Separated Abs question

SO I have been working on abs and upper body while my ankle has been healing from a fracture. A girl at work was talking about how women, particularly those who have had babies tend to have separated abs and need to train them differently or the stick out rather than lie flat. Has anyone heard of this?

Thanks

Kiri

I havent. Does the girl at your work have a six pack? Would you be opposed to having one? I know I wouldnt...

Its pretty tough to build enough muscle to show, and your abdomen has to be pretty lean to show ab muscles. Like,

I would love a six pack. She was just saying that some an exercised are counter productive if you have this issue. For example,  front planks not good, side planks are ok.  I know I need to be lean for them to show. That likely won't happen for me. Which is fine. I was just curious if others had heard about it. 

She's talking about diastasis recti. This is when the rectus abdominus separate (the "six-pack" muscles that sit on top of your abdomen). It happens frequently in pregnant women and can cause a pooch in the tummy area (different from simply having excess fat there). A physiotherapist or even your GP can diagnose you.

You can google all kinds of exercises for this. The key thing is to lay off a lot of traditional ab work (crunches, twisting) and focus on exercises that activate your transverse abdomus muscles (planks, etc).