It’s an unfortunate fact of life that as we get older, our bodies often don’t work as well as they used to. The years sneak up, and issues we never really ever thought about not only invite themselves to the party, but refuse to leave—including the strength and functioning of our pelvic floor.
- Back Pain: Weak pelvic floor muscles can potentially lead to pelvic or lower back pain.
- Bladder and/or Bowel Incontinence: Weak pelvic floor muscles can lead to accidental urine or bowel leakage and a frequent and sudden need to urinate.
- Pelvic Organ Prolapse: For women, unsupported organs can bulge into or out of the vaginal canal.
- Sexual Dysfunction: Weak pelvic floor muscles can cause discomfort during sex.
- Reduced Core Stability: Your pelvic floor serves as part of your core musculature, so when it is weak, your core is weaker.
That’s a bleak picture, so we’re going to work on keeping the pelvic floor muscles strong with a few exercises. While weakening of the pelvic floor muscles can sneak up on you and lead to a host of problems, targeted exercises can help make them strong again.
This is Part 1 of a two-part pelvic floor series. In the next article, we’ll discuss how to loosen tight pelvic floor muscles.
6 Effective Exercises for Powerful Pelvic Floor Muscles
The following exercises are easy to perform and provide excellent strengthening for your pelvic floor muscles. Best of all, you can perform them almost anywhere.
My patients tolerate them well, but I suggest that you discuss them with your medical provider to ensure that they are right for you.
1. Glute Bridges
The glute bridge targets a great number of trunk muscles, including your pelvic floor. It also provides a good workout for your lower back muscles, especially the erector spinae.
Step 1: Lie on your back with your arms by your sides, knees bent, and feet flat on the floor.
Step 2: Slowly press down through your feet and lift your hips until your body is in a straight line from your knees to your shoulders; don’t overarch your back. Hold for 30 seconds before lowering back down.
Related Stories
Step 3: Raising and lowering down counts as one repetition. Try to perform three sets of four repetitions.
Modifications: If you can’t raise your hips high, just come up as high as you comfortably can. Can’t come up at all? Try, because that’s still effective. As your muscles strengthen, you may be able to rise back up.
Why I Like Them: Glute Bridges are easy to execute and provide great strengthening for your entire core.
2. Kegel Bridges
The simple Kegel exercise focuses directly on your pelvic floor. Superficially similar to the glute bridge, the glute bridge engages the glutes and core, but subtle differences in engagement effectively strengthen the muscles that directly control continence. It’s a great follow-up to the glute bridge, because you’ll be better able to feel which “new” muscles you’ll be directly engaging.
Step 1: Lie on your back and engage your pelvic muscles as if you’re trying to stop a urine stream or resist flatulence. Also, draw your belly button back toward your spine. Lift your hips into a bridge position while paying special attention to maintaining engagement in your pelvic floor and core.
Step 2: Hold for approximately five seconds before lowering back down. This exercise can be surprisingly tiring, so you may not be able to do much at first. Kegel bridges differ from the earlier glute bridge exercise in that we superimpose a greater focus on the pelvic floor muscles. Instead of the longer hold of the glute bridge, this is more of a “pulsing” engagement of the pelvic floor. It’s like you’re pumping iron—with your pelvis.
Step 3: Engaging the muscles, rising up and back down, then relaxing your muscles, counts as one repetition. Try to perform three sets of 10 repetitions.
Modifications: Feel free to modify the sets and hold times to meet your needs, as some people’s cores may be stronger or weaker than others.
Why I Like Them: Kegel bridges are like a drill sergeant for your pelvic floor.
3. Clamshells
Clamshells are great for your hip abductors, especially your gluteus medius, and also for your pelvic floor in general. While not as sweeping in movement as regular clamshells, this particular variation’s subtle positioning makes it even more effective.
Step 1: Lie on your left side, with your left elbow on the floor and support your head in your hand. Stack and straighten your legs, then bend your knees and hips approximately 45 degrees. Place your left arm forward so you’re not lying on it.
Step 2: Shift your right knee forward a bit so it is no longer directly stacked over the left—this is the subtle and powerful shift I mentioned, and will keep your upper hip from rolling back when you lift your knee.
Step 3: Slowly move your right knee up as far away from your left knee as possible. Don’t move any other part of your lower body, just your right leg. Keep your core and trunk muscles firmly engaged.
Step 4: Once you’ve moved as far as you can, lower your right leg back down and repeat the movement. Maintain good task pacing and don’t speed up as you go.
Step 5: Moving your leg up as far as you comfortably can, then back down, counts as one repetition. Try to perform three sets of 15 repetitions on both sides.
Modifications: Only move your legs as far as you comfortably can, especially when you first start. As you warm up, you can often move further. You may very well discover that one leg works better than the other, and that’s fine, because our bodies are rarely perfectly aligned on both sides.
Why I Like It: Clamshells focus movement right where your pelvis needs it.
4. Bird Dog
Bird Dog is a dynamic exercise for your posterior muscle chain and core, helping strengthen the entire pelvic floor through sustained contraction of the involved muscles.
Step 1: Start on your hands and knees on a firm, supportive surface.
Step 2: Slowly reach your left arm up and forward, and your right leg up and back at the same time until your limbs are straight out and horizontal to the floor. Hold for two seconds before lowering them back down to the starting position.
Step 3: Moving your arm and leg up, then back down, counts as one repetition. Try to perform three sets of 15 repetitions per side.
Modifications: If you struggle to bring your arms and legs straight out, raise them as far as you can. You can alternate the left and right sets as you go—which I like to do—or perform all sets on one side and then the other. Try it both ways to see what works best for you, because opinions vary.
Why I Like It: Bird dog is a dynamic exercise for the posterior muscles of the body, and I like its ability to provide a “full package” of pelvic floor strengthening by exposing the muscles to sweeping contract-relax movements.
5. Dead Bug
The Dead Bug exercise targets your anterior muscular chain, with a strong emphasis on your abdominal and hip flexor muscles. It also gives a lot of love to your core musculature, including the essential pelvic floor muscles, your abdominal muscles, and other anterior wall core muscles like the obliques.
Step 1: Lie on your back and reach your arms straight up toward the ceiling with your shoulders at 90 degrees of flexion. Next, bring your hips and knees into 90 degrees of flexion.
Step 2: Slowly lower one arm straight backward toward the surface while also bringing your opposite leg down and extending your knee. Move your arm back as far as it comfortably can, while extending your opposite leg all the way out with your heel almost touching the ground. Try not to touch the floor, though, as it can cause your core muscles to disengage. Try to keep tension in your pelvic floor muscles throughout by using the urine-stopping/flatulence-resisting contractions you learned earlier.
Step 3: Next, return your arm and leg to the start position while simultaneously lowering your other arm and leg—one arm and leg will go up while the other will go down.
Step 4: With each arm-leg switch counting as one repetition, try to perform three sets of 15 repetitions. Move slowly throughout, taking approximately two seconds to alternate positions. Feel free to modify the sets and repetitions to suit your particular needs.
Modifications: Only move your arms and legs as far as you comfortably can.
Why I Like Them: The Dead Bug exercise spans the entire front of your body and puts your core into high gear.
6. Standing Glute Squeeze
Glute squeezes dial tightly in on your pelvic floor. Performed standing, they allow you to contract your gluteal and pelvic floor muscles more forcefully, which makes them stronger.
Step 1: Stand with your feet hip-width apart and rotate your toes slightly outward.
Step 2: Slightly draw your ribcage toward your hips to engage the abdominals, then tilt your pelvis forward. Squeeze your gluteal and pelvic floor muscles tightly, while keeping your hips slightly forward to intensify the stretch. Hold a strong squeeze for approximately five seconds before releasing. Sounds easy; it ain’t.
Step 3: Squeezing and then releasing counts as one repetition. Try to perform three sets of 15 repetitions.
Modifications: If you don’t feel like you can squeeze very hard, try rotating your toes out a little further, which can help. Also, the “squeeze above the knees” should get stronger over time as you practice.
Why I Like Them: Standing Glute Squeezes engage the pelvic floor muscles with a tight hold for deep strengthening.
Performed regularly, these exercises can effectively increase the strength and functionality of your pelvic floor. I recommend performing these exercises at least three times a week, ideally five. Good luck, and I hope these exercises work well for you.
About the Fitness Model: Aerowenn Hunter is a health editor for The Epoch Times. She’s an accredited yoga therapist with more than three decades of teaching experience.
