Top 5 Pelvic Floor Exercises

Hi everyone, I'm Dr. Jo and today I'm going to show you my top 5

pelvic

floor

exercises

. then let's get started. So before we start, if you haven't already, make sure you click the subscribe button, especially if you have a question or a comment, otherwise I may not see it and if I don't see it, how do I I can answer? ? let's go. So all of these

pelvic

floor

exercises

will be done on the floor. If you can't get on the floor, you can do them on your couch or in your bed. So if you can't get down there, that's okay.

Simply get into a comfortable lying position with your knees raised. So with pelvic floor exercises, a lot of times there's not a lot of movement because you're using those pelvic floor muscles. Those are the smaller internal muscles, so you won't have to see any big movements, just make sure you do the exercises correctly. So the first one will just be a pelvic tilt. and this is really just to get things moving and working a little bit. but pelvic tilts really have to be done correctly or you won't be getting the exercise you need. A lot of times with pelvic tilts, people want to push with their legs and push into the floor and that doesn't get the public floor muscles working.

What you want to do is just as it sounds: it's a pelvic tilt. you are tilting your pelvis backwards. So your back is flat against the floor, but you are not using your leg muscles. So if you feel these muscles tightening, you're not doing it right. A lot of times people say, "Imagine you are grabbing your belly button and pushing it into the floor." I like to say just imagine someone's hand is under or you can even put your hands under the curve of your back, and what you want to do is use these core muscles, these pelvic floor muscles to rotate to where you're flattening your back. .

So you should be able to see that a little bit isn't a great move, but I'm flattening everything out and not using my legs. so you want to hold that for about three to five seconds and then relax. So you can see that movement, but again it's not a big movement. I'm breathing, I'm just talking normally. I'm not holding my breath. Make sure you don't hold your breath and then hold it again for three to five seconds just to achieve that movement. And again, if you do it correctly, you should feel these muscles working here, not the muscles in your legs.

So maybe start with five or ten, you can do them a couple of times a day to start. So the next one will be a pelvic tilt watch. So the watches make it a little bit more difficult with the pelvic tilt, but then you really start to focus on specific muscles to activate specific muscles. So look at your belly and imagine there is a clock on it. then 12 go up towards me and six go down towards my legs. and then imagine that the clock is going in that direction. So first you just want to start by going from 12 to 6, so now this is more of a continuous movement, so if I went down to 6, I'm actually arching my back a little bit and then I go up to 12. and flattening everything out. but again, I don't use my legs using those pelvic muscles, those core muscles, if you want to call them that, to achieve that movement.

So now I'm really arching up and I'm really going down to 12 and 6 and then you can start doing maybe 5 to 7. So this time I'm going to angle down and push it to the side and like that. This one can sometimes be a little hard to see, I've had people have a hard time doing it because if you're weak on one side, you'll feel like maybe you can go down a little bit easier on one side. side. Go back up to the middle every time you go down. and then you have a side that is a little more difficult. my left side is a little harder because that's where I had surgery most recently.

You can focus on that a little more, but I would alternate back and forth. and then you can do something like a 2 and an 11, so now I'm going up where I'm flattening out over here and then alternating over to the other side. So you see, so you go on angles, but you always start with up and down because that's usually the easiest, 12 to 6 to go down, so you're figuring that out, and then you start going on angles to find out where their weaknesses are. So, again, start with 5 or 10 of these. You don't necessarily have to hold them unless you want to.

You can do maybe a three-second hold just to activate those muscles, but you're doing more than you think, so if you need to work your pelvic floor and you know you're weak, don't do it. Do a lot of things just because they feel easy at the time, because you might end up feeling so much easier later on. So start with a little bit a couple of times a day and then you can build up from there. So the next one will be a little more difficult. He will use the ball to squeeze. So you can use either one, if you have a soccer ball like me you can use a basketball. if you don't have a ball, if you have a yoga block, those work well, but what you want is you don't want it to be too small or too big, you want your knees.

They are still approximately hip-width apart. If it's too much or too little, then you're not getting the work you need. So when you squeeze the ball, you activate some of those muscles, so this is going to be quite a complicated or multi-exercise movement. So if you just want to start in stages, that's fine. So just squeezing the ball might be enough for you and then maybe doing it for three to five seconds. but if you can do the pelvic tilt first and want to maintain that pelvic tilt the entire time (although sometimes it's a little difficult), then squeeze.

So again, start with three to five seconds holding that pelvic tilt, holding that squeeze, and then relaxing. If that's easy for you, then you'll go one step further and do the pelvic tilt, squeeze the ball, and bring your hips and knees to about 90 degrees. but try to hold it all. So if you're coming out of your pelvic tilt, if you feel like your back is coming off the floor, you're probably not ready for that stage yet because you really want to keep that back flat in that pelvic tilt. So again, if all that becomes easy, flatten your back, squeeze the ball, raising it to about 90 90, then place your hands on your thighs in the front of your thighs and push with your hands, to activate. the hip flexors.

So even though I'm trying to make it look easy, you might be able to see me shaking a little. It's hard. and if you do it again, if you do it correctly, it's harder than it looks. but every time you feel like you're coming out of that pelvic tilt, it probably means your muscles aren't quite ready for it. So there are probably a lot of big steps there. So, again, if you're not ready for it, just follow the first few steps and then slowly work your way up to doing the next ones. So the next two exercises are really going to focus on the pelvic floor muscle called the obturator internus.

And this one is very big in the pelvic floor, and when it's not doing what it's supposed to do, sometimes you can have hip pain, you can have groin pain, you can have that internal pain. So it's really good to work on this one. Especially for me, if I had a labral repair and I'm still not strong enough there because that obturator internus helps keep the head of the femur or the hip joint stable. So again you'll have the ball or the block or something in between. If you don't have any of those, you can take a pillow and fold it over so you have something to press on.

So this time I'm going to squeeze myself, keeping that squeeze, and now what I'm going to try to do or imagine I'm doing, you're not going to see the movement, but my feet are going to stay in one place, but I'm going to push them out like if I was trying to get my feet to the edge of the mat, or I'm just pushing them out. So it's an isometric movement. I contract my muscles, but I don't move, instead I squeeze my knees and push my feet. So squeeze and then push out, and you should feel that on the inside of your inner thighs towards your groin area.

I tighten up and push my feet toward the edge of the mat. And that will activate that muscle. So again, maybe just if you can hold it for about three seconds, maybe go up to three to five and do about five or ten of those. but again, it's about working muscles that maybe you haven't really been working. maybe due to an injury or something else. so I would start with five, maybe ten, do a couple a day and then go from there. So the last one is still working on the internal shutter, but now I'm going to turn upside down and use a belt or a strap or something solid.

So not like a resistive band, but something that's not going to give because again it's going to be kind of an isometric exercise, where you activate the muscle, but you don't do a big movement. So what I want to do is take the bow and put it around my ankles. So when I come face down, I'll lift my knees up and bring my knees and feet together. Make sure you get comfortable. You don't want to feel uncomfortable while doing this. And now all I do is push my ankles toward the belt each way as if I'm trying to separate my feet.

So as I push out, I squeeze my core or pelvic floor, almost trying to pull my tailbone in. So I tuck my tailbone in and squeeze and then push out at the same time. So again, it's a three to five second wait, do those five to ten seconds, or sorry, five to ten times, three to five seconds a couple of times during the day. So since all those public floors are really being worked on, if you just want to try the first two, those pelvic tilts, the pelvic clocks, see how you feel and then start working on the other ones because the other ones are a little bit more difficult. . and they are working muscles that you may not have worked in a while.

There you have it, those were my five best pelvic floor exercises. If you want to help support my channel, be sure to click the link above and don't forget to subscribe by clicking there. And remember, take care of yourself, have fun and I hope you feel better soon.