My Pelvic… What?

By Annemarie Everett, Certified Pilates Mat Instructor

If you’ve taken my Pilates class on Sunday mornings, you know how much I love the pelvic floor.  It’s an essential component of your “core,” and Pilates is an excellent way to practice using and strengthening those all-important muscles.

But what exactly IS it?

 

Real discussions about the pelvic floor are often neglected by health or fitness professionals who don’t want to “go there.”  Unfortunately, that means that many men and women don’t learn about it until a problem arises, and even then there is still a lot of misinformation floating around.  There’s a growing movement to understand and talk about the pelvic floor as a truly important part of your musculoskeletal system, and I try to make sure that each of my students is more aware of “down there” by the time they leave my class. Most of us know more about how our car runs than what makes our body work – it’s become my personal mission to help demystify the beautiful, complex personal machinery we’ve been given!  

 

The “pelvic floor” is comprised of two layers of muscles that span the space between your pubic bone in the front of your pelvis to your coccyx (tailbone). These muscles work together to support your abdominal organs – namely, the uterus/prostate, bladder and rectum – as well as ensure that you have proper bladder, bowel and sexual function. That’s a big job for little muscles, but given the proper attention and exercise they are more than capable! Problems arise as we age, after childbirth damages or stretches the muscles or if the pelvic floor gets too tight to function well. Just like any other muscle in the body that we work out at the gym, the pelvic floor muscles respond very well to stretching or strengthening as appropriate for each individual, and with a little bit of extra effort you can train them just like your gluts, quads or deltoids. 

 

Many people, especially women, have heard of Kegel exercises – but being told that “doing some Kegels” is all that a person needs for proper pelvic floor function problem does a huge disservice to the complexity of both the pelvic floor and the need for a functional set of muscles that work with the rest of the core and are able to contract and relax in the correct situations. Kegels address only one aspect of pelvic floor muscle function and don’t help make them muscles functional in the context of our entire bodies.  

 

Our body is full of neuromuscular connections, which means that many muscles are “wired” to work together. When you turn one of them on, the others will naturally follow. This is true of the transverse abdominus (the “corset” around your abdomen), multifidi (which run close to your spine on your back), adductors (inner thighs) and pelvic floor. You heard it right – when you use these muscles in Pilates class, you’re helping your pelvic floor to contract and relax without even thinking about it! 

 

If you’re having true pelvic floor dysfunction, such as incontinence or pelvic pain, it’s important to see a physical therapist who specializes in the pelvic floor for a full exam and individualized plan of care. But for those of us who trying to prevent future problems and build the best strength and function possible for our core, Pilates is a fun, focused, comprehensive way to build those neuromuscular connections that give our whole body – including the pelvic floor – the alignment, strength and flexibility that we need to go out in the world as our optimal selves!

 

 

Annemarie is a Certified Pilates Mat instructor and teaches Pilates Mat on Sundays from 10:00-11:00 am. She will graduate with her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from UCSF/SFSU in 2014.  Read her full bio.