Anatomy and Function of the Pelvic Floor:
Your core is made up of your diaphragm at the top, your core muscles (transverse abdominis, obliques and rectus abdominis) and your pelvic floor at the bottom. (Photo courtesy of continence foundation of Australia)
In addition to forming part of the core, your pelvic floor muscles act as a basket or sling to support your internal organs (bladder, uterus, rectum). These muscles also ensure that you only go for a wee or poo when you want to!
Being overweight, pregnant and changes in intra abdominal pressure, for example, when we sneeze, jump, cough or do burpees can all put added pressure on the pelvic floor. Your pelvic floor also weakens with age and the associated hormonal changes. That’s why your pelvic floor exercises are so important!
Pelvic Floor Exercises - The Basics
You can do these exercises lying down, seated or standing. To begin with I recommend trying out the different positions as some people can feel that ‘squeeze and lift’ better in some positions than others.
Watching the below video will also help you get these right :)
In summary:
As you inhale the diaphragm contracts and descends and the core and pelvic floor should relax.
As you exhale the pelvic floor should lift, the core naturally starts to engage and the diaphragm lifts.
Fast or Slow?
You have both fast and slow twitch muscle fibres in your muscles. In your pelvic floor the slow twitch muscle fibres are responsible for keeping you dry all day long and the fast twitch muscle fibres help make sure you don’t wee or pass wind whilst coughing, sneezing or jumping on a trampoline.
Slow Twitch Muscle Fibres
To train the slow twitch muscle fibres:
Fully relax on your inhale and then squeeze and lift the pelvic floor on the exhale. Aim for 3 sets of 10 lifts each day. Make sure you can fully relax as well as contract the pelvic floor muscles.
Once you’ve got that nailed you can increase the length of the hold to 3 seconds then 4 seconds working up to a maximum of a 10 second hold. You need to keep breathing whilst you hold the lift.
Top tip - make sure you’re not clenching your butt, holding your breath, bracing your tummy muscles or bearing down or pushing down into the pelvic floor as you’re trying to activate the pelvic floor.
Fast Twitch Muscle Fibres
To train the fast twitch muscle fibres you want to see how many lifts and relaxes you can do in 10 seconds.
Top tip - make sure you fully relax after each lift
See whether you can improve the number of lifts and relaxes you can do in 10 seconds over the coming weeks!
Cues
It is really important to ensure that we are lifting rather than bearing down when we do our pelvic floor exercises. As the pelvic floor is an internal muscle it can be difficult to tell if you are doing the exercises correctly. My recommendation would always be to go and see a women’s specialist pelvic floor physio who can tell you whether you are doing them correctly, however, there are certain cues we can try to use to help us get this right. I’ve listed a couple below - have a go and see whether they help:
1) Imagine picking up a blueberry or raisin with your vagina and anus
2) Imagine that your pelvic floor is an elevator. Imagine you are on the ground floor - raise the elevator up to the top floor and back down again
3) Imagine you are sucking a drink through a straw with your vagina
4) Imagine pulling a tissue paper out of the box with your vagina and anus.