Leaking with Exercise: Urinary Incontinence and How Pelvic Physical Therapy Can Help
Did you know that over 48% of women who exercise experience urinary incontinence?
This is even more common in the high intensity population such as running, CrossFit, or gymnastics. If this is you, you are far from alone! Unfortunately, many women push the symptom aside and tell themselves either that it is “normal” to pee their pants with exertion or “it just is what it is”.
In reality though, there is treatment that can get you back to exercising the way that you want to, leak-free! You just have to find the right resource and learning about the pelvic floor is a great place to start. Now I don’t promise you any magic pill where you read this article and by tomorrow be cured enough to go for a run with gray leggings…… I do promise, however, that if you are motivated to learn about and take charge of your body, you will get results. I challenge you to read this article, think about it, try out some of the tips, and schedule an appointment with your local pelvic floor physical therapist!
Why Leaking With Exercise is Common in Women
While this can be an issue in men, it is much more common in women for a simple anatomical reason: our urethra is short. The distance between a woman’s bladder to where it exits through the urethra is about 5 cm. Compare that to our male counterparts who have about 20 cm from bladder to exit! While urinary incontinence is definitely common in women who have had babies, leaking with exercise does not discriminate and can effect anyone.
Causes of Leaking During Exercise
Let’s go over brief pelvic floor anatomy.
Basically, there are 3 muscle layers that comprise the pelvic floor. They span front-to-back from your pubic bone to the tip of your tailbone and side-to-side between your “sits bones”. It is a bowl shaped structure intended to support your trunk and organs, such as the bladder. A main property of a healthy, normal pelvic floor is elasticity and the ability to withstand a variety of pressures and forces as you move. It has a relationship with your lungs, your jaw, your hips, you pelvis, and your feet.
A Physical Therapist’s training is to find and address body imbalances that relate to your symptoms. In regards to leaking with exercise, your pelvic therapist will address whether your muscles and joints are: too stiff, too mobile, weak, hypertonic (aka constant low grade activated), hypotonic (unable to contract), lacking coordination with the rest of your body, or all of the above. Once light is shed on these subtle imbalances, you can create a plan to get on track and back to the exercise you love, leak-free. Maybe one day you will be ready to go out and jog in gray leggings again!
Common areas of imbalance that contribute to urinary incontinence:
👉 Pelvic floor muscles and ligaments
👉 Hip joint and muscles
👉 Tailbone mobility
👉 Pelvic position
👉 Low Back posture
👉 Foot posture
👉 Rib cage position
👉 Breathing mechanics
Is there anything I can do right now?
The next step is to see a pelvic therapist. There are many different aspects that could be contributing to leaking with exercise. If this has been going on for a while and does not seem to be getting better, an evaluation from a professional may be what you need to get back to where you want to be within your body.
Wishing you love and luck in your journey to find a solution!
Interested in scheduling in with me? I offer in-person physical therapy and virtual pelvic floor coaching. Click here to schedule in with me!
