What is Pelvic Floor PT?

Pelvic floor PT involves the muscles at the very base of your trunk between your pubic bone up front, tail bone in the back, and sits bones off to the sides and it goes far beyond Kegels. 

We often hear that if you’re leaking, you have to do Kegels. (And cue the ‘Blame and Shame’ if you happen to already be doing Kegels and are still leaking.)

If you think you might want to be pregnant some day or you have been pregnant in the past… you have to do Kegels.

Do Kegels all day every day and especially at stop lights.

Sound familiar??

Well turns out that Kegels while helpful, don’t solve everything.

About 40% of people with vaginas don’t know how to do Kegels correctly even when they’re verbally instructed in how to do so. And of that 40%, 25% actually contract in a way that can promote incontinence. In other words, when they think they’re doing a Kegel, they’re actually bearing down.

With internal pelvic floor assessment, a trained provider like myself can help determine whether or not you are contracting appropriately AND help you learn how to contract, relax, and bear down correctly!

Many folks actually have pelvic floor muscles that are over active leading to leakage and pain with penetration. Strengthening these over active muscles further right away can actually make the problem worse!

Think about if you had a headache and you had tons to tension in your upper trap and neck muscles and to ‘fix’ it, you tried to do a ton of shoulder shrugs. Can you imagine how that might make the headache worse? Well same goes for when trying to strengthen already overactive pelvic floor muscles. In these cases, the first step is to teach the pelvic floor muscles how to relax and that it is safe to relax.

Pelvic Floor PT can make use of internal and external soft tissue work and stretching to help release those muscles, much like you can use soft tissue work and stretching to release those knots in your upper traps.

But we’re not done yet!

We also evaluate how your entire body is managing loads and pressures, how you move, how you breathe, and your posture.

So if you've tried to 'just do your Kegels' and it isn't working for you or it's making things worse, it is time for some pelvic floor PT! 

Contact me to learn more or to set up an appointment!