Best Pelvic Floor Exercise
The best pelvic floor exercise is a full-core contraction. Let me explain what I mean…
Your core is like a soda can. It has pressure inside (intraabdominal pressure) and a lid, bottom, and sides.
For a healthy pelvic floor, all of these pieces have to work together. These are the pieces:
Your pelvic floor, bottom of the can
Your diaphragm, top of the can
ALL of your ab muscles (not just the 6-pack muscles), the front and sides
Your lower back muscles, the back, and the sides
These muscles all work together in everything we do.
Take a deep breath? They’re working.
Cough or sneeze? They’re working.
Stand up from a chair? They’re working.
Jumping on a trampoline? They’re working.
You get the picture.
So how do you start getting them to work? By teaching them to expand and contract.
Some people are doing this naturally.
But most of us who’ve had painful pelvic conditions, surgeries, inflammation, bloating, + pressure in the pelvis—lose this ability. It has to be retrained.
To really drive home how important it is to be able to expand + contract these muscles, imagine if you never, ever straightened your elbow.
What do you think would happen to your arm? It would HURT, that’s for sure.
That’s what happens to our CORE when we’ve been in pain, had surgeries without any rehab, and have lived with large masses in our pelvis.
Here are the steps to restoring the expansion + contraction of your core:
Take a DEEP breath. Feel it in your pelvic floor, abs, lower back, ribs, + sides of your body.
If there are any points where you CANNOT feel expansion, practice that first.
Take a SLOOOOOW exhale. 7–10 seconds long. Feel a contraction in all of those places.
If there are any points where you CANNOT feel contractions, practice that next.
Get really good at doing this lying down, then sitting, then standing, then in different positions that mimic the activities you want to be able to do with pain, leaking, + risk of prolapse symptoms.
Rinse + repeat.
I still do this as part of every warm-up AND when I’m feeling disconnected from my body or while setting up for a particularly challenging or heavy exercise.
If this all sounds overwhelming and you want someone to walk you through everything you need to get better, that’s what I’m here for.
You can schedule a free discovery call here. We’ll talk about your story and goals to figure out if working together is a good fit for you.