How much do you know about your body’s different muscles?
Maybe you know your pecs are in your chest and your biceps are in your arm. Hamstrings run along the back of the leg and quads run along the front.
What about pelvic floor muscles? How much do women know about them? Sometimes not enough, until something goes wrong with the vital structure that holds our pelvis together and supports key bodily functions.
Here’s everything you need to know about pelvic floor muscles, including how to keep them healthy, what can go wrong, and what you can do about it.
What Are Pelvic Floor Muscles?
Pelvic floor muscles are the base that runs along the bottom of your pelvis and supports the pelvic organs, including the bladder, bowel, vagina and uterus.
This floor is composed of layers of muscle and other tissue that form a hammock-like structure. The layers stretch across from the pubic bone at the front to the tailbone at the back, and across from one sitting bone to the other.
The pelvic floor muscles work with your deep abdominal and back muscles and your diaphragm to support your spine and control the pressure inside the abdomen.1
Why is the Pelvic Floor Important?
Your pelvic floor muscles play a vital role in everyday life — most of the time without you even realizing what they’re doing.
Here are some of the key functions of the pelvic floor muscles:
- help stabilize your core2
- support pelvic organs including your bladder, bowel and internal reproductive organs2
- assist with essential bodily functions, like pooping and peeing2
- assist with sex, as voluntary contractions or squeezing of the pelvic floor contributes to sexual sensation and arousal1
- provide support for the baby during pregnancy and during the birthing process1
Pelvic floor muscles also allow your body to absorb outside pressure from tasks like lifting and coughing while protecting your spine and your organs.2
Known as intra-abdominal pressure, this happens when you lift, bend, carry something heavy, or strain. When this pressure on the abdomen increases, the pelvic floor and abdominal muscles brace, preventing internal organs like your uterus and bladder from being pushed downwards.3
The Role of the Pelvic Floor in Bodily Functions
Essential muscle control that aids bodily functions of peeing and pooping — known as continence — is one of those key roles of the pelvic floor that is easy to take for granted.
The ability of those muscles to squeeze and relax helps you move waste from your body, and stop waste from leaking when you don’t want it to.
For instance, pelvic floor muscles coordinate with the urethra, the tube that carries pee out of your body, and your anus, the organ through which stools pass to leave your body. When you squeeze your pelvic muscles, the passages narrow and waste can’t escape. When it’s time to go, you relax the muscles, widening the passages to allow you to pee or poop.2
When your pelvic floor is healthy, you can contract and release without even thinking about it.
What Can Go Wrong With the Pelvic Floor?
Now that you know all the important ways the pelvic floor supports you, it’s easy to understand how you can be impacted when things go wrong. If your pelvic floor protects your organs from pressure, holds them in place, and helps you perform bodily functions, then changes to those muscles can impact those different components of good health.
Unfortunately, up to a third of all women experience a problem with their pelvic floor muscles at some time during their life. The most common problems are leaking with activity, sneezing or coughing, known as stress urinary incontinence; and pelvic organ prolapse, which is when one of your pelvic organs drops from its usual place.3
Other problems include:3
- urge urinary incontinence, which is a sudden need to go to the toilet that may include leakage
- going to the toilet too often
- getting up often at night to go to the toilet, known as nocturia
- fecal incontinence or leaking stool
- vaginal or abdominal pain
- lack of sensation during sex
Most pelvic floor conditions arise because the muscles have become weakened, such as through pregnancy and childbirth; factors that put pressure on the pelvic floor like being overweight or obese, suffering from chronic constipation, straining, heavy lifting, and chronic coughing; the natural aging of muscles; menopause, as reduced estrogen can cause the pelvic floor muscles to weaken, or surgery.
While not as common, another condition that can affect your pelvic floor muscles is when they are too tight. This is known as hypertonic pelvic floor and can lead to a number of side effects such as constipation, pelvic pain, back or hip/leg pain, painful intercourse, and difficulty peeing, or urinary urgency.2
Keeping Your Pelvic Floor Muscles Healthy
Pelvic floor disorders are not a natural part of aging, or part of being a woman, and we don’t have to suffer in silence. One way to avoid pelvic health conditions is through prevention.
After all, doctors and exercise gurus preach the benefits of strength training, helping us to maintain muscle mass, improve mobility, and increase the healthy years of life.4
The same is true of pelvic floor muscles. Exercising them to keep them strong is a regimen that women of all ages can and should practice.
How do you strengthen your pelvic floor? By doing exercises known commonly as Kegels, or pelvic floor muscles exercises.
What are Kegels?
These exercises were “invented” by gynecologist Dr. Arnold Kegel, who introduced the concept of exercising the pelvic floor muscles in the 1940s. As a result, these contraction exercises are named after him.5
To perform Kegels, start by ensuring you’re contracting the correct muscles. You can accomplish this by pretending you’re trying to prevent gas from passing, which should create a “pulling” feeling in your vaginal or rectal area. You can also insert your finger into your vagina and squeeze the muscles as if you were trying to hold in your urine. If you feel tightness on your finger, you’re squeezing the correct muscles.6
Then follow these steps:6
- Contract your pelvic floor muscles for three seconds.
- Fully relax the muscles for three seconds.
- Work up to 10 to 15 repetitions each time you do Kegels.
- Do three sessions a day, once sitting, once standing, and once lying down. Using all three positions makes the muscles strongest.
The Benefit of Doing Kegels
Research shows that pelvic floor exercises can give you better control over your bladder and bowels, and prevent your pelvic muscles from getting weak.
Here’s what else pelvic floor muscle exercises can do:1
- reduce the risk of prolapse
- provide better recovery from childbirth and surgery
- improve sexual function
- increase social confidence and quality of life
Am I Doing Kegels Properly?
If you’re not sure whether you’re performing the exercises properly, you can ask your health care professional to help you. You can also seek the advice of a pelvic floor physical therapist who can guide you to the proper technique for Kegels.
Another option is to use a tool to help you properly perform Kegels. Here are a few.
- The Gynesis pelvic floor trainer shorts. These clinically proven shorts use advanced technology to deliver targeted muscle stimulation that helps retrain and rebuild your pelvic floor. The shorts use an exclusive Multipath Technology, which delivers electrical stimulation to multiple areas of your pelvic floor muscles, not just one part of your pelvic floor. It’s a solution that has been cleared by the FDA and is designed to be comfortable for everyday use.
- Kegel weights, also known as Kegel balls or ben wa balls. This smooth weight is placed in your vagina, and then you squeeze your pelvic floor muscles to keep it from falling out.
- Variations on the ancient Jade balls including cones, balls, and double bulbs.
- Biofeedback devices that are inserted in your vagina and provide feedback on how you’re performing the Kegels. These are best used following advice from a healthcare practitioner.
Ask Your Doctor
If you want to know more about your pelvic floor muscles, if you suspect you have a pelvic floor disorder, or you’d like guidance on adding Kegels or pelvic floor exercises to your daily routine, ask your doctor for guidance. Use our Physician Finder to find a doctor near you with expertise in women’s health. Don’t wait until it’s too late and you have a problem with your pelvic floor muscles.