You’ve been hitting the gym and eating well, but that stubborn postpartum "pooch" refuses to flatten. If traditional core exercises aren't working (or seem to make your stomach bulge more), you might have Diastasis Recti (DRA)—a separation of your abdominal muscles.

Before you do another crunch, you need to know what you are dealing with. Fortunately, you can check for this separation right in your living room.

The 2-Finger Gap Test

Follow these simple steps to assess your core:

1. Lie Flat: Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor.
2. Find the Midline: Place two fingers flat on your belly button, pointing down toward your toes.
3. The Crunch: Gently lift your head and shoulders off the floor, just enough to engage your abdominal muscles.
4. Feel the Gap: Gently press your fingers down into your midline. Move them just above the belly button, and then just below it.

What are you feeling for? If your core is fully healed, your muscles should feel like a firm wall pushing against your fingers. If you have Diastasis Recti, your fingers will sink into a squishy gap between the two sides of your rectus abdominis muscle. A gap of two finger-widths or more indicates a clinically significant separation.

Why You Shouldn't Just "Exercise It Away"

If you felt a gap, stop doing sit-ups, crunches, and heavy planks. These exercises push your internal organs outward against the weakened connective tissue, which can actually make the separation wider.

At Phelts Chiropractic PC, Dr. Phelts uses EMSCULPT NEO to safely heal the core. By using High-Intensity Focused Electromagnetic (HIFEM) energy, the device forces the abdominal muscles to contract supramaximally 20,000 times in 30 minutes—without creating the outward pressure that traditional exercises do. Peer reviewed studies show this can physically pull the muscles back together, reducing Diastasis Recti by an average of 19%.

Want to learn how we close the gap? Read our main guide: Diastasis Recti Treatment NYC: Fix "Mommy Tummy" with Emsculpt Neo.

References

1. Reliability of Palpation: Clinical studies demonstrate that the finger-width palpation method is a reliable clinical tool for assessing inter-rectus distance (diastasis recti) in postpartum women.
   Source: PubMed - Reliability of the inter-rectus distance measured by palpation
2. HIFEM for Diastasis Recti: MRI evaluations confirm that High-Intensity Focused Electromagnetic technology significantly reduces abdominal separation while simultaneously increasing muscle thickness.
   Source: PubMed - High intensity focused electromagnetic therapy evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging