More than Just Kegel Exercises
I had the opportunity to speak at Balance Through Movement last night with Sarah Spivey and Ann Crammond. I was excited to speak about a topic that is commonly overlooked. I spoke about the pelvic floor. The take home was that the pelvic floor can influence the rest of the body. Sometimes a pelvic floor issue may present as incontinence, but most commonly I see patients walking in with lower back pain.
Kegel Exercises
I talked a little about Kegel exercises. While doing kegel exercises can be helpful at times, and I don’t think it is a bad exercise, I wouldn’t want to recommend everyone start doing it right away. The reason for this is because often times someone’s pelvis is poorly aligned.
One or both sides of the pelvis may be tipped forward with a rotation component. This puts the pelvic floor in a less than ideal position, so that some muscles may be long and weak, and other’s may be short and tight. If we told someone to start doing a Kegel exercise when the pelvic floor was already tight and toned up we could run into problems. This would be the same as putting fitness on top of dysfunction. I recommend making sure the pelvis is in the correct position before continuing. This way the muscles of the pelvic floor are in the best position to not only contract, but also to relax.