PELVIC FLOOR - ARE YOU ENGAGING IT CORRECTLY?

How do you know that you are engaging your pelvic floor properly? You can listen intently to your Pilates instructor waffle on and on about engaging these muscles, but at the end of the day you may not be performing this internal activation correctly. Unfortunately, your Pilates instructor cannot x-ray you with his/her eyes and see exactly what is going on down there! So here's some important points and knowledge to remember when trying to engage the muscles lining your pelvic floor (and we must point out at this point that this post refers to women's anatomy, not mens!): 

Firstly some background: Your pelvic floor muscles are the muscles you use whenever you restrain a natural urge to urinate or defecate. These muscles brace the uterus, bladder and rectum. The pelvic floor resides inside the bowl of the pelvis. Both men and women have pelvic floor muscles. 

These muscles are important to strengthen for several reasons: 

• These muscles work together with the deep abdominal muscles to improve core strength and provide you with a toned stomach
• The pelvic floor muscles stabilise and support the spine
• If these muscles are weak, the deep abdominal and back muscles will not be able to work in conjunction, which can cause injury and misalignment 
• Strengthening these muscles protects the bladder & bowel in men and women as well as the uterus in women 
• Women's pelvic floor muscles assist them during labour and the delivery of a baby

Here are some signs that you are not engaging your pelvic floor properly. If you find yourself: 

• Bearing down;
• Clenching butt muscles or leg muscles;
• Holding your breath;
• Contracting muscles without being able to let go;
• Other people can tell you’re doing them.

Don't feel like you are a Pilates failure if you have answered yes to at least once of these signs, as you are not alone! Physiotherapist Nelly Faghani says, “The research shows that more than 50 per cent of women don’t do their Kegel exercises/engage their pelvic floor properly." 

So how do you truly know if you are engaging your pelvic floor correctly? Below is a link to a simple but informative video on how to engage the pelvic floor. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysE-TddclQo

A brief summary of this video is below: 

• Think of the pelvic floor as a sling or hammock that wraps around from the pubic bone to the tailbone. 
• Lying down with knees bent is a good way to start practising how to engage the pelvic floor, as you are not working against gravity. 
• Some people prefer to sit on a swiss ball, as they can feel 'feedback' or pressure on their pelvic floor and can feel it lift when they engage. 
• Once you learn how to engage the pelvic floor, make a conscious effort to engage these muscles on a daily basis, whether you are sitting, standing, walking, exercising, etc. 
• Get into a comfortable position and think of tightening from back to front of the pelvic floor: 
• Firstly:  tighten and pull up around the back of the pelvic floor, as if you are trying to stop wind. Hold this. 
• Secondly: tighten and pull up around the middle of the pelvic floor, imagining that you are tightening your vagina as if you are wearing a tampon. Hold this. 
• Lastly: tightening the front of the pelvic floor, as if you are stopping the flow of urine and hold. 
• Hold for 5 seconds, then release slowly for 5 seconds. 
• Repeat 10 times. As you improve, try to hold up to 10 seconds each repetition. 
• Think of the energy of the pelvic floor muscles lifting up through the middle of the body
• Keep the shoulders and neck relaxed 
• Keep the spine in a neutral or natural position. Do not tuck the pelvis and imprint your spine. 
• Another fews way to think of engaging the pelvic floor:
• *think of pulling the sit bones together and upwards;
• *think of your vagina as an 10 level elevator and that you are lifting up to the top level. 

Remember, your Pilates instructor is there to help you, so make sure you ask him/her if you feel that you are not activating properly, as they will be happy to talk you through it! 

For all the male Pilates enthusiasts out there, we will have a blog post on how to tighten your pelvic floor soon! 

From the PPS team

Images by http://www.monicamathewsyoga.com/images/female_pelvicFloor.gif, http://thebellemethod.com/wp-content/uploads/kegels-397x277.jpg