Fitness & Exercise
How to Strengthen Your Pelvic Floor (and Why it Matters)
Dec
Having a strong pelvic floor is vital for women in the gym. Unfortunately, is often ignored. I’ve been coaching women across the U.S. for the last 8 years and over those years I’ve realized: we’ve got to build more awareness and urgency around the importance of this piece of anatomy. Ladies, I want to use this article to teach you why, and more importantly how, to strengthen your pelvic floor.
With a solid understanding of the pelvic floor – it’s function, strength, and current condition – you can achieve better results at the gym and improve daily life.
Pelvic floor: what is it and what does it do?
The pelvic floor is a group of muscles and tissues that span the bottom of the pelvis. These muscles and tissues play a number of crucial roles in the female body.
- Supports pelvic organs including the uterus, bladder and bowels. Quite literally, your pelvic floor keeps your internal organs in place. Right away, you can see how important this group of muscles really is!
- Constricts (read: helps control), the urethra, vagina and anal canal. A strong pelvic floor improves bladder and bowel control. If you’ve ever done jumping jacks and had to run to the bathroom, you know this is important.
- Builds core strength and improves stability. Fun fact: your pelvic floor is considered part of your core muscle structure. Moreover, your pelvic floor muscles are active in almost every activity that you can imagine.
In short: your pelvic floor is involved in all of the essential bodily functions of life including going to the bathroom, moving safely and having sex.
What are the Benefits of a Strong Pelvic Floor?
Having a strong pelvic floor doesn’t mean that those muscles are always working. Instead, it means that those muscles respond quickly and properly when a load is placed upon them. For example when you are lifting a heavy weight during a workout, your pelvic floor muscles should tense and contract reflexively and with conscious effort. When you sneeze or cough, your muscles should involuntarily contract in response to the pressure. If you’ve ever experienced leakage when you sneeze, it might be a sign that your pelvic floor muscles are weaker than they ought to be.
The benefits of having a strong pelvic floor are many:
- Improved bladder and bowel control.
- Reduced risk of prolapse.
- Improved recovery from child birth.
- Increased sexual sensation and pleasure.
- Improved abdominal breathing.
- Improved quality of life.
How to Train to Strengthen Your Pelvic Floor
You can work to strengthen your pelvic floor daily during your workouts, as a separate focus, and even throughout daily activities. I like to think of this a 3-part plan of improvement: relaxing the muscles, connecting to the muscles, and activating the muscles.
**Ladies, if you work with a coach or trainer and you feel that you could use a bit more attention to this area, don’t be afraid to ask! It will only open up the conversation and allow for growth!
Posture and Alignment
Correct posture and improved alignment play a surprisingly important role here. When thinking about posture, you want to imagine your body from head to toe, not as sections (i.e. the torso, or the lower back, or the shoulders). Good posture allows for the muscles to be relaxed at rest, and joints to be situated inline with each other for comfortable and effective movement.
While there is no “perfect” posture and the overall goal is to be able to move confidently through all varieties of motion and movement, there are some cues and points that you can think about as you move throughout your day.
While standing and during general, daily activity, try to evenly distribute your weight between both both legs. Your lower back can curve very gently but if you find that you have an excessive arch, check in and tuck your tail bone under to straighten out your lumbar spine. Keep your shoulders back and relaxed.
When working out, you want to make sure that you are posturing yourself for the most support and strength possible. Stack your rib cage over your pelvis. Think about keeping your spine long, and your shoulders down and back. I always tell my clients to get into “ballerina stance” before a big lift. The cue helps them to lift their chin, straighten their spine and tighten the core muscles without overdoing it.
Connection Breathing
It might surprise you to learn that breathing – as simple an act as it can be – is a powerful tool for strength, stabilization and support. Consider Connection Breathing your new breathing strategy for improving your exercise experience and getting more out of each workout.
Connection breathing is about building an awareness of how you hold your body, when and how you tense your pelvic muscles, and how to actively connect your thoughts and control to that specific are of the body. I recommend starting off every workout that you do with at 1-3 minutes of connection breathing. You can do this lying down, seated or standing.
Here’s how practice Connection Breathing:
Place one hand on your ribcage and one hand below on your diaphragm. Inhale. Focus on expanding your abdomen in all directions: your ribs should expand, your diaphragm should drop and you should feel like you’re filling your entire torso with air. Gently exhale through your mouth, letting everything relax back into place. Repeat!
Activation and Strengthening Exercise
Practicing good posture and correct movement technique while lifting will help to strengthen the pelvic floor. But there are exercises that you can do to specifically target this area.
Supine Squeezes
Lie down on your back with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor and arms at your sides. Inhale. As you exhale focus on squeezing the muscles in the pelvic area (as if you really had to pee but had to hold it). Hold for 2 counts then relax. Repeat 10-15 times.
Hip Tilts
Lie down on your back with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor and arms at your sides. Inhale and tilt your hips under, gently pressing your lower back to the floor. Pause and then exhale, returning to your relaxed position. Repeat 10-15 times.
Heel Slides
Lie down on your back with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor and arms at your sides. Inhale and then as you exhale focus on bracing your core while lifting your hips off the floor into a hold position (top of a glute bridge). Inhale and draw your heel back in. Repeat this breathing pattern alternating movement from right to left. Complete 10-15 slides on each side.
Glute Bridge Marches
Lie down on your back with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor and arms at your sides. Inhale and then as you exhale focus on bracing your core while lifting your hips off the floor into a hold position (top of a glute bridge). Slowly draw your right knee in towards your chest, pause, and then lower back to the floor. Repeat this movement alternating leg lifts. Complete 10 lifts each side.
*I stress the importance of pelvic floor strength and health for women here but this is an important tool for men as well!
