You’ll be surprised what a big affect these things have!
It’s not just about squeezing and focusing on the pelvic floor to heal. There are so many lifestyle factors that can make a massive difference and talking to my clients on a 1-1 basis means I can find this stuff out.
1. Is your sports bra too tight?
Too much compression around your rib cage means you can’t expand your diaphragm enough as you inhale so you get stuck on an exhale all the time.
That means your PF can’t fully relax either and when it can’t relax, it can’t contract fully too 👎🏼
2. Are your leggings giving too much compression?
If your leggings or skinny jeans are sucking you in too much you can’t release your lower abs and so, again, your PF can’t release either. Our muscles need to be able to do what they gotta do and “high compression” leggings aren’t helping with that. Ditch the patriarchal BS that has led up to believe that our muscles shouldn’t move when we move (yes I’m looking at you @sweatybetty) and find leggings that you can really moooooove in! 💃
3. Your Feet! 🦶🏼
How well your feet move around neutral is really important. They want to be mobile enough to pronate (drop on the arch side) and supinate (roll out) through every step and with most of our movements. A rigid foot whether it’s rolled out or in means your glutes don’t have to do so much to move with them, and when our glutes don’t move well, neither does our pelvic floor!
4. Wearing Heels!
Sadly for all the very pretty heels I bought in the early 2000s I’m now a solid trainers girl! 👟
Heels tip you forward, driving your hips in front of the plumb line over your ankles and then your ribs have to shift back to compensate => you’re out of alignment and walking around 😩! If you also leak this is the first place to start.
5. Anxiety or Stress 😔
I haven’t yet met a single anxious client who doesn’t also have an overactive pelvic floor. It’s hard to hold stress in your body and not have it also in those essential PF muscles.
This is one of the main reasons I trained as an Acceptance & Commitment Therapy coach - finding the skills to work with our feelings to manage our mindset is ongoing work for us all, and if you leak it’s more of a pressing challenge.
What of these is something you need to work on? 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 ?
Comment below ⬇️ - Surprised or not?
