Pelvic Floor Exercises

Where are your pelvic floor muscles?

In women the pelvic floor is a sling of muscle stretching from your pubic bone at the front to your tailbone (coccyx) at the back. The outlet tubes of your bladder, vagina and back passage/rectum all pass through your pelvic floor muscles.

What do your pelvic floor muscles do?

• helps control your bladder
• enables you to "hold on" to your bladder and your back passage/rectum when you need to
• supports the organs in your lower abdomen when you are in a standing position.

• works in conjunction with your lower abdominal and lower back muscles to provide stability to your spine and pelvis
• it is part of the "core" muscles stabilising your trunk.

Who needs to strengthen their pelvic floor?

EVERYBODY!!
If you suffer from ongoing chronic low back pain you should strengthen your pelvic floor as it contributes to the stability of your spine.
Women following child birth. The pelvic floor muscles are weakened during child birth, this combined with stretched weak abdominal muscles lead to a lack of strength around the pelvis and lower back. The pelvic floor muscles are an important part of the stabilising muscle system of the lumbar spine.
Women with "stress" incontinence problems ie; lack of control or leaking when coughing, sneezing, lifting or exercising.
Pelvic floor muscles also weaken during menopause.

So how do you strengthen these muscles?

Sit forward on your chair with your feet on the floor, arms relaxed. Follow the steps below. Remember you are trying to strengthen muscles that are weak so you may find it difficult to feel anything to start with. This is normal. Keep practising!!

Think of trying to stop yourself from passing wind and urine. Tightly close around the 3 openings and "Lift up" inside shortening the distance between tailbone and pubic bone.
Don't hold your breath
Don't clench your buttock or thigh muscles
Slowly let go.
Congratulations you have now completed one "contraction" of your pelvic floor muscles. Now to figure out how long to hold for and how many to do......

How long can you hold step one above?? count in seconds
How many times can you repeat this hold?? count the number
This is your starting point.
Aim to increase your strength until you can complete 10 contractions holding for 10 seconds.
The KEY to effective strengthening of these muscles is the frequency with which you do them......AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE:

Every time you answer the phone
Every time you stop at the traffic lights
Every time the ads come on TV
Before you get out of bed
While sitting on the bus/train if commuting to work
OTHER times to practice "lifting" your pelvic floor exercises are when you are engaged in activities which require good strength of your pelvic floor such as

coughing
lifting
sneezing
jumping
exercising
laughing

NB: As a quick test try and stop yourself urinating half way through emptying your bladder the next time you go to the toilet. This is a TEST only not an EXERCISE. You should be able to stop completly mid stream and start again. you should notice this is easier to do as your muscles get strong.