Glutes and Your Pelvic Floor

Start the new year getting your body functioning as a whole and going from strength to strength from there.

We need to start with the basics.

Our core/tummy muscles, pelvic floor, glutes and breathing do not each work in isolation. They all work together and are connected to our glutes (bum muscles). Your glutes play a huge role in so much of our movement and yet for most of us these muscles are very weak due to sitting for long periods at a time in modern life etc. Weak glutes impact the function of our pelvic floor too.

So kegals alone are not going to the job to ensure a pelvic floor that works well. This means being able to fully contract and fully relax your pelvic floor at the right time. An overactive pelvic floor causes dysfunction as much as an underactive/weak pelvic floor. Therefore it's important, through deep screening, to know why your pelvic floor isn't functioning as it should.

So other muscles in our bodies compensate and take the strain. Our hamstrings get tight, we experience lower back ache, weak/ strained tummy muscles, poor functioning pelvic floor, knee pain, poor posture and the list could go on. These then impact the function of so much of our body and our everyday lifestyle.

Where do we start?

· Brain/body connection.

· Get our breath, core, pelvic floor working together. Breath driven. Improve our posture. Train them to work well together and eventually just naturally use them that way in all our everyday movement and exercise.

· Start strengthening our glutes.

Today’s top tip is EXHALE ON EXERTION!

Stand tall. Relax. Breath in through your nose and feel your middle expand like a balloon. Place your hand on your tummy and feel it expand, feel your ribs expand out to the sides and into your back. You might feel your pelvic floor relaxing down (it will be, you just need to become aware of it with practice). Breath out, purposefully blowing out through your mouth. Feel your middle draw in like a corset. (Not forced, just a natural action of a purposeful breath out) Your tummy, back and sides all draw in together. You should feel your pelvic floor lifting up too. Watch the GIF above (designed by Jenny Burrell from Burrell Education, where I get all my wonderful training from :))to see what is happening. See how they all work together.

Now think if you are adding a load. Like picking up the shopping, your baby or toddler. If you exhale you are recruiting all those muscles together and protecting them from pressure/strain. Give it a go.

Learn how to strengthen those glutes and do pelvic floor/kegal exercises correctly by joining one of my classes or signing up to 1:1 with me. Get educated, if you know and understand why you are doing something a certain way and how your body works then it totally changes how you do the exercise or action and makes it easier for you to do and do it right and see results.