Transcription
Do you have a tight pelvic floor? There's around 11 different muscles at the base of your pelvis, and when they become hypertonic or overly tight, they can affect things like your bowel movements, they can create physical and postural discomfort, they can cause sexual dysfunction, and sometimes when you go to the bathroom, you struggle, or you struggle to complete the job. From a mental and emotional side of things, oftentimes, you feel anxious or nervous. When we talk about someone as anal retentive, that's what we're talking about, that region of the body being hypertonic. If you can relate, this video is for you.
We'll talk about number one, the causes of an overly tight pelvic floor. Number two, we'll look at some mind-body relaxation techniques to hopefully release some of that tension. Number three, we'll do a self-massage that you can do with a ball at home to relieve some of that tension as well. My name is Lucas. I'm a yoga teacher and a huge part of the yoga tradition is the pelvic floor diaphragm, this group of muscles at the base of the pelvis. We call it Mula Bandha and in the yoga world, many people are trying to strengthen this region of the body for better posture, better balance. But a significant number of students like you have the opposite problem. They have too much tension there. So, that's what we'll be covering today.
Down below in the description you'll find a link to a PDF guide that covers all the exercises we'll talk about. Do me a favor and hit subscribe down below. It helps to support the channel. Lastly, stay tuned until the end of the video because you'll get introduced to Claire Bourne who's a physiotherapist specializing in the pelvic floor and she'll help you understand when it might make sense or how you should go about getting professional medical help.
OK, let's start off by talking about the causes of a tight pelvic floor. Why does this happen? The first one can simply be behavior. Sometimes we learn to clench our pelvic floor from a very young age. Some children are nervous about having a bowel movement, for example, going number two, and they might hold it for a day or two days, three days or more. It's not uncommon for kids to become constipated because of nervousness around defecation. This behavior can lead to a hypertonic pelvic floor that in some cases carries over into adulthood. In adulthood, you see this behavior of holding urine and holding defecation in jobs like truck drivers, taxi drivers, people who might work in front of audiences, or anyone who's working in a job or has a long commute where they don't have access to the bathroom. When people chronically hold tension in their pelvic floor over time, that can be habituated.
The next cause, and this is very common, is some type of insult or injury or infection to this region of the body. Traumatic childbirth can be one where tissues are damaged, bladder problems, irritable bowel syndrome, other bowel issues. Infections even can cause, in some cases, your body to clench up on a muscular level in a response to what feels like an attack. Whether that's an injury or an infection. And these can be really, really challenging to deal with.
Another really common cause that comes right back to yoga is backwards breathing. In an ideal world, when we breathe into our breathing diaphragm, our belly would expand and vice versa on the exhale. But many people breathe backwards, where they suck in their stomach, clench their pelvic floor, and breathe into their chest. This backwards breathing pattern habituated over time, again, can lead to that chronic hyper-tense pelvic floor response.
Psychological issues can play a big factor as well. When we talk about someone as becoming anal retentive, that could be that you feel that way because your pelvic floor is tight, but it can also go the other way. Chronic stress and anxiety, emotional trauma, emotional anxiety and stress, those can lead you to clench your pelvic floor. A way to think about this is we often manifest lifestyle stress in tight trapezius muscles. If you put your fingers back here in your upper traps, often you'll find tension. For some of us, it's not only here in our shoulders, but down below as well. It's more common than you might think.
The last cause of a hypertonic pelvic floor is overtraining and this doesn't happen so often but it certainly does happen. Somebody might be lifting weights all the time and clenching their pelvic floor. Overtraining with extreme forms of exercise or this is what I see in my world, is when people start training their pelvic floor doing Kegel exercises or in the yoga world, Mula Bandha exercises, they can take it too far and actually create hypertonic response. When I was first taught Mula Bandha for example over 20 years ago, I got really excited about learning how to engage that part of the body from a muscular perspective. I worked on mula bandha for about 45 minutes and then I didn't go to the bathroom for about three days. Now that was an acute hypertonic experience. Luckily it went away, but you can see how if somebody's training in a form of exercise, for example, somebody on a trampoline or these types of things habituated as well.
Okay, so What do we do about it? Just like the hyper tonic muscles of your trapezius muscles. When your pelvic floor is tight, we need to learn how to relax those muscles. And using that breathing we talked about before, correcting our breathing, doing some physical relaxation, and finally some push and release massage can be very helpful.
For this first practice, we'll do a breathing on our back and you need a wall. So, let's lie down on the floor next to a wall and I'll show you how it works. Our first exercise is called wall baby breathing. Lie on your back with your knees bent. Place the soles of your feet on the wall in front of you. You can shimmy your hips closer or further away. You shouldn't feel a deep stretch. Instead, you should feel a relaxing stretch. You want your body to be able to relax completely. If needed, to help you relax, you could place pillows between your knees and your chest. Place your hands at your sides, close your eyes. We'll breathe in and out, exaggerating the movement of our belly, with your belly inflating like a balloon on the inhale, and your belly falling, deflating, on the exhale. We'll hold the breath at the top for just a moment. When that happens, I'd like you to allow the pressure of your distended abdomen to work its way all the way down to your pelvic floor. If you visualize your pelvic floor muscles relaxing, that can help as well. Eyes closed, body relaxed, let's begin. Inhale, belly rises, one, two, three, four. Hold here. Exhale, four, three, two, one. Inhale, belly rise, one, two, three, four. Hold here at the top. Exhale, four, three, two, one. Let's fill up all the way this time. Inhale, one, two, three, fill up more, four. Pause at the top. Exhale, four, three, two, one. Inhale, belly rising, one, two, three, four. Pause at the top. Exhale, four, three, two, one. Final round. Inhale, one, two, three, four. Exhale, four, three, two, one. Good. Scoot away from the wall, so you can straighten your legs. Relax your arms, relax your legs. Take a rest on the floor.
Now, let's take a look at a self-massage technique. Now the pelvic floor diaphragm can seem really intimidating, but remember, these are muscles just like your trapezius muscles that we talked about before, just like your quadriceps or your hamstrings, and they respond to massage and press and release just like other tissues of your body. Earlier we talked about how many of us hold tension, stress, and anxiety in our trapezius muscles. All of you know when someone comes up behind you and presses on your shoulders, that feels great, and they might say, I'm breaking up the knots. That's what they're referring to, releasing hypertonic muscles. And with that in mind, our first technique, we'll use a ball. I have a plastic ball here, but a tennis ball is something you probably find around the house, and that works even better. This one's a little bit firm, but essentially we'll press and release on those pelvic floor muscles, in the same way you would press and release on the muscles of your shoulders, your upper back. I'll take my ball and I'll quite literally put it underneath my pelvic floor. I'll use my hands to throttle the intensity. This is why a tennis ball can be helpful because it's a little bit softer. You can also pad up your ball with a towel if that's helpful. Here's the protocol. I'll sit down and I'll aim for about a six or maximum seven out of 10 intensity. And I'll hold for five, four, three, two, one. And then I'll release. And then I'll hold for five, four, three, two, one. And then I'll release. And one more time. Five, four, three, two, one. Release and take a break. Think of this just like a friend coming up behind you and putting their elbow into your traps. Not super intense, so you cringe, but enough so that you feel that release. In fact, some of you might feel your pelvic floor releasing now.
Next, we'll do the same thing, but we'll do very, very small rolls, clockwise five, counterclockwise five. Now there isn't a whole lot of room down there, so the motion is pretty small, but the idea is to continue with the massage. So again, I'm going to sit on the ball, use my hands to throttle the intensity, use my feet flat on the floor, and now I'll do clockwise rotations. One, two, three, four, five. And now counterclockwise, five four, three, two, and one. Good. Release. Get rid of my massage ball.
And the final technique I'll show you is a towel sit. I have a towel here and it's folded up really tight. That's what I'm looking for. Something nice and firm. And I'll sit down on top of this, very similar to that push and release practice. The big advantage of this is I'm able to hold quite a bit longer because the intensity is quite a bit less. So I'm going to position this so I feel pressure on my perineum, on my pelvic floor diaphragm right there at the base. And now we'll do a series of five breaths. Just like we did earlier on the floor, I'd like you to exaggerate the movement of your belly and think about on the inhale all the pressure moving down. Not with a bearing down motion, not like that, but simply allowing the pressure of the breath and of your diaphragm, your breathing diaphragm, to move everything down and release your pelvic floor diaphragm. Here's what it looks like. My feet are planted, my hands are on my knees. I'll close my eyes and inhale and drop the breath in your belly down for one, two, three, four. And exhale for three, two, one. Inhale, one, two, three, four. And exhale, four, three, two, one. Inhale, one, two, three, four. And exhale, four, three, two, one. Inhale, one, two, three, four. Exhale, four, three, two, one. Final round. Inhale, one, two, three, four, exhale, four, three, two, and one. Good. Release and take a break.
Just as we spoke about earlier with yoga students like myself over-practicing the strengthening exercises, it's also possible to overdo it with the pelvic floor release exercises. So, start off slowly and ease your way into it, or you can end up with soreness and discomfort, which is the opposite of what you're looking for. Now, some of you will find these self-care techniques very helpful and immediately beneficial. Some of you are running off to the bathroom, which is a good news, but some of you are realizing, hey, you've got something more serious going on. Maybe you have a birth trauma. Maybe you've had an injury. If that's the case for you, I'd like to now introduce you to Claire Bourne, who will give you some deeper ideas in terms of getting assistance.
Thanks Lucas and for those wonderful tips that you've shared with us all. And it's a great question. How do we know when to move from these sorts of tips and these exercises and this wonderful advice into knowing, do I need some more individualized and one-to-one support? I guess my general advice would be that if you have persistent symptoms, so things that are moving beyond kind of an isolated episode, things that you see creeping into day-to-day life, impacting your quality of life, going on for weeks, maybe you've merged into months and you think actually I've just got used to living with this and actually I don't want to. Things that might relate to our bowel or our bladder or intercourse as Lucas has mentioned. If you're struggling with any of these, please know that there is support. And if you've tried these self-help things and you're like, it's just not quite working, or I feel like I just need to understand my body better. That's when so many of us are here and equipped to support you, to make sure you understand your body better and plan a pathway ahead, because there is so much that we can do. But it's often an area that feels a little bit embarrassing and difficult to go and talk to people about.
Now, there's a wonderful global community of pelvic health physiotherapists or physical therapists, depending on where you are. And the route of seeing us might be different depending on where you're based. For many, you can access that support just by finding someone local to you or asking for a recommendation. We will do an assessment, we will talk through what you're struggling with, and then we will go on to do a physical examination. And this won't just include your pelvic floor. This will look at the whole posture, pelvis, your movement, and really understanding what is it that's bothering you and what are your goals. Now in some places you may need to see a doctor first, whether that's for insurance reasons or in the UK where I am based, to go through the NHS. Now this will depend on who you might need to see but this might include a gynecologist or a urologist or a colorectal doctor. Sometimes the pathway doesn't always feel clear but I promise you once you get there it can be a really life changing experience of really understanding your body, your symptoms better and making a way ahead. So please know if you're struggling with any of these what we might feel is slightly more taboo or embarrassing topics, there are people like me out there that want to support you and work with wonderful teachers like Lucas to make sure that you live a really happy and symptom-free life.
Remember to click on that link down below to grab a PDF of all the exercises that we talked about. Hit subscribe so you get next week's video. And if you're interested in training with me, I have a program called YOGABODY Daily and it's all about healthspan, living your best life in the second half. And if that's interesting to you, you can find details at YogaBody. com. Thanks so much for joining me and I'll see you next week.