Not your usual weight lifting…

Over the last few weeks I have been talking to a lot of clients about the strength of their pelvic floors. The pelvic floor muscles are those that form the base of the pelvis and those muscles that are responsible for continence, sexual function and which keep your insides from dropping down through your pelvis.

I am most interested in the pelvic floor muscles for a few reasons. Firstly many clients suffer from some sort of incontinence at some time, whether it is peeing a little when they laugh or sneeze. Secondly the muscles of the pelvic floor are associated with the muscles of the deep abdominal wall and therefore are involved in core stability. Lastly nearly everyone would like to improve their sexual function. 

Breathing is always the first part of getting both the pelvic floor and the deep abdominal wall to function correctly. When you breathe out you should naturally contract your deep abdominal wall and pelvic floor, most people have this in reverse which is why they pee when they sneeze… we can reeducate this quite easily.

So how do you know that you are doing the exercises correctly? The old advice was to stop the flow of urine when peeing, this is ok once but more than that is a quick way to develop bad habits and urinary tract problems.

We use two devices within the studio to help ladies with their pelvic floor issues. The first is a pelvic floor educator that will help make sure that you are activating the right muscles, the second is weighted cones. Weighted cones are egg shaped cones containing weights that are held in place while you perform daily activity. You must contract the pelvic floor muscles to hold the cones in place and these are particularly useful for those ladies who have had multiple pregnancies.

Over the years we have successfully worked with numerous ladies overcome pelvic floor issues. Let us know if your would like to have a chat about incorporating some pelvic floor exercises into your current exercise regime.

Alan