The Trampoline Inside

What is the part of the body that all humans have but are least aware of?

If you guessed the pelvic floor, you’d be right.

This week I had a lot of interesting conversations with clients about the pelvic floor. Many people don’t realize that the phrase “pelvic floor” doesn’t refer to some mystical space inside of their abdomen. You can actually touch your pelvic floor from the outside of your body. Lay on your side with your knees bent; reach down to hook your fingers inside of your sitting bone, the bone in your butt. It’s kind of like you’re reaching your fingers into your butt crack, but you’re not, you’re just outside of it. This is the pelvic floor. It’s an interweaving of many muscles that span the bottom of your pelvis and support your pelvic organs, like the bottom of a basket.

Many people also fail to realize how often they are clenching their pelvic floor muscles. Notice when you breathe in if you can feel the flesh under your fingertips expanding or descending. If you don’t feel this, know that it is an extremely common postural pattern to stabilize the body through pelvic floor tension. When you feel anxious or unstable, you are more likely to tighten these muscles at the bottom of the pelvis. Many people are told to consciously kegel, or contract their pelvic floor, to support their core muscles, to recover postpartum, or to prevent incontinence. But this constant, unconscious or conscious tension can cause huge problems throughout your bodily systems. Like any other muscle in your body, your pelvic floor is meant to contract and expand, tighten and relax. Your pelvic organs only have so much space; this clenching at the bottom of the pelvis takes up a lot of space that organs have to sit and be comfortable in the pelvis. This can be a part of the source of pelvic pain, sexual discomfort, bladder or bowel issues. Reducing tension on the pelvic floor, even 10% of the time, can change symptoms a lot.

If you’re interested in practicing pelvic floor expansion, check out the first 20 minutes of the video below. These breathing activities will dial down how much work the pelvic floor is doing as a stabilizer so that you can redistribute pressure in the abdomen.

I’m out of town at the end of this week, heading for New Orleans for my anniversary with my boyfriend Dylan. Catch me on Zoom Monday night.