Aren’t Kegels Supposed to be Good For My Pelvic Floor?

Kegels are pelvic floor Physical Therapy….. Right?

You’ve heard of kegels. Heck you’ve probably done a countless amount of them! While your sitting in the car or maybe you check to see if you can stop a stream of urine……because kegels are what you’re supposed to be doing, right?………🙄

WRONG!

Seriously though…between you and me….if your pelvic provider is ONLY looking at your vagina and telling you to do kegels AND it’s not working? Well, then it’s time to break it off. It’s okay to start seeing someone else. Really. It is. And if you’ve mainly just been “doing your kegels” but aren’t seeing results? Then it’s not that pelvic therapy didn’t help……you just didn’t get what your body needed and it’s time to go find a different provider that will help your body get what it needs. Simple as that. 

If you haven’t had pelvic therapy yet, then great!

This article will help you understand what other factors to consider when working toward a functional pelvic floor.

Knowing what other body connections are strong with the pelvic floor will only help you to get the results that you desperately need and want! 

So I bring you to……..

The Pelvic Floor and the Foot 

Did you know that the foot can be an insight to how the pelvic floor is doing?

Fascinating right? 

It sounds silly, but how is it all connected? 

For starters, there is a long line of fascia (connective tissue) that starts at the bottom of the foot and makes its way up the leg, to the pelvic floor, to the diaphragm, all the way up to the head and jaw! Our fascial tissue’s job is to provide support and stability which means that the tissue itself works best when it has elastic-like properties. A.K.A strong AND flexible. When the fascial tissue has a “dysfunction” it means that it has lost either strength, flexibility, or both and this can present as pain or other pelvic issues. Healing fascia can take a lot of time and usually requires a combination of fascial mobilization (dry needling, massage, heat therapy, etc.) plus specific movements and exercises to address the underlying movement dysfunction. 

Biomechanically, the foot and the pelvic floor need to work in unison to absorb landing and push back up.

For example, when you are walking, the first body part that hits the floor is your heel and the last to leave is your great toe. For a normal, non-dysfunctional gait cycle, your arch needs to flatten out in order to absorb the weight of your body and gravity. As you cycle through and push off, your arch and surrounding muscles need to tighten and act as a lever to push off from. If your feet are weak and/or stiff (which I see A LOT of in the clinic), then something else is going to have to take on that absorption and loading function. This can result in knee pain, hip pain, low back pain, and finally pelvic floor dysfunction. 

A holistic pelvic physical therapist will have you, at some point, doing exercises with direction to focus on specific cues of the foot, breathing, and the pelvic floor. If you are sick of being told to “just do your kegels” because they simply are not working, then I encourage you to find out more about the state of your foot and make improvements accordingly. #NOMOREKEGELS

Intrigued?

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