I thought It was just kegels

Have you heard about Kegels? Where you just…squeeze? A lot of people - doctors included - often respond to any and all pelvic floor problems with a prescription of kegel contractions.

The challenging thing is that a lot of people aren’t really sure how to do a kegel properly! And - beyond that - sometimes kegels is the exact opposite of what your body needs.

Something important to know is that our pelvic floor muscles are meant to hold steady with enough tension that our pelvic organs are supported and we don’t pee/poop ourselves, but also have enough give and flexibility to them that they can relax and stretch for urination, bowel movements, sex, and birth. Sometimes, our muscles get offset in a way that they hold in an unbalanced tension - either very tense (like how your upper shoulders/traps might feel right now!) or more slackened.

Now comes the tricky part - if a muscle is holding really tense, we don’t want to teach it to keep tensing and contracting even more. This will simply exacerbate the issue. We want to learn how to lengthen, get back to a “normal” state, and then build strength from there.

This usually ends up being some combination of the following:

• stretching the surrounding muscles: inner thighs, hamstrings, glutes, quads

• learning how to breathe correctly so that the gentle movement can allow for an expanding and returning of our pelvic floor muscles

• use of a dilator or internal pelvic floor wand for massaging on the upset muscles

• figuring out what is happening emotionally that may be ramping up our anxieties and making our nervous system stay on high alert! This may mean therapy, putting boundaries up, self care, or medication (always follow up with your doctor).

• getting enough sleep - you’d be surprised how important this is

It’s a complicated thing, isn’t it!

That’s why I’m here. Shoot me a message for more information!