What Is the Pelvic Floor?

-by Nikki Zebrowski PT, DPT, OCS

You might know the “pelvic floor” exists. You may have heard about it in your yoga or pilates class. You may have seen it come across your Instagram feed in a post by your favorite fitness personality. Your friend might have mentioned going in for “pelvic floor physical therapy” after giving birth. But what IS the pelvic floor? Is it just Kegels? What even is a Kegel? 

When I ask a new patient what they’ve heard about the pelvic floor, the usual response is: “I’ve heard of it, but I don’t really know what it is.” And why would you? People are comfortable talking about their knee injuries, or back injuries- you’re less likely to hear about urinary or bowel issues in everyday conversation. 

Here’s some pelvic floor 101: 

• The pelvic floor includes a group of muscles in your pelvis.

• The pelvic floor supports normal bladder, bowel, and sexual function.

• It also plays a critical role in the way your “core” functions and stabilizes. 

• Every body has a pelvic floor–meaning any person across the gender and sexuality spectrum can experience pelvic floor issues.

• Pelvic floor dysfunction can manifest in many different ways such as:

• urinary incontinence or fecal incontinence aka pee or poop

• difficulty urinating or constipation

• pain with penetration

• pain during or after sex

• pelvic pain

• Pelvic floor dysfunction can even be a root cause of low back pain, sacroiliac joint pain, or hip pain

What is pelvic floor physical therapy? 

• Pelvic floor physical therapists undergo extra training after physical therapy school to specialize in the evaluation and treatment of the issues described above. 

• Often a pelvic floor evaluation includes internal assessment of the pelvic floor muscles (this is how we can best see how they are acting), but internal assessment is never required.

• Speaking of treatment, there’s more to pelvic floor physical therapy than doing Kegels (strengthening exercises for pelvic floor muscles)! Oftentimes treatment works on relaxing or lengthening pelvic floor musculature and coordinating muscle contraction with breathing (yes, there is such a thing as pelvic floor coordination!)

If you think you may benefit from pelvic floor physical therapy, feel free to reach out and ask any questions: nikki@outlierphysicaltherapy.com