Once you become pregnant you start to hear a LOT about your pelvic floor. No-one really describes it much or explains how it works other than to say it needs tightening now so that it doesn’t become weak after pregnancy and cause you to wee a little after you sneeze or cough.
And then you learn kegels and either kegel as much as possible or (like me) not so much and use the kegel section of your pregnancy class to have a bit of a rest. Part of me was wondering if the pelvic floor could get too tight and then how would that make getting the baby out of there. Hmm.
The pelvic floor is made up of two main muscles that attach to the pubic bone and the sacrum. If your pelvis is tilted and the sacrum and pelvic bone come closer together your pelvic floor becomes slack – more like a hammock and so it is more likely that organs will start to fall down and out. At this point if you start to do kegels which cause the pelvic floor muscles to contract they will pull the sacrum and pubic bone closer together causing more slackness in the muscles rather than tightening them to be more supportive. (see my beautifully coloured in image below)
In order to strengthen your pelvic floor you need to move your sacrum and pubic bone further apart – back to their aligned position. In order to do that you will need to untuck your pelvis and strengthen your gluteal muscles which will hold your sacrum in position and keep your pelvic floor at the correct length (and also explains why men and women who have never been pregnant can have pelvic floor issues and pelvic organ prolapse)
In order to untuck your pelvis you will need to release tension in your psoas, lengthen your calf muscles and hamstrings, drop your ribs, get out of heeled shoes….. and then work on strengthen your gluteal muscles, as you can see it is a whole body issue and not something that can be targeted with just one exercise.
If you would like to start on some exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor have a read of the following posts:
Psoas - why it is important to release tension in your psoas muscles
https://steemit.com/psoas/@rosiedhoopun/it-s-all-connected-the-psoas-muscles
How to sit with an untucked pelvis
https://steemit.com/alignment/@rosiedhoopun/sitting
Stretching your calves
https://steemit.com/hamstring/@rosiedhoopun/double-calf-stretch