Top tips for strengthening your pelvic floor

Although bladder weakness is no laughing matter, physiotherapist and comedian Elaine Miller, AKA Gussie Grips who calls herself ‘Recovered Incontinent’, urges women to put themselves first and restore their pelvic floor because there really are benefits to getting those muscles in shape.

It’s estimated that 9 million women in the UK alone suffer from bladder problems

If you are one of the estimated 9 million women in the UK who are suffering from some sort of bladder problem now is the time to restore your pelvic floor.  Keeping the pelvic floor in shape with exercises alone takes time to achieve, but specialist pelvic floor physiotherapists trained in assessment and treatment of the pelvic floor muscles will ensure that women exercise the correct muscles.  There are so many benefits to putting pelvic floor exercises high on your to do list because you don’t realise how important those muscles are until they go!

Why you need to exercise your pelvic floor

Empowering and boosting confidence
“It bloody MATTERS!  Incontinence quietly disempowers women.” says Elaine. “As it interferes with every single thing they do, and yet, few complain.  It matters because wetting yourself in the front row of Zumba, means you are unlikely to go back to Zumba so you pile on the pounds and feel even worse.   Imagine the freedom of being able to cough, sneeze, and giggle without wetting oneself!”

Helps create a stronger core
It has been reported that a healthy pelvic floor keeps more than just the internal organs in place.  A strong pelvic floor creates a lifting action in the whole body. Imagine if it resulted in a natural facelift!   Now wouldn’t that just be fabulous!

Increases sexual sensation
Strengthening those pelvic floors can lead to increased sexual sensation for women on the orgasm front and also much better sex for your man – so, it’s a win-win all round!
   
May help to prevent prolapse
Improving pelvic floor muscles can also help to improve a mild to moderate prolapse and may even help prevent a prolapse developing.

Women’s Health Physiotherapist Gussie Grips suggests the following tips:

• Doctors are always advising us to give our pelvic floor a work out, but “working out” where it is in the first place can be a bit of a task.  Squeeze the muscles around your back passage as if preventing wind from escaping then draw this feeling forward around the walls of the vagina and ‘pull up” inside.
• When you are contracting your pelvic floor muscles it should feel like you are not only squeezing them but also lifting them up.  Don’t be tempted to squeeze your buttock or thighs or hold your breath; do exert little tension around the back passage as if you are trying to prevent yourself from passing wind. 
• Elaine advises: “The important thing is to keep breathing and to relax your muscles in between the exercises.  Do these three times a day, every day for three months and then at least once a day every day for the rest of your life!”
• Your pelvic floor muscles now need to be used: Tighten them before and during any activity that makes you leak like coughing, sneezing or lifting.   
• There’s now personalised health technology for those taboo areas.  Try PeriCoach, a new pelvic floor training device equipped with smartphone apps and web portals that can work with your physio enabling remote patient management, ideal if you are unable to attend physical therapy on a regular basis or live too far away to attend.  PeriCoach measures the direct force of the muscles, it acts as your very own pelvic floor personal trainer and helps you manage and monitor your pelvic floor weakness, putting you back in control!  PeriCoach can be ordered directly from PeriCoach priced £145.00 plus post and packaging.