Pelvic Floor Muscles

Your pelvic floor muscles are the group of muscles that you use to stop the flow of urine. Training these muscles can help you avoid leaking urine or accidentally passing gas or stool.

What is a Pelvic Floor (Kegel) Exercise?

Your pelvic floor muscles support pelvic organs including your bladder, bowel, uterus and vagina. These muscles stabilize your organs while also assisting with bodily functions such as bladder control, bowel control, and sexual function. Pelvic floor muscle training includes learning how to tighten (strengthen) the muscles by creating a squeeze and lift around the anus and vagina. Pelvic floor exercises help keep your pelvic floor muscles "fit," just as lifting weights strengthens other muscles in your body. Exercising should also include developing the skill of relaxing the muscles completely.

Pelvic floor training can help with a variety of issues, including:

• Stress incontinence (leaking pee with cough/sneeze/laugh).

• Urge incontinence (an urgent need to pee resulting in urine loss).

• Faecal incontinence (leaking poo).

• Pelvic organ prolapse (pelvic organs sagging or bulging into your vagina).

• Addressing pelvic pain

Who Needs to Perform Pelvic Floor Exercises?

Anything that puts strain on your pelvic floor muscles can cause them to weaken and become less supportive of your pelvic organs. Your pelvic floor muscles can become weak as a result of certain medical conditions or life events. Among these conditions and events are:

• Pregnancy.
• Childbirth, which may include a C-section.
• Obesity (a body mass index (BMI) greater than 30) or being overweight (a BMI greater than 25).
• Your pelvic area will be operated on.
• Aging. Your pelvic floor muscles, as well as those in your rectum and anus, naturally weaken with age.
• Constipation or chronic coughing caused by excessive straining while pooping.
• Impact exercise (jumping, running) 

Excessive pelvic floor training, or not being able to relax the muscles, can cause your muscles to become tense or tight. This can result in pelvic pain, pain with intercourse or interfere with bowel function. 

Pregnancy and Pelvic Floor Exercises

Pelvic floor muscle training during pregnancy can make delivery easier. This is because it may give you more control over your pelvic muscles during labor and delivery. The ability to relax and lengthen your pelvic floor during the pushing phase of a vaginal birth can potentially reduce the length of second stage and need for an instrumental birth. 

It can also help with:

• Bladder control.
• Strengthening the muscles that support the fetus' weight.
• Urinary incontinence.
• Pushing during vaginal delivery.
• Perineal healing after childbirth.

How Can I Locate My Pelvic Floor Muscles?

Stopping the flow of your pee while sitting on the toilet can help you find your pelvic floor muscles. Do this only until you understand how it feels (otherwise, this stopping and starting can lead to infection). You could also imagine yourself trying to keep from passing gas.

The muscles that you feel 'lifting' inside of you when you try these activities are the pelvic floor.

Imagine your pelvic floor as a claw vending machine game you might have played as a child. A metal claw slowly lowers, opens, picks up a toy, or lolly, and then closes and lifts it up. 

How Should I Start Pelvic Floor Exercises?

Before trying to contract your muscles you should make sure that you begin with the muscles in a relaxed state. Positioning yourself in a comfortable position and doing some slow belly breathing can help to relax the muscles. 

Start by performing a few at a time, gradually increasing both the length of time and the number of contractions performed in each ‘session’ or set. You should do two to three sets of these exercises per day, holding contractions for 8-10 sec each and relaxing completely for the same amount of time. If you have trouble feeling the contraction trying them in lying or roll a small towel up and sit on it in a straddle position to give some perineal pressure. You might even find placing your hand over your undies can help by giving some upward pressure to the muscles. 

How Can You Tell if You're Performing Contractions Correctly?

Pelvic floor exercises should not hurt. If doing contractions causes pain in your stomach, lower back, or head, you're probably holding your breath or clenching the wrong muscles.

If you have difficulty finding your pelvic floor muscles or experience pain and discomfort, you may be performing them incorrectly. It might be beneficial to seek assistance from a Pelvic Health Physiotherapist.

How Do I Know if I Have an Optimal Pelvic Floor?

Signs of a healthy functioning pelvic floor include:

• Able to control the urge to pee or poop.
• Having control over your bowels and bladder (no accidents)
• You can easily perform both contraction and relaxation of the muscles.

Is it Better to Do Pelvic floor training while Sitting or while Standing?

If your pelvic muscles are weak, you should begin by laying down and gradually progress to being able to do these in sitting and standing. Ultimately you should be able to contract your pelvic floor during functional tasks.

Breathe normally while performing the exercises. To maintain your normal breathing pattern, you could count out loud.

Summary

Pelvic floor muscle exercises improve support for the bladder, bowels, uterus and vagina. There are numerous causes of pelvic floor weakness. Symptoms of a weak pelvic floor include leaking pee or poop, feeling the need to pee when you don't need to, and pelvic pain. If you're unsure whether you're doing them correctly, don't be afraid to seek assistance from a qualified pelvic health physiotherapist.

Be In Blossom’s Pregnancy Pilates, and  Mummy Core & Conditioning classes offer comprehensive pelvic floor training, including strengthening and relaxation strategies. If you have any questions about any of the classes, please contact us online here.