What the Health: Pelvic Floor Basics

I recently started a group called the Period Club. This club is for women between the ages of 25-40 ish who want to learn more about their health. I started this club with the intention of better supporting the women who train with me after realizing that I get to have great conversations with each of them about all things health related, but that they were missing out on the opportunities to talk with each other. Hence, Period Club!

So far we have discussed the basics of the female hormone cycle and how to make simple training plan adjustments to best support and work with our natural fluctuations in hormones and energy. We have also gone over the difference between whole foods and processed foods and how to read nutrition labels. Most recently, we had a quest speaker, Dr. Alli Mohammadi, DPT, teach us the basics of the pelvic floor.

Alli went over the anatomy of the pelvic floor as well as its basic functions and here were a few of my takeaways:

Men and women both have a pelvic floor and they function more or less the same, but with slight variations for our different bits.

The pelvic floor’s functions are to keep things in, keep things out, let things in, and support our internal organs.

The pelvic floor is made of muscles which can and need to be trained just like all the other muscles of the body.

Pain that can originate in the pelvic floor can mimic other pains, such as low back pain or sciatica.

As you can see, the pelvic floor is extremely important and can be a little tricky. The benefit of doing an in-person workshop was that we were able to go through some exercises to learn how to feel our pelvic floor and understand a little about how it moves, when it moves and why. That alone is reason enough to seek out someone who can teach you to feel this for yourself, but here are some further reasons it is recommended to seek pelvic floor physical therapy:

Unwanted leakage of any kind

Urinary frequency that is bothersome

Feelings of heaviness in the abdomen

Pain with insertion

Painful periods

If you’re having any of these or are curious about your pelvic floor health, I cannot encourage you enough to make an appointment with Alli, or another pelvic floor specialist in your area!

If you’re in the Santa Barbara area, here is where you can find Alli.

Alexandra Mohamadi, PT, DPT

www.reframedphysicaltherapy.com

805-680-0385

Good luck out there!