To Strengthen or Lengthen, considerations for treatment of pelvic floor dysfunction
Hello everyone! As I was considering what to write about for this month’s blog post, I thought about myself.
I recently suffered a fall while roller skating and landed right on my tailbone (Yeah OUCH) As a result I had been having some tailbone pain.
Treating Pelvic Floor Pain
So, how did I treat it? I foam rolled and focused on lengthening the tissue around my tailbone to reduce the pain.
When thinking about pelvic floor dysfunction, we can’t just say “oh let’s do a bunch of kegels, that will make you feel better,” we need to assess muscle length, strength and intra-thoracic pressure management strategies.
Usually, the answer is not to improve muscular strength, sometimes we need to improve the resting length of the musculature of the pelvic floor! It is important to maintain proper resting length of the musculature so that the contraction force is more efficient during functional activities.
Exercises to Improve Pelvic Floor Muscle Length
With that in mind, there are some good exercises to complete to improve muscle length of the pelvic floor. Child’s Pose with bolsters in front of the hips and behind the knees with focus on diaphragmatic breathing helps lengthen the area, as does happy baby pose.
If you have any further questions or feel like this could apply to you, feel free to give the clinic a call to schedule an appointment!
