Is Pelvic PT more than just kegals?

When you think of the pelvic floor and you think of exercises for the pelvic floor. The most common thing that comes to mind is the kegal exercise. Which is essentially a pelvic floor contraction, or the muscles you use to stop the flow of urine.

Most women think that they need to do more legals to help prevent leakage, prolapse, and also make intercourse more pleasurable.

Women have even been told that doing kegal exercises during pregnancy will help with delivery. Which is far from the truth. The pelvic floor needs to essentially just get out of the way during delivery, not engage more.

Kegal exercises are not the only answer to pelvic floor issues and are often the opposite of what we need to do.

More often that not, women are holding a lot of tension in the pelvic floor. And so focusing on relaxation of the pelvic floor can really help with a lot of symptoms. It can even help with urination issues such as increased urinary frequency, urgency and even incontinence.

And the other piece of this is that we want the pelvic floor muscles to work in coordination with the core and the rest of the body during functional movements. And so doing only kegal exercises in isolation is not always helpful, but rather doing more function based exercises such as squats and deadlifts can help engage the pelvic floor more and more functionally than kegals alone.

So if you are having pelvic floor issues whether it is incontinence, urgency or pelvic pain. Don’t just go online and purchase pelvic floor weights or pelvic floor trainers, but get assessed by a Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist to find the best treatment for you.