The pelvic floor mus­cles are the foun­da­tion for the core of the body. They help sta­bilise the pelvis, and they sup­port the or­gans of the low­er ab­dom­i­nal cav­i­ty, like the blad­der and uterus. The pelvic floor mus­cles, along with the deep mus­cles of the back and ab­domen, form the group of mus­cles we work when we fo­cus on de­vel­op­ing core strength, as we do in Pi­lates. You can think of the pelvic floor mus­cles as a web of in­ter­re­lat­ed mus­cles, ten­dons and lig­a­ments that form a sup­port­ive ham­mock at the base of the pelvic bowl. One of these mus­cles, the pub­o­coc­cygeus, al­so known as the PC mus­cle, goes around the open­ings for the ure­thra, vagi­na and anus.

When the pelvic floor mus­cles are weak or dam­aged, the in­tegri­ty of these open­ings can be com­pro­mised. Child­birth, chron­ic cough­ing, age­ing, and in­ac­tiv­i­ty are among the caus­es of weak­ened or dam­aged pelvic floor mus­cles. A weak pelvic floor can lead to prob­lems like in­con­ti­nence, di­min­ished sex­u­al en­joy­ment and a drop­ping of the or­gans in­to the pelvic mus­cles which is the case with prob­lems like pro­lapsed uterus or blad­der. In ad­di­tion, if the pelvic floor mus­cles are weak, and not work­ing in con­cert with the mus­cles of the ab­domen and back, struc­tur­al im­bal­ances that lead to ab­dom­i­nal and back pain as well as pat­terns of com­pen­sa­tion through­out the body, can oc­cur. As you can see, it is im­por­tant to main­tain and strength­en the pelvic floor mus­cles! This is true for both men and women. There is a pelvic floor strength­en­ing ex­er­cise called Kegels (named af­ter Dr Kegel), that is usu­al­ly rec­om­mend­ed for strength­en­ing the pelvic floor.

Ex­er­cis­es that strength­en the pelvic floor mus­cles

Kegels are very spe­cif­ic to the pelvic floor. To do them, you squeeze the mus­cles of the pelvic floor as if you were go­ing to stop the flow of urine when you go to the bath­room. Use stop­ping the flow of urine a few times to find the mus­cles you need, but do not use it as a way to prac­tise Kegels in gen­er­al as con­stant­ly stop­ping the flow of urine can weak­en, rather than strength­en, the pelvic floor. Kegels are most well-known for help­ing women re­cov­er mus­cle tone af­ter preg­nan­cy, but they are good for all of us. Pi­lates is al­so ex­cel­lent ex­er­cise for strength­en­ing the pelvic floor. In Pi­lates, the pelvic floor mus­cles are used in their role as nat­ur­al mus­cu­lar sup­port for move­ment. This is a firm and sus­tained en­gage­ment of the mus­cles where one is pulling the pelvic floor in and up as part of ex­er­cis­es where ab­dom­i­nal mus­cles as well as oth­er mus­cles, are in­volved. The de­gree of en­gage­ment you use should be bal­anced with the amount of ex­er­tion you need to per­form the Pi­lates ex­er­cise you are do­ing. Knee folds, for ex­am­ple, might re­quire just the slight­est ac­ti­va­tion where­as an in­tense ex­er­cise like the hun­dred will call for a lot more from the pelvic floor, and abs.

How to find the pelvic floor mus­cles

The catch here is that the pelvic floor mus­cles can be hard to feel when you are ex­er­cis­ing or mov­ing through dai­ly life. "En­gage the pelvic floor" is a com­mon cue in Pi­lates in­struc­tion, but many stu­dents are un­sure about how to get that to hap­pen. My favourite im­age for get­ting the pelvic floor mus­cles in on an ex­er­cise is to think of bring­ing the sit bones to­geth­er and up. An­oth­er good im­age is to think of draw­ing a foun­tain of en­er­gy up from the base of the pelvic bowl-up through the mid­dle of the body, and out the top of the head. (www.pi­lates.about.com)