Yoga for Pelvic Floor Health
Male or female, new mum, athlete, or senior, it is so common for pelvic floor worries and troubles to cause significant anxiety through bladder or bowel control, lower back pain and many more symptoms. Incontinence being the most common complaint. Yoga helps us to understand, connect with and exploring the pelvic floor through targeted exercises, movement, breathwork and relaxation techniques. Exploring the pelvis, pelvic floor muscles and other helpful anatomy 'friends' from different angles - not only the physical body but also the energetic body - through yoga we include beneficial poses and movement to increase mobility, strength and balance and most importantly - confidence.
We commonly think only of strengthening the pelvic floor muscles however we must think also about relaxing the muscles. We want them strong, yes, but we want flexibility. If we over strengthen the muscles we can end up with problems too. Incontinence possible as the muscles have lost their flexibility, rock hard they cannot control bladder, bowl and in the case of women, uterus.
My favourite yoga poses for strengthening the pelvic floor muscles - Virabhadrasana II (Warrior 2), Utkatasana (Chair Pose) and for relaxing the pelvic floor muscles - Ananda Balasana (Happy Baby Pose) and Malasana (Garland Pose/Squat).
Pelvic floor issues are common but they should NOT be normalised.
If you have concerns please contact a specialist Pelvic Floor Health Physiotherapist in your area. I will give more information on this in a further post.
bye for now, Virginia x