What NOT To Do When Exercising Your Pelvic Floor

I often talk about what you should be doing when exercising your pelvic floor; now I want to talk about what not to do. Here are some quick tips to remember NOT to do when you are focusing on your pelvic floor exercises. They are more common than you think and if it's you doing them.. don't stress. I'm here to help!

Tightening your muscles quickly and relaxing and doing hundreds of these per day.

You have to remember about quality, not quantity. It's important to lift and hold, not just let the contraction release straight away.

Just doing pelvic tilts.

Although yes, pelvic tilts are a great exercise, unless you are actually activating your pelvic floor muscles whilst you do the tilt

Stopping and starting your flow of urine every time you go to the toilet.

This is something you could potentially do once just to get a feeling for your muscles contracting, but it's not good for your bladder and not recommended to do often.

Squeezing your legs together.

If you are needing to squeeze your legs together stop yourself going to the toilet, then certainly booking an appointment with a women's health physiotherapist is a good idea to help optimise your pelvic floor (remember an overactive pelvic floor can give you similar symptoms to a weak pelvic floor.. so more is not always better!)

Holding your breath when you tighten your muscles.

Mastering any new skill can be difficult and take a lot of focus, but holding your breath when concentrating on doing your pelvic floor exercises is not a good idea and won't help you.

Each of my programs in the PregActive Online Program has a big focus on pelvic floor, so it doesn't matter if you are planning pregnancy, pregnant, about to give birth, just had your baby or months / years postpartum then I've got you covered.