Pelvic Floor Muscles What They Do

The pelvic floor is a group of muscles and connective tissues. That stretches from the pubic bone, back to the tail bone. The pelvic floor supports the organs in your pelvis, such as the bladder, bowel, and internal reproductive organs. A lot of talk about the pelvic floor is done in women especially those who have given birth vaginally because this can weaken a women’s pelvic floor. Men have pelvic floors too.

In females the pelvic floor helps support the bladder, urethra, vagina, uterus, bowel, rectum, and anus. For men the pelvic floor supports their bladder, urethra, prostate, bowel, rectum, and anus. For both men and women the pelvic floor helps to squeeze and relax to help with bodily functions such as urination, bowel movements, and passing gas. In females it helps with vaginal deliveries, and in men it helps with an erection.

A healthy pelvic floor can contract, squeeze, lift, and relax. The goal of the pelvic floor is to stabilize and secure the organs, while also being able to be flexible to stretch and relax when needed. Conditions can affect the pelvic floor making the muscles too loose and weak, or causing the muscles to be too strong and tight. Weaken pelvic floors are more common and more known about. Pelvic floor muscles can become weak due to trauma, childbirth, surgery, grow weak with hormone changes, grow weak from natural aging, or other medical conditions like diabetes can lead to weaker pelvic floor muscles.

Weak and loose pelvic floor muscles can cause stress incontinence which is where you sneeze or cough and may urinate a little. This is very common in women who have had vaginal deliveries. Urge incontinence, fecal incontinence, and anal incontinence are also common conditions caused by weak pelvic floor muscles. Pelvic organ prolapse is another condition that is when the organs in the pelvis are unsupported and may drop out of their place in the pelvis. This can happen to women who have delivered vaginally as well.

Pelvic floor conditions where the muscles are too tight or strong are less known about. They are not as common. This is called a hypertonic pelvic floor when the muscles are too tight. This can cause constipation, pelvic, back, hip, leg pain, painful intercourse, and difficulty urinating.

Like any muscle group doing regular targeted exercises for your pelvic floor can help your pelvic floor health. Doing regular exercises can improve your bladder and bowel control, reduce your risk of prolapse, have a better recovery after childbirth, have a better recovery after prostate surgery, and improve your sexual function.

There are pelvic floor physical therapists which can help give you guided pelvic floor exercises to work on. They can also help diagnose your pelvic floor muscles being weak and help you learn ways to help recover and build up those muscles. It can take 12-16 weeks to strengthen any muscle. So you can expect it to take that long when learning to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles as well.

For some people it can be hard to know if they are engaging their pelvic floor muscles since the muscles are so internal. A good way of knowing if you are engaging the right muscles is to think of the muscles you would engage when trying to stop a flow of urine. Those are your pelvic floor muscles. Some people will try to use muscles from their glutes or thighs, which are not the right muscles in helping to strengthen your pelvic floor. Once you have learned to engage them properly you can work them anytime, anywhere, no gym membership needed. The good thing too is that most of the time no one will know you are even working out your muscles as you do. A good way to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles is with contractions, then releases. You will contract and hold for eight seconds then release and relax for eight seconds. The release and relaxation is just as important as the contraction. You can do this for eight times in a row to complete a full exercise. Make sure you aren’t over exercising those muscles. Too tight of pelvic floor muscles can cause trouble just as too weak muscles can.

Healthy pelvic floor muscles help support your organs in your pelvis. Pelvic floor muscles are found in both men and women. Loose and weak muscles can cause incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. Too tight of muscles can cause constipation and pelvic pain. Learning how to work out these muscles can make you have healthier pelvic floor which can increase your quality of life for some people.