You can’t see your pelvic floor muscles, and exercising them won’t lead to flat abs or toned thighs. But getting these muscles in shape can improve your sex life and be one of the best things you can do to prepare your body for pregnancy and beyond.
There is a group of muscles that helps prepare the body for pregnancy, contributes to sexual health and pleasure, and ensures a woman’s physical well-being throughout her life.
Yet chances are not even the fittest among us “work” these muscles regularly.
However, it may be that building up the pelvic floor, like building up bone strength, should start as early in a woman’s life as possible. “We teach young women about sexual health, but we don’t educate ourselves about the muscles involved in pregnancy and childbirth,” says Missy Lavender, who founded the Women’s Health Foundation in Chicago in 2004 to do just that, after developing exercise-induced incontinence following the birth of two children two years apart. “I ended up requiring surgery for a full pelvic restoration in my forties because my muscles had become so lax,” says Lavender. “I was in top shape before I got pregnant; I was an avid runner, lifted weights, worked out regularly, but not a single instructor or doctor had ever mentioned the pelvic floor.”
“The sling of muscles that connects the pubic and tail bones—called the pelvic floor—not only holds a woman’s sexual organs in place, but helps prevent urinary incontinence and plays a role in virtually every move a woman makes,” says Sheila Dugan, M.D., of Rush Medical College in Chicago. This muscle group, called the levator ani, “helps support the movements of the spine and legs as a woman walks, runs, or jumps.
“The pelvic floor is equally important during childbirth as it is in training for a marathon,” Dr. Dugan reported at the 2009 Health & Fitness Summit sponsored by the American College of Sports Medicine. These “trampoline-like” muscles work in concert with the “core” muscles of the trunk to help hold up the body during strenuous activity, including carrying around the weight of a developing baby during pregnancy; at childbirth, they stretch from their pre-pregnancy teacup size to the circumference of the baby’s head. But surprisingly, Dr. Dugan noted, pelvic floor exercises are overlooked in the vast majority of fitness programs.
While many women are familiar with so-called “Kegels,” which involve “holding in” an imaginary urine flow, there’s a lot more that can be done to prevent laxity in this muscle group, helping to prevent exercise- and stress-induced incontinence that often develops after childbirth, even in young, fit women. A strong pelvic floor can also contribute to continuing sexual pleasure at every age, suggests a study published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology in 2008.
While some muscle groups seem to have garnered cult status lately, such as the transverse abdominals and the obliques, the all-important levators are hardly ever mentioned, even in those exercise regimens that feature movements that can actually work this muscle area, such as the muscle co-contractions done in Pilates and yoga.
It’s never too late—or too soon—to reap the benefits of these exercises. One fitness specialist who is trained in the Women’s Health Foundation’s Total Control Pelvic Pyramid workout feels that it has made as big a difference in her own life as it did for her students. Stacy Hansen, health and wellness director of the YMCA of Metropolitan Denver, mainly taught “boot camp” and cycling classes before becoming involved with the Total Control workout through the national Y several years ago. The workouts, targeted to women suffering with incontinence issues, had an unexpectedly personal impact on Hansen. “When I began teaching the classes, I was planning to get pregnant and heard that most of the younger women had come to the class to deal with post-pregnancy incontinence,” she says. “I tried to stick with the pelvic floor exercises not just during my pregnancy but right after delivery. And I think I was able to get back into my own personal program of cycling, along with my teaching and doing personal training, much faster as a result. Plus, I really learned a lot about female anatomy that just isn’t focused on in any other fitness context.”
Daily Dose
It’s never too early—or too late—to start toning the pelvic floor muscles. Dr. Dugan suggests the following four exercises that can (and ideally should) be done daily to help keep these muscles in shape.
Breathe
Practice deep breathing, pulling your diaphragm muscles inward and letting the pelvic floor muscles “drop away” from the body. Try to spend at least five minutes breathing this way each day. (Bonus: It’s a great stress-reliever.)
Stretch
Lie on your back with the bottoms of your feet together and knees dropped to each side, relaxing both the groin and pelvic floor muscles. Hold for five minutes. If the stretch feels too intense, place a small pillow under each knee.
Tighten
Lie on your back, legs out straight, and try to smoothly draw your lower belly muscles in for a count of five, then slowly release. Repeat 10 times. “Try to do this move several times a day if time permits,” Dr. Dugan urges.
Lift
Lie on your back and lift the pelvic muscles (but not the pelvis) in and up for a count of five, then slowly lower for a count of five. This is similar to a Kegel move, mimicking the action taken when stopping urine mid-stream, but is not recommended while urinating.
A version of this article originally appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of Conceive Magazine.
Related Topics: Boost Your Fertility; Fertility Health; Fertility Nutrition; Fertility Threats; Stress and Fertility
