Episode 88: A Feldenkrais® Approach to Pelvic Floor and Abdominal Health
Episode 88:
This is an informational podcast about pelvic floor and deep abdominal health. Pelvic floor health and abdominal strengthening is one of the most requested topics I get from students. Today, I will be discussing why pelvic floor health is so important and give you some context for my series: The Pelvic Floor and Deep Core Rapport. This 8 lesson series was taught in fall 2022, but is available to purchase as a self paced course.
The function of the pelvic floor has a profound effect on our quality of life. Anything that can be done to bring more ease or a higher quality of control in this area can be revolutionary.
For both men and women, improving the ability to both relax and engage the pelvic floor and the deep abdominal muscles can have positive effects on:
Back pain
Sensing a deeper and more relaxed breath
Easier standing and walking
Improved Balance
Healing from hip replacements or abdominal surgeries
Better sex through increased awareness, sensation and control
More effective bladder control
Lack of strength, coordination, or sensation in this area after giving birth
So what does a Feldenkrais approach to pelvic and abdominal health look like?
A secret to this method is to reduce the force we create in our muscles in order to maximize the amount of information we have available for feedback. This means practicing intelligently and reducing the effort to get more refined sensations.
In Feldenkrais® we love organizing the skeleton. If you take Feldenkrais® classes or are familiar with the method, you may hear the teacher talk a lot about skeletal structure and architecture. Why do we love the skeleton so much? Because skeletons don’t get tired. The skeleton solves the puzzle of how to be active in gravity better than our soft tissues and muscles do.
However, the majority of the time, most of us are using our muscles more than we need to in order to be upright in gravity. This means much of our energy is spent just on staying upright, rather than whatever function we are interested in doing. If you can support yourself moment to moment with your skeleton, it frees up energy for you to use the muscles more efficiently.
It may seem paradoxical to relax a muscle in order for it to become stronger. How would the ability to relax a muscle help you feel more stable? Well, if a muscle is ALWAYS contracted it has less ability to contract any further and less ability to move through its dynamic range of actions. A habitually contracted muscle is a weak muscle! We will practice learning how to relax the pelvic floor and deep abdominal muscles in order to engage them when necessary and with intelligence and awareness. These sessions will support you to become aware of and relax compulsive muscular tension in the pelvis and abdominals, so that you can then engage them when you need to and learn to integrate them into functional everyday movements.
What do you mean “Sensing the pelvic floor as a whole system?”
The pelvic floor muscles are within a whole system of synergistic muscles that do not work alone. They relate with and coordinate with the deep abdominal muscles, the hip muscles, the deep muscles of the spine and the breathing apparatus. The integration of the pelvic floor with this group of neighboring muscles is necessary to find FULL USE of the pelvic floor.
The pelvic floor lies like a flexible hammock at the base of the pelvis. When in a place of support, the pelvic floor acts like an arch doming upward. It is supportive. It can move and change shape like a trampoline might. The shape of pelvis is like a bowl, with the tissues of the pelvic floor covering the base of the bowl. The pelvic floor is made of muscles, ligaments and connective tissues These tissues attach to bony parts of the pelvis - the sitting bones on both sides, the pubic bone in the front and the tail in the back.
As a dynamic system, when the pelvic floor is healthy, it will respond to the changes of your body. Just like any other muscle the pelvic floor can be contracted, tight, and get locked up, or it can be very loose and weak. We want all the tissues to have a dynamic range of tone available to them.
This synergistic group of muscles help maintain continence. For a baby to be born the pelvic floor relaxes and stretches. These and other functions of the pelvic floor are coordinated with other muscles in the body. Most muscles don’t act in isolation for a functional movement to occur. It is possible for muscles to act by themselves in isolation, but most functional movements require coordination of muscles. The pelvic floor muscles are no different- they act in coordination with other muscles most often, but they can also isolate by themselves.
The pelvic floor muscles can act as voluntary or involuntary muscles.
Voluntary muscles are muscles that are under your control. You can control when you contract and relax them. Muscle contraction and relaxation can also be involuntary. Take for example, breathing. The contraction and relaxation of your diaphragm muscles can be both voluntary or involuntary. Interestingly enough, the breathing diaphragm and the pelvic floor are closely related.
When you are at rest and breathing, the diaphragm moves down and up. The pelvic floor does this same thing when there is a healthy response to the breath. It moves up like a dome or supportive arch and it moves down like the shape of a hammock. We can all alter our breathing and control our breath. You can do things consciously like speed up the breath, hold it, lengthen it, change the shape of the breath, etc… You do this by consciously controlling the movements of the diaphragm. But your breathing can also change automatically, when you aren’t conscious of it. For example, when you respond to stress, the pace of the breath changes, or when you are exercising your breathing adapts to your movement. The breath can also change in response to your emotions.
In this series we will use the function of the breath to bring awareness to the pelvic floor, improve function, and support the cooperation of all the neighboring muscles. Neighboring muscles are considered secondary muscles that contract and relax to help the pelvic floor engage in a healthy way. Secondary muscles that help the pelvic floor contract include the external and internal hip rotators, inner thigh, deep abdominals, and the buttocks. The Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons wake up the use of these secondary muscle groups.
Habits and the Pelvic Floor
We all have habitual ways of doing things. Preferences.
Some of our habits are obvious, like which hand is dominant. Some habits are much less obvious to us, such as the way we bias our weight in one leg while we stand or walk.
The pelvic floor and abdominals can also have habits. The movement is often more subtle and harder to detect the habit. The pelvic floor can develop a weakness in one area, for example on one side or more to the front or back. These imbalances can occur from giving birth, aging, menopause, emotional or physical traumas, repetitive stress, and breathing imbalances.
To improve the function of the pelvic floor, one must learn how to contract and relax all of it in a balanced way. This makes the pelvic floor healthy and stronger, using all areas of the pelvic floor in coordination with the rest of the body. In these Feldenkrais lessons the engagement of the pelvic floor will be in relationship to your hips, buttocks, deep core muscles, your breathing, and simple movements of your whole self.
What about stress? How does stress, (including the stress from sitting) affect the pelvic floor?
The whole pelvic floor and abdominal system is very responsive to stress. While we all have voluntary control over this area, it also can respond to stress in a more unconscious way, similar to how the breath might react and tense when you are stressed. The pelvic floor, abdominals, and back, all being a part of the breathing system, will also tighten when you are stressed. This can become a steady state or a habit leading to pain, discomfort, or challenges in feeling sensation and strength in this area. Sitting for long periods of time can also change the dynamics of the pelvic floor system. More pressure on the abdomen and the lack of needing to employ the abdominal muscles in sitting can change the feeling in the pelvic floor and increase tension.
Most people who struggle with something having to do with their pelvis, whether that be hip pain, sacroiliac joint pain, pelvic floor dysfunction, or lack of abdominal support have an inefficient way they sit and stand. Many of us are sitting a lot during the day. Because sitting is emphasized so much in our culture, it is a very under-trained action. Have you ever been taught how to sit with the most optimal skeletal support? Probably not!!! Sitting for long periods of time puts stress on the pelvic floor, especially when the sitting posture is not optimal. You are basically training your pelvic floor to never have to engage and stay connected.
This series will include a lesson to support a dynamic sitting posture.
Lessons Included in the Series:
1. Rolling a Ball from Hip to Hip with Pelvic Floor Awareness
2. Pelvic Floor Differentiation with Legs Tilting
3. Differentiating the Pelvic Floor: Front, Back, and Sides
4. Two Sitting Bones and Two Sides of the Pelvic Floor
5. Engaging the Abdomen: Breathing, Tilting Legs, and Inner Thighs
6. Organizing the Abdomen: Minimal Lifting of Shoulder and Hip Points
7. Movements of Opposition with Shoulder and Hip Points
8. Dynamic Sitting on Half a Chair
9. Coordination of Hands, Feet, Eyes, Lips, Pelvic Floor, and Breathing
There are four anatomical points of reference that create boundaries for the pelvic floor. They are the two sitting bones, the pubic symphisis, and the tail bone. These will be anatomical areas that you will become more familiar with during Sarah’s pelvic floor series. During experiential anatomy and Feldenkrais lessons, start to feel and sense the hammock of strength that makes up the pelvic floor muscles.
Using simple movements, imagery, breathing practices, and feedback from props, these lessons will support the organization of this complex system that is so important for our health.
This series of lessons will help you discover strength and find harmony with the pelvic floor and deep abdominals to counteract these types of habits that result from stress. This will be a multi-disciplinary Feldenkrais approach to pelvic floor and abdominal health. Each lesson will be accessible for all abilities.
Sarah Baumert has been teaching movement and creating Sarah B Yoga podcast classes since 2006. She is a certified yoga teacher, yoga therapist and Feldenkrais® practitioner. This podcast is an intersection of her yoga teaching and training in the Feldenkrais® method. Classes include sensory rich movement experiences for a more resilient and healthy nervous system to help you feel a greater sense of ease and comfort in yourself. Each podcast is an originally crafted class taught by Sarah Baumert. Sarah's teaching is alignment based, unhurried, and rich with somatic inquiries. The cueing is effective, easy to follow, and uses visualizations of postures to allow for unexpected growth and depth. You will find live unplugged versions of her classes from yoga studios, as well as classes that are specifically produced for the podcast medium.
Find more teachings like this class on the Body Matter website, including:
Live online classes
Self-paced courses &
The Body Matter Membership Library
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