Struggling to activate - or even feel - your pelvic floor?
No worries! This is a common challenge faced by many Moms.
Let’s explore 5 tips to help you overcome this hurdle and help you reconnect with your pelvic floor:
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Tip #1 - Reconnect with your weak pelvic floor at home.
Practice core breathing exercises sitting on a Pilates Ball, rolled Towel, or pillow.
Here again, these items provide feedback to the brain.
A light pressure on the pelvic floor muscles can help assist you in their relaxation and contraction.
Be sure your alignment is correct - rib cage stacked above your pelvis.
Use your breath and focus on the contraction AND relaxation of the pelvic floor muscles. Inhale and relax, exhale, and gently contract.
Practice in different positions: laying on your back, on your side, on all fours, sitting, standing, etc
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Tip #2 - Reconnect with your weak pelvic floor at home.
One of my favorite visualizations is the jellyfish.
Sit on your Pilates ball with your perineum in contact with the ball.
Be sure you aren’t tucking your pelvis under or overarching your back.
Place your hands on your lower ribs, and close your eyes.
Imagine a jellyfish swimming: It gently opens as it relaxes, and it contracts as it propels itself and moves upward.
Now, start performing core breathing exercises and apply this image to your pelvic floor. Inhale and visualize your pelvic floor expanding gently as it relaxes. Then exhale and visualize the muscles coming together and lifting upwards as they contract. Your pelvic floor moves with your breath.
Here are a few other cues you can try:
Pick up a blueberry with your vagina on the exhale.
An arcade claw crane picking up a toy on the exhale.
Lift a tampon on the exhale.
Zip up a zipper from your anus to your vagina on the exhale.
Some women can’t feel their pelvic floor because their pelvic floor is too tight, unable to relax.
So remember to relax on the inhale.
Visualizing a flower blooming on the inhale often helps.
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Tip #3 - Reconnect with your weak pelvic floor at home.
Hands:
Using your hand may help:
Make a fist as you try to connect with your pelvic floor on the exhale.
Open your hand as you relax your pelivc floor.
Lower abs:
We often use the pelvic floor contraction to reconnect with the lower abs - but the opposite works too!
So, as you work on restrengthening your lower abs, you’ll also work toward reconnecting with your pelvic floor.
Inner thighs:
Squeezing a Pilates ball between your knees on the exhale will engage your adductor muscles (inner thighs), which will also help re-activate your pelvic floor muscles.
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Tip #4 - Reconnect with your weak pelvic floor at home.
When you perform exercises that place your body in an inverted or semi-inverted position, such as glute bridges, you change the dynamics of gravity.
These exercises place your pelvic floor in a position that improves its ability to contract because gravity assists its contraction!
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Tip #5 - Reconnect with your weak pelvic floor at home.
... And if you really don't feel any activation, then begin with electrostimulation devices.
I’m generally not a fan of gadgets for improving pelvic floor function - unless you’re struggling to engage your pelvic floor muscles on your own.
Electrostimulation trainers can help by using gentle electrical impulses to stimulate and contract the pelvic floor muscles automatically.
When using this kind of device, it’s important to tune inward. The goal is to stimulate the nerves and enhance your mind-body connection.
Once you’re able to activate your pelvic floor voluntarily, it’s best to move away from these devices and focus on activating your pelvic floor on your own.
5 tips to help you reconnect with your pelvic floor muscles
Feel free to combine some of the tips above to augment the effects!
Pelvic floor rehab requires a comprehensive approach. These are just some of the many techniques that can help you reconnect and retrain your pelvic floor muscles.
Your alignment, breathing pattern at rest, body awareness, and even your stress levels play a role in your progress.
Leaking is so common that it makes moms believe this is something they just have to accept as part of the motherhood package. But leaking is treatable, and every mom deserves to regain confidence in their pelvic floor!