Ever wondered what makes a pelvic floor weak or strong? If so… you’re not alone. As you learnt last week our pelvic floor is essential for everyday living – it’s what keeps us balanced and aligned both physically and emotionally. It allows us to pee and poop and enjoy deeper pleasure in the bedroom…

That is… if it’s in a healthy, supple state. And that’s what we’ll be exploring on today’s episode of I Love Me the Podcast. Yes, today, we’re diving under the hood of our lady parts to discover the nuances of our pelvic floor.

 

If you haven’t already listened to last week’s episode – where I share what the pelvic floor is, and what it isn’t, I recommend starting there, as today’s episode is kind of like a part two to everything pelvic floor related.

If you have already listened to that episode, then I simply invite you to take a moment to place your hand on your pelvis, and thank her.

As you heard in last week’s episode, our pelvic floor, and the pelvis as a whole works sooo hard to keep us well balanced and healthy…

Keeping all our vital functions, such as digestion, elimination, reproduction and breathing in check.

So show her a little gratitude… during this Women’s Health Week.

Celebrate her…

For even if she’s not quite living up to your expectations at the moment, if she’s a little overworked and tired, or stressed out…

And isn’t functioning as she was designed…

We can gently invite her back into a more harmonious state.

Where she is able to perform all those important functions we need to live with ease.

But first we need to establish where she’s at.

And this is something many women wonder about…

Is my pelvic floor weak or strong?

This is a great question.

And you might be surprised by the answer.

So let me start by explaining that there are actually two ways a pelvic floor can be weak.

Firstly, there is a ‘loose’ pelvic floor.

It’s so loose that it’s lost the ability to naturally contract to perform some, or all, of its functions.

You may have heard this referred to as a hypotonic pelvic floor.

Maybe this weak pelvic floor (or hypotonic pelvic floor) has come about as a result of living a sedentary life – where you sit a lot – or because you’ve just never paid this area any real attention.

Or perhaps it became weak after a birth or multiple births.

In birth, everything can get stretched to the point that it loses its elasticity and has no bounce back, becoming pretty lax.

Being overweight can also lead to a loose, weak pelvic floor.

The other type of weak pelvic floor – which might surprise you – is a tight pelvic floor.

This is commonly referred to as a hypertonic pelvic floor.

It’s where the muscles of the pelvic floor become sooo tense they’re unable to relax.

An overly tight pelvic floor can be considered a weak pelvic floor in disguise.

Maybe you’ve devoted a LOT of time to working out your lady parts, and it feels strong, but that supposed ‘strength’ is built on tension as opposed to healthy tone.

One of the things that creates this tightness – or tension – is working the pelvic floor in a really intense way…

Think lots of strong Kegels without any releasing in between..

Really strong full body workouts without proper alignment…

Or using a Jade Egg or other products to do vaginal weight-lifting…

Yes, vaginal weight lifting is a thing… and if you look at the anatomical structure of the pelvis, you’ll soon see that the vagina is not designed to be lifting weights…

Or wearing Jade Eggs inside for long periods of time as you go about your day.

(Jade Eggs can be so beneficial for our pelvic floor, but not when they are misused.)

It’s also not meant to be squeezed to the point of exhaustion.

These kinds of approaches can put so much load – so much pressure – on the internal structures, they become weak and can even prolapse.

I see this happen all the time to clients who’ve taken a really strong approach to their pelvic strengthening practices.

Maybe they’ve been told to do 100 Kegels a day, or do Kegels while they’re at a red light while driving…

If the focus is only on the squeeze, then this will build tension.

Due to the crazy busy lives most women lead, the majority of us are walking around with some amount of tension in our pelvis, so we need to be mindful in our practices, that we’re not ADDING to that existing tension, but rather, working to release that tension.

Releasing the tension that builds up from daily living.

OK, so we know that a weak pelvic floor can come about in two different ways.

It can be so loose that it’s weak or it can be so tight that it’s weak.

Let’s now look more deeply at the second one.

Why is a tight pelvic floor a weak pelvic floor?

Let me answer that for you, using the analogy of a skyscraper…

In order for a skyscraper to be a safe structure, it needs to be able to move.

It needs to be flexible enough to withstand high winds.

In a well designed, stable structure, the different parts work together to balance out the pressure.

If you have a rigid structure that has no give, then some of the elements have to bear all the stress, eventually causing those elements to weaken.

The same principle applies to the vertical structure that is our body!

Ideally, our bodies are stable and flexible, but when certain muscles are too tense to do their job properly, other muscles are forced to pick up the slack.

You see, tense muscles – muscles that work hard without adequate rest and relaxation – are not strong muscles.

Tense muscles are weak muscles, especially when it comes to the pelvic floor.

Many women have been taught to do dozens upon dozens of pelvic squeezes – tightening tightening tightening – ‘thinking’ they’re building strength, when what they’re really building, is tension.

They go to a pelvic expert and they’re told they have a hypertonic pelvic floor, which as I mentioned, is another word for an overly tight pelvic floor.

In order to tone our pelvic floor, we need to balance any contraction with a full release.

You can’t build strength in a tense muscle.

You need to start with a relaxed muscle.

Yet for most women, their muscles are already tense before they do the contractions, and then they start doing a million-and-one contractions only focusing on the ‘squeeze’.

You have a tense muscle.

You tense it more and more.

What do you get?

A super tense muscle.

Is that a strong muscle?

Absolutely not.

There is a misconception that a tight pelvic floor is a strong pelvic floor.

But just think about it…

If you’re really tense in an area of your body, it constricts your blood flow to that area.

Constricted blood flow leads to organs, muscles and connective tissues missing out on vital nutrients.

For it’s our blood that oxygenates and carries vital nutrients to all our organs, muscles and connective tissues.

If the blood can’t get to those organs, muscles and connective tissues, how do they stay healthy?

They can’t.

Their oxygen and nutrient supply has been cut off, or at best limited, and as a result, those organs, muscles and connective tissues start to weaken.

See how the tension creates weakness as opposed to strength?

Ok, so you heard me mention how most women have some tension – some tightness – in their pelvic floor.

Why is this?

One of the reasons has to do with our breathing.

Because how we breathe is directly related to the health of our pelvic floor.

The diaphragm moves down, massaging the pelvic floor, helping to oxygenate it on the inhale, and then as we release the breath, the diaphragm moves out of the way, so the pelvic floor is free to move back up into its natural dome shape.

This is what happens when we breathe well.

But what happens when we hold our breath due to stress or anxiety?

The pelvic floor cannot perform this full movement that keeps it flexible, toned and active.

In Eastern traditions, the pelvic floor is known as the root chakra – it’s where we tend to hold fears – specifically fears around primary instincts such as our health, our family’s safety and our financial security.

It’s where we process emotion and it also houses our fight-or-flight reactions.

In this way, the pelvic floor is one of the body’s primary stress containers.

For example, when you receive bad news, this can cause an unconscious reaction, where you clench your pelvic floor.

This keeps the pelvic floor in a permanent contraction.

Maybe you get cut off while driving on the way to work, and this causes you to unconsciously hold your breath.

You arrive at work and you have this urgent deadline you have to meet and so you run around shallow breathing.

Then you need to pick up something heavy or do strenuous physical activity and you forget to breathe.

All this breath-holding and inability to breathe deeply enough to allow the pelvic floor to explore its full range of motion; it impacts the pelvic floor.

It gets locked in contraction.

But the pelvic floor is NOT designed to remain in a constant state of contraction.

It’s designed to engage and release to support our movements, our breathing, our digestion, our reproduction and so on.

If the pelvic floor remains contracted for long periods of time, this creates tension.

The tension grows.

And as a result, the pelvic structures grow weaker.

As the pelvic floor grows weaker it becomes unable to perform its important jobs.

Over the years the pelvic floor loses its range of motion, tone and flexibility, resulting in a weak pelvic floor.

As it loses its ability to maintain stability in the body, it starts to struggle to open and close the sphincters at just the right time when we need to pee and poop.. resulting in issues such as incontinence…

And because it’s not performing its jobs properly, the other muscles and ligaments of the pelvis try to pick up the slack, and then they get worn out, leading to organs starting to fall out of place; what we call prolapse…

Sexual pleasure is also impacted.

Our body, now out of balance, starts to sustain little injuries.

Your back starts to hurt.

You get a bung ankle, because your alignment’s been thrown off.

And so on it goes….

We exercise hard, we do our Kegels, thinking they’ll help, not realising that because there is no focus on releasing the tension, we’re actually doing ourself damage.

And so the side-effects of a weak pelvic floor get worse.

Our pelvic floor needs to be toned AND flexible.

It needs to be able to contract AND release.

Our pelvic floor muscles should contract when we cough or bounce on a trampoline, to stop any leakage.

Like any muscle in the body, if it isn’t performing its jobs properly, we know we have a weak muscle.

It’s just that it may be weak because it’s too tight.

Not because it’s too loose.

Loose muscles and tight muscles are both weak muscles.

And to add more confusion to the mix…

…you may be too tight on one side of your pelvic floor and really loose on the either side.

This can happen due to our culture’s addiction with sitting on a chair with one leg crossed over the other!

If you have this habit, please stop!

You’re only hurting yourself (and your precious pelvic floor).

Crossing one leg over the other creates an imbalance in how the structures of the pelvis interact with each other.

So…

My advice is… stop sitting with one leg over the other, start breathing full breaths so that your lungs expands to the front, to the sides and to the back, stand and sit and move in Natural Womanly Stance AND give up any style of Kegels that only focus on the squeeze.

Now you know that if you’re experiencing pelvic and bodily issues it could be because you have a weak pelvic floor which has been disguising itself as a strong pelvic floor.

Because remember:

Tight doesn’t equal strong.

This is an important distinction.

The only way to get a strong pelvic floor, that has a healthy range of movement, is to begin by releasing the tension first, and only then, begin a practice that involves a gentle squeeze that’s married with the breath, and that’s followed up with a full release.

When you take this approach, then your pelvic floor can begin to recover.

We want to bring a more loving approach to our pelvic practices, and how we move through our day.

When we start to bring awareness to the pelvic floor, we can start to get a sense of what state it’s in.

And from there, we can use the breath to lengthen the pelvic floor and let go of tension.

This often requires us embracing the idea that ‘letting go’ can create a different kind of strength.

A healthier kind of strength.

For instance, in childbirth, yes you need a toned pelvic floor, but that tone needs to be elastic like a trampoline.

It needs to know how to completely release and let go.

And I do believe that it was my Yoga for the Vagina practice, that I’d been doing for years before I got pregnant, that allowed me to give birth to my son in a very quick 3 and a half hour home water birth.

My body wasn’t stacked up with tension, but it had enough tone to allow the birthing process to unfold naturally.

I knew how to let go, from my years of consciously practising letting go.

When a woman with years of tension goes to give birth, it can feel like trying to get a baby through a brick wall.

Which obviously, you don’t want.

So…

Do you have a weak pelvic floor?

Well, only you can explore that.

But if you experience any pelvic pain, bodily issues, incontinence or the infamous fanny farts, then yeah, maybe you have a weak pelvic floor.

Yes, vagina farts are a sign of a lack of tone in the pelvis… just in case you were wondering!

And if you tend to be anxious a lot, chances are there will be some unconscious contracting going on, creating a tight, but weak pelvic floor.

Whether the tight pelvic floor is causing the anxiety, or vice versa, who knows!

But it’s known that women with tight pelvic floors tend to experience more anxiety.

So learning how to release your anxiety can be a very important part of releasing tight pelvic floor.

And I’ll share how to rise above anxiety in less than 2-minutes in a few episodes time!

So if you suffer with anxiety, make sure you listen in to that one.

OK, so if all this pelvic floor talk has got you interested in learning more… I do run a program called Yoga for the Vagina, where I teach you an embodiment practice to connect you with your lady parts, release tension, build healthy tone, and awaken the tissues so they’re healthy and happy. So they’re toned AND supple AND flexible.

So they know how to both contract and release.

If you’d like to trial the practice, simply go to my sister site yogaforthevagina.com and sign up for your FREE Yoga for the Vagina Starter’s Sequence.

And if you try it and it that feels really good in your body, you can sign up to the full program, where a percentage of profits go to planting trees, so together we can re-robe Mother Earth.