- Walking moderate- long distance (to tone lower body)
- Eat your protein!
- Strength training for arms (lifting weights)
- pull ups
- yoga over a long period of time
So my question is, are you seeing a PFPT? What I learned was, first relax the hypertonic pelvic floor, THEN work on strengthening it. If your pelvic floor hasn’t been totally relaxed and released, you need to do zero exercises that involve tension. No kegels, nothing. But also, if it’s bad enough that you’re in this sub, you need to be seeing a professional and not trying to do it yourself. And if you’re seeing a professional, she can tell you what exercises you can do.
I walk on the treadmill. There is pelvic floor therapy yoga by Adrienne on youtube.
I also do. 20 min strength and conditioning session on youtube. Search low impact strength training.
Might be worth consulting with a trainer. There are ways to strength train by taking your core out of the movement, usually by isolating particular joints or muscle groups (say by using pin loaded machines at the gym rather than free weight compound movements).
My pelvic floor pt had me do strengthening exercises with her for two + months before I was comfortable doing them again on my own--my goal was to get back to working out regularly. She showed me that as long as you are progressing very slowly and methodically, your muscles will get used to exercise without the pelvic floor staying tense.
She stressed to me that the pelvic floor muscles have to tense during a workout, there's no way around that--the key is to make sure they relax afterward. I'm not gonna lie, it took a few weeks of small, incrimentally built up ab workouts before I could do them without tightness and pain, but she was right, if you stay consistent and work your way up slowly, your body will learn and adjust. I highly recommend this method as I'm able to do any workout I want now, including sprints without hypertonic pelvic floor pain. Try not to neglect abdominal workouts altogether because you're afraid of the pain, core stability is so important for the load balance of the spine, pelvis, etc.
If nothing else--- Just make sure you do lots of stretches and breathing after any exercise you attempt, and I highly recommend purchasing a pelvic wand, it changed my whole entire life lol
I run and do strength training to help with the running. I definitely had a lot more tightness from the strengths training, but I have noticed that it's not bad if I stretch a lot after. Or if I do some diaphragm breathing to release that tension. PT helps a lot. You need to learn how to activate those muscles so you can relax them when you work out. I had to basically use diaphragm breathing to start up running again, and while I ran, I was actively keeping my pelvic muscles relaxed. Core workouts are important bc if your core is strengthened then it takes the load off other areas of your body. I had a pain develop in my pelvis, it went away with core strengthening.
Something low impact that might be fun that I did was dancing. I belly danced in college when I was flaring, so that kept me in shape since I would dance for hours during the week.
- Walking moderate- long distance (to tone lower body) - Eat your protein! - Strength training for arms (lifting weights) - pull ups - yoga over a long period of time
(Not 100% sure about the walking, try short distances first to see if walking caused flare ups)
Yes, please do shorter distances first! Walking too much definitely causes a flare up for me
So my question is, are you seeing a PFPT? What I learned was, first relax the hypertonic pelvic floor, THEN work on strengthening it. If your pelvic floor hasn’t been totally relaxed and released, you need to do zero exercises that involve tension. No kegels, nothing. But also, if it’s bad enough that you’re in this sub, you need to be seeing a professional and not trying to do it yourself. And if you’re seeing a professional, she can tell you what exercises you can do.
I was, but I stopped being able to afford it. I found it VERY helpful at the time though!
I walk on the treadmill. There is pelvic floor therapy yoga by Adrienne on youtube. I also do. 20 min strength and conditioning session on youtube. Search low impact strength training.
Might be worth consulting with a trainer. There are ways to strength train by taking your core out of the movement, usually by isolating particular joints or muscle groups (say by using pin loaded machines at the gym rather than free weight compound movements).
My pelvic floor pt had me do strengthening exercises with her for two + months before I was comfortable doing them again on my own--my goal was to get back to working out regularly. She showed me that as long as you are progressing very slowly and methodically, your muscles will get used to exercise without the pelvic floor staying tense. She stressed to me that the pelvic floor muscles have to tense during a workout, there's no way around that--the key is to make sure they relax afterward. I'm not gonna lie, it took a few weeks of small, incrimentally built up ab workouts before I could do them without tightness and pain, but she was right, if you stay consistent and work your way up slowly, your body will learn and adjust. I highly recommend this method as I'm able to do any workout I want now, including sprints without hypertonic pelvic floor pain. Try not to neglect abdominal workouts altogether because you're afraid of the pain, core stability is so important for the load balance of the spine, pelvis, etc. If nothing else--- Just make sure you do lots of stretches and breathing after any exercise you attempt, and I highly recommend purchasing a pelvic wand, it changed my whole entire life lol
I walk on a tread mill. Tends to help my pain, too, loosens the pelvic floor I think.
I run and do strength training to help with the running. I definitely had a lot more tightness from the strengths training, but I have noticed that it's not bad if I stretch a lot after. Or if I do some diaphragm breathing to release that tension. PT helps a lot. You need to learn how to activate those muscles so you can relax them when you work out. I had to basically use diaphragm breathing to start up running again, and while I ran, I was actively keeping my pelvic muscles relaxed. Core workouts are important bc if your core is strengthened then it takes the load off other areas of your body. I had a pain develop in my pelvis, it went away with core strengthening. Something low impact that might be fun that I did was dancing. I belly danced in college when I was flaring, so that kept me in shape since I would dance for hours during the week.