Often, our bodies have a mind of their own.
One mom blogger’s tale of farting in a yoga class — a tale many can relate to — is going viral for all the right reasons. The hilarious post on Laura Mazza’s Facebook page “Mum on the Run,” tells the incident of Mazza going to a yoga class as a suggestion from her physiotherapist.
“I have muscle separation,” she wrote on the social media site Wednesday. “Having kids separated my abdominal wall like Moses parting the Red Sea. Yeah it’s not good and my stomach kinda points out like a cone. So you know, I am trying to get fitter and fix it so it was suggested by a physio to try yoga.”
In the post, the mom-of-two based in Sydney, New South Wales, talks about how out of place she felt in the class.
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And as she started doing “random” positions like the upward facing dog, she said she felt a crack in her back. But when she moved into the downward dog, she started to feel her guts.
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As the room stayed quiet and Mazza began to take in the stench of her gas, she contemplating leaving the country and running out of the room. After she told herself, “everyone farts,” she began getting into another position. Just then, the instructor came over to push her lower, and to her surprise, it happened again.
“I hold in my butthole nice and tight to make sure no farts escape again. She comes over… pushes my back down… And buuuuuuuuuurrppppfffffff. The loudest trumpet comes out of my ass. I froze and thought oh my god. Oh my God.”
At this point, Mazza runs out of the room and drives over to McDonald’s.
Users react (and relate)
The post, with more than 22,000 shares and 40,000 likes left the internet laughing with tears.
“The best laugh I’ve had in — I can’t remember. I think my pelvic floor needs some work because I peed a little laughing so hard. Made my night 😘,” user Marisa Martino wrote.
“This made my night. I have tears from laughing so hard. I think I too will live with my muscle separation,” user Shannon Stewart wrote.
Others went on about how much they could relate as moms.
“Oh my gosh! Bless you for putting yourself out there and letting us practically pee our pants from laughing so hard! I have the same issues with my stomach. When I was pregnant with my son, every time I moved I felt like someone was slicing my abs open,” user Teresa Francesca Sorice Giordano wrote.
“Been there, done that…numerous times. All normal in a yoga class, once you get over it the first time and get to know the gang, you just giggle your way through next time. It’s when the Fart follows through that’s the problem…I’ll tell you that one one day 🙏,” user Yasmin Doran wrote.
What is muscle separation?
And as Mazza talks about having muscle separation, this may not have led to the impromptu farting in the class, it could have been caused by pelvic floor muscles (or her IBS), registered physiotherapist Katie Hauck of Toronto Physiotherapy says.
“Separation happens to every woman during pregnancy as we create more room for the baby to grow and (good news) spontaneous recovery occurs in the eight weeks following delivery,” she tells Global News. “For some, the recovery is incomplete and separation between the abdominal muscles can persist.”
Also known as diastasis recti or rectus diastasis, it is the stretching of connective tissue that joins the two rectus abdominus muscles (abs) from the midline (linea alba), Hauck says.
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Registered physiotherapist and yoga instructor Cynthia Chung of Toronto Physiotherapy, says yoga in particular can be beneficial to those with the condition, however, it should be addressed through a physiotherapist first.
“They can learn more targeted exercises to best activate their pelvic floor and core muscles and gain an understanding of how they should be modifying during a yoga class,” she tells Global News. “It is also important to be aware of the movements/exercises that may actually aggravate it.”
arti.patel@globalnews.ca