The pelvic floor is a group of muscles found at the base of our pelvis that's responsible for supporting the structure itself, pelvic organs, adaptability within the body, and the list goes off. When these muscles get weak either by being too tight to be able to adapt to movement or not being strong enough to contract and support various symptoms and dysfunctions can start to occur. The good news is just like any other muscle in our body we can strengthen it either bring range of motion back into this muscle group, build tone and capacity for contraction or a combination of both.
Let's look at what could happen when the pelvic floor is weak and how we can start to return to strength.
Because our pelvic floor is involved in so many different functions, symptoms of weakness can look like a lot of different things such as:
Urinary incontinence- when urine leaks this could be under stress when coughing, sneezing or lifting or even the inability to hold it when you really need to go
Constipation- infrequent or incomplete bowel movements
Lower back pain- discomfort or pain in the lower back and even hips
Pelvic heaviness - feeling of pressure or weight within the pelvis
Pelvic organ prolapse - when the organs of the pelvis drop and move out of ideal positioning leaning into the vaginal canal
Sexual pain or dysfunction- discomfort or even sometimes inability with penetration
Weak or absent orgasms
And honestly the list does go on...
If you want to know a little bit more about what could make a pelvic floor weak check out another blog here️️️️️.
When the muscles of the pelvic floor don't have the capacity to support organs in their proper position, the movement within our bodies, and the balance within our pelvis, it can affect beyond just the area of our pelvis. Being such a keystone part of our anatomy, it's so valuable to consider our pelvis in our regular self-care practices. Just like any other muscle group in our body, it can be strengthened and supported with consistent consideration.
So how do we start strengthening our pelvic floors?
We want to be consistent and we want to be intentional with care. Also, it's incredibly important to be informed and connected.
When considering strengthening the pelvic floor, oftentimes people's minds go to kegels and I imagine if you Googled right now how to strengthen my pelvic floor kegels would definitely make that top five list if it isn't at number one.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't necessarily say that that is the number one exercise for your pelvis and pelvic floor strength. If you want to learn more you can read about that here.
When we want to consider the health of our pelvic floor, there's a few things that come into play. We want to understand if our pelvic floor is tight or weak.
We want to consider what patterns we may have been a part of that potentially caused this problem. And we want to consider how we can apply pelvic floor consciousness into our daily self-care.
Regardless of your pelvic floor being tight or over-stretched, the causes or your daily activity the best bridge to start the journey to connecting with your pelvic floor and incorporating it to yourself care is through the breath.
This is the perfect tool to start connecting not just with this part of our body, but also our inner connection, the capacity to understand and feel what's going on within the body.
We want to connect with how it feels to have breath flow in and out, and how our body reacts to the expansion of that inhale breath.
If you want to know a bit more about this, check out our free workshop on Dancing with the Diaphragm where we not only go into the anatomy and understanding of what's going on between our diaphragm and our pelvic floor, but also do a movement practice to help bring more balance.️️