The pelvic floor plays an essential role in a momma’s daily life, from supporting internal organs to enabling key functions like urination, defecation, and sexual pleasure. These muscles also play a vital role in pelvic stability and control. Whether you’ve heard of Kegels or simply want to know more about these muscles, let’s talk about how understanding the pelvic floor, why it’s important to strengthen it, and how to do so effectively.
What Are the Pelvic Floor Muscles?
The pelvic floor is a group of muscles and connective tissues located at the base of the pelvis. These muscles are divided into superficial and deep layers, each with unique roles.
Superficial Pelvic Floor Muscles
The superficial muscles form the sphincter layer. They control the openings of the urethra, vagina, and anus, playing a role in:
• Urinary and bowel control: Closing sphincters to stop urine or gas and opening them to pee or poop.
• Sexual function: Maintaining blood flow to the clitoral tissue for arousal.
• Birth: Supporting the weight of growing baby during pregnancy and stretching to allow the baby to pass through the vaginal canal during delivery.
Deep Pelvic Floor Muscles
The deep layer of pelvic floor muscles is more supportive and stabilizing. These muscles:
• Lift and support internal organs, like the bladder, uterus, and rectum.
• Provide stability to the pelvis during walking and other daily movements.
• Act as a pump, moving blood in and out of the pelvic region.
When you contract the pelvic floor, the muscles squeeze inward and lift upward. This motion is essential for both function and strength.
Why Pelvic Floor Strength Is Important
The pelvic floor muscles need to be strong, coordinated, and responsive. Their function goes beyond simply being able to squeeze and lift; they need to adapt to the body’s demands throughout the day. Their main roll throughout our days are managing intra-abdominal pressure changes so we aren’t having bladder, gas, or fecal leakage with activities.
Key Areas of Strength
1. Squeeze and Lift Strength Capacity
The ability to generate strong contractions helps manage intra-abdominal pressure, which increases during actions like coughing, laughing, sneezing, or lifting heavy objects.
2. Endurance Strength
The muscles need to maintain contractions over longer periods, such as during prolonged standing, maintaining posture, or throughout a jog.
3. Repeated Contraction Strength
Quick, repeated contractions are necessary for sudden demands, such as managing leaks during a sneeze or jump.
4. Power Strength
This refers to the muscles’ ability to produce large contractions quickly to support the body during high-impact activities like running or jumping.
Equally important is the ability to relax the pelvic floor muscles. Constant tension can lead to fatigue, discomfort, or even pain. A well-balanced pelvic floor contracts when needed and relaxes at rest.
Cues for the Pelvic Floor
To effectively work the pelvic floor, it’s important to connect with these muscles using imagery. A proper pelvic floor contraction requires the superficial muscles to squeeze and the deep muscles to lift up and relaxation requires a letting go of those motions.
Cues for Pelvic Floor Contraction
• “Squeeze and lift a blueberry into your body”
• “Stop gas and zip up to stop urine”
• “Picture a straw in your vagina, grabbing it, and pulling a smoothie up and into your body.”
Cues for Pelvic Floor Relaxation
• “Put the blueberry down”
• “Imagine opening the back door as if releasing gas.”
• “Picture a flower blooming downward and outward from your vagina and anus.”
How to Check if You’re Contracting the Pelvic Floor Muscles Correctly?
If you’re unsure whether you’re engaging the pelvic floor correctly, here are a few ways to check:
1. Use a Rolled-Up Towel
• Sit on a rolled-up towel placed lengthwise under your perineum (the area between the vagina and anus).
• As you contract, you should feel the muscles lifting up and away from the towel.
• As you relax, you should feel the muscles dropping back down into the towel.
2. Hand on the Perineum
• Place your hand on your perineum.
• Feel for light tensioning and lifting during contraction and a dropping back as you relax.
3. Finger in Vagina
• With clean hands (and optional lubricant), insert a finger into your vagina.
• During a contraction, you should feel a circumferential squeeze and upward pull of your finger towards your head.
• During relaxation, you should feel an opening and dropping sensation.
**Your pelvis should remain neutral, you should be able to breathe steadily, and your glutes should not turn on with them if we are isolating our pelvic floor muscles. This should be an invisible contraction to someone looking at you.
So should I just do kegels?
While pelvic floor strength is essential, coordination is even more critical. These muscles must activate automatically and in sync with other parts of your body during daily activities.
Isolating the Pelvic Floor vs. Whole-Body Strengthening
Pelvic floor muscular isolation strength is important for improving awareness and coordination of these muscles with functional movements, and managing intra-abdominal pressures with activities like coughing, laughing, sneezing, lifting, and jumping. But, while isolated pelvic floor exercises are important for building strength, integrating these muscles into full-body movements is key for functional fitness and preventing issues with daily tasks. Let’s talk about how we can work on isolation, coordination, and even indirect strengthening.
Isolated Pelvic Floor Strengthening
1. Basic Exercises
• 2-Second Holds: Squeeze and lift for 2 seconds, then fully relax. Repeat 10 times.
• Endurance Holds: Hold a contraction for 10 seconds, then relax. Repeat 10 times.
• Quick Contractions: Perform 6 quick squeezes and relaxations in a row.
2. Progressions
• Practice these exercises in various positions: lying on your back, side-lying, on all fours, seated, or standing.
• Use tools like Kegel weights, K-goal, Elvie, or Perifit for added resistance.
Functional Pelvic Floor Muscles Coordination and Strengthening
Your pelvic floor muscles must be able to coordinate through movement and manage intra-abdominal pressure. We can work on engaging these and coordinating them with exercises that will also help exercise the overflow muscles of the pelvic floor muscles. These muscles called “overflow muscles” that support and work together with the pelvic floor are the adductors, glutes, and core muscles. Strengthening them can help with strengthening the pelvic floor muscles indirectly due to the fascial connections which directly benefits the pelvic floor.
1. Bridges
• Engage the pelvic floor muscles prior to and throughout the lifting phase of a bridge. Keep the contraction as you lower down and then relax at the bottom. Re-engage every bridge.
2. Squats and Deadlifts
• Work on squeezing and lifting your pelvic floor muscles right before you lower into a squat or deadlift position and then further engage as you rise from a squat or lift during a deadlift. Relax at the end and then re-engage with each repetition.
3.Core Marches:
• On your back with knees up and feet flat. Engage your pelvic floor muscles and deep core muscles to keep your lower body stable. Slowly march one knee up and then repeat on the other side as you work on not letting your pelvis move back and forth.
Indirect Strengthening
Stability work also challenges pelvic floor coordination and control without us having to directly think about working on it. This will help with coordination and strength of pelvic floor muscles with activities like walking, hiking, jogging, running, and jumping.
Stability and Balance Exercises
• Single-Leg Balance: Standing on one leg, don’t let your opposite hip drop. Work on balancing here for 30-60 seconds. You can integrate this in as you are brushing your teeth or washing dishes. To make it harder you can close your eyes to challenge your balance further (maybe don’t brush your teeth or do dishes with eyes closed though.)
• Running Man Balance: Standing on one leg,move your opposite leg into hip flexion and then slowly into hip extension like a running movement. Keep your balance as you slowly move in and out of this motion. If you are struggling, go through a shorter range, increase range as able. Work on getting to 10-15 reps.
Bird Dog:
In a tabletop position, extend one arm and the opposite leg, maintaining pelvic stability and control, not letting your pelvis to move back and forth. Work on building to 20 reps.
Pelvic floor exercises are about more than just squeezing muscles—they’re about building strength, coordination, and control. Whether focusing on isolated contractions, integrating pelvic floor engagement into functional movements, or strengthening surrounding muscles, every effort contributes to better pelvic health.
Remember, a strong pelvic floor supports you in daily activities, prevents issues like leakage or pain, and enhances your overall stability and strength of your body. By dedicating time to these exercises, you’re investing in your body’s long-term health and resilience.
Take care, Mama! Your pelvic floor is here to support you, and you’ve got this!
