cosmetic⁸ problem. It can also cause another big issue - back pain.

SHARMA: People will start feeling some back pain, and we don't want them to just have to live with their pain. We want them to be able to do something to try and help make it better and keep it from getting worse.

DOUCLEFF: ...Which brings us back to the exercises. If you search on the internet for ways to fix abdominal separation, you'll get a deluge⁹ of information. Even the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has its own exercise suggestions, which it recommends doing while still pregnant. But Sharma says there's a big problem. No one has rigorously studied these exercises to see if they work.

SHARMA: There is a general knowledge that exercise is going to help - but not really studied in a very standardized¹⁰ way.

DOUCLEFF: Now she wants to change that. A few years ago, she teamed up with Keller to start testing her method.

SHARMA: What we looked at was a pilot study to try and assess the efficacy.

DOUCLEFF: And the results were quite promising¹¹. Sharma presented them at ACOG's annual meeting. The study was small - just 63 women. But after 12 weeks of doing Keller's exercise, all the women had fixed¹² their abdominal separation, even moms who had had a baby a year before.

SHARMA: And that was really reassuring¹³ - that they still had such great, you know, benefit from doing the exercises.

DOUCLEFF: So, actually, these exercises do, like, heal that area and bring those muscles back together?

SHARMA: They can. And, you know, we love to see that. We love to see that there's actually something that we can do to help.

DOUCLEFF: So now the pressure is on for me to fix the mommy pooch. If other moms can do it, I should be able to do it, too.

KELLER: OK. We're going to do another set.

DOUCLEFF: Back at the class in San Francisco, Keller is leading the moms through the key exercise. And it's surprisingly simple to do.

KELLER: Relax the shoulders.

DOUCLEFF: We are all sitting on the floor cross-legged with our hands on our bellies¹⁴. Then we take a deep breath.

KELLER: Let the belly fully¹⁵ expand.

(SOUNDBITE OF EXHALE¹⁶)

DOUCLEFF: As we exhale, we suck our bellybuttons back as far as we can.

KELLER: Exhale. Squeeze all the way back to the spine¹⁷.

(SOUNDBITE OF EXHALE)

DOUCLEFF: Then we hold in this position, and take little tiny breaths.

KELLER: And exhale as you squeeze tighter.

(SOUNDBITE OF BREATHING)

DOUCLEFF: With each breath, we pull the belly back further and further into the spine...

KELLER: Very small, very intense, very tight squeeze...

(SOUNDBITE OF BREATHING)

DOUCLEFF: ...For 10 minutes.

KELLER: And you're done. Good work.

DOUCLEFF: This is our fourth class, and it's also Judgment¹⁸ Day. Keller pulls out a measuring tape...

(SOUNDBITE OF MEASURING TAPE EXTENDING)

DOUCLEFF: ...And starts wrapping it around women's bellies to see how many inches they've lost.

KELLER: Who's next?

DOUCLEFF: There's just success after success. Some moms completely closed up the abdominal separation.

KELLER: You are as tight as you can be.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: All right (laughter).

KELLER: You scored A-plus. Wow, amazing.

DOUCLEFF: One woman had incredible results.

KELLER: Oh, my goodness, Cat (ph). You made a dramatic improvement in the belly circumference¹⁹.

DOUCLEFF: She lost nearly 4 inches off her belly in three weeks.

KELLER: Whoa.

DOUCLEFF: Then it's my turn. And I'm really nervous.

KELLER: She's, like, hiding. OK, are you ready?

DOUCLEFF: Let's get this over with. I'm ready (laughter).

In the end, I didn't quite fix my abdominal separation. It got better but not resolved. But my belly circumference...

KELLER: Thirty-three and 3/4 to 32 1/2...

DOUCLEFF: OK, so an inch?

KELLER: So that's an inch and a quarter.

DOUCLEFF: Inch and a quarter, all right.

KELLER: An inch and a quarter...

DOUCLEFF: ...Dropped more than an inch. And, actually, I'm super happy with the results. My stomach is much firmer. But the best part - the exercise really cut down on my back pain. Michaeleen Doucleff, NPR News.

CHANG: At NPR's Shots blog, you can find more tips and also figure out if you have abdominal separation.

(SOUNDBITE OF KETTEL'S "CANDACE BOUVARD")

1 belly   

n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛

参考例句：

• The boss has a large belly.老板大腹便便。
• His eyes are bigger than his belly.他眼馋肚饱。

2 bulge   

n.突出，膨胀，激增；vt.突出，膨胀

参考例句：

• The apple made a bulge in his pocket.苹果把他口袋塞得鼓了起来。
• What's that awkward bulge in your pocket?你口袋里那块鼓鼓囊囊的东西是什么？

3 bulges   

膨胀( bulge的名词复数 )； 鼓起； （身体的）肥胖部位； 暂时的激增

参考例句：

• His pocket bulges with apples. 他的衣袋装着苹果鼓了起来。
• He bulges out of his black T-shirt. 他的肚子在黑色T恤衫下鼓鼓地挺着。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 abdominal   

adj.腹（部）的，下腹的；n.腹肌

参考例句：

• The abdominal aorta is normally smaller than the thoracic aorta.腹主动脉一般比胸主动脉小。
• Abdominal tissues sometimes adhere after an operation.手术之后腹部有时会出现粘连。

6 obliques   

n.歪的( oblique的名词复数 )；倾斜的；拐弯抹角的；间接的v.歪的( oblique的第三人称单数 )；倾斜的；拐弯抹角的；间接的

参考例句：

• The road obliques from the river. 这条路与河岔开了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Obliques are suitable for illustrative, teaching and training purposes. 倾斜相片适宜于展览，教学和训练之用。 来自辞典例句

7 fetus   

n.胎，胎儿

参考例句：

• In the fetus,blood cells are formed in different sites at different ages.胎儿的血细胞在不同时期生成在不同的部位。
• No one knows why a fetus is not automatically rejected by the mother's immune system. 没有人知道为什么母亲的免疫系统不会自动排斥胎儿。

8 cosmetic   

n.化妆品；adj.化妆用的；装门面的；装饰性的

参考例句：

• These changes are purely cosmetic.这些改变纯粹是装饰门面。
• Laughter is the best cosmetic,so grin and wear it!微笑是最好的化妆品，所以请尽情微笑吧！

9 deluge   

n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥

参考例句：

• This little stream can become a deluge when it rains heavily.雨大的时候，这条小溪能变作洪流。
• I got caught in the deluge on the way home.我在回家的路上遇到倾盆大雨。

10 standardized   

adj.标准化的

参考例句：

• We use standardized tests to measure scholastic achievement. 我们用标准化考试来衡量学生的学业成绩。
• The parts of an automobile are standardized. 汽车零件是标准化了的。

11 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

12 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

13 reassuring   

a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的

参考例句：

• He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. 他轻拍了一下她的肩膀让她放心。
• With a reassuring pat on her arm, he left. 他鼓励地拍了拍她的手臂就离开了。

14 bellies   

n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的

参考例句：

• They crawled along on their bellies. 他们匍匐前进。
• starving children with huge distended bellies 鼓着浮肿肚子的挨饿儿童

15 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

16 exhale   

v.呼气，散出，吐出，蒸发

参考例句：

• Sweet odours exhale from flowers.花儿散发出花香。
• Wade exhaled a cloud of smoke and coughed.韦德吐出一口烟，然后咳嗽起来。

17 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

18 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

19 circumference   

n.圆周，周长，圆周线

参考例句：

• It's a mile round the circumference of the field.运动场周长一英里。
• The diameter and the circumference of a circle correlate.圆的直径与圆周有相互关系。