Pelvic floor issues are mostly talked about in the context of pregnancy or childbirth. Yet, anyone who has a pelvic floor—male or female—can experience dysfunction in this area of the body.

Lifestyle factors like heavy lifting and high-impact exercises affect pelvic floor function. So do chronic conditions such as constipation and persistent cough.

But did you know that even the way you breathe, sit, and stand influences your pelvic floor?

Let’s explore how these seemingly harmless things weaken your pelvic floor and how you can prevent this from happening.

What are the most overlooked causes of a weak pelvic floor?

Dysfunctional Breathing

What I’m about to write next might come as a shock to you, but hear me out. In my decades of practice, I’ve found that belly breathing, as well as chest breathing, can compromise the health of the pelvic floor.

Let me explain. The diaphragm is known as the main muscle that facilitates respiration. But it’s actually a weak muscle, relying on the movement of the ribs and pelvic floor to help you breathe.

Here’s what happens during belly breathing, which focuses on the diaphragm:

• When you inhale, the diaphragm contracts and flattens to pull air into the lungs. To relieve the downward pressure on your organs, the pelvic floor moves downward and the ribs expand.
• When you exhale, the diaphragm, pelvic floor, and ribs move back into their original positions and shapes, expelling air out of the lungs.

I take issue with this because breathing is meant to be a full-body experience. It should be facilitated by the elasticity and the fascial tension distribution in the whole body. To confine your breathing to only the abdominal and pelvic cavities, you compromise what’s possible with the pelvic floor. It can even weaken or tighten the pelvic floor over time.

With full-body breathing, you invite air into your entire body as opposed to forcing it into one area. You still recruit the diaphragm, ribs, and pelvic floor—but you also mobilize your cranium, spine, and the muscles and fascia surrounding them.

As you inhale, your belly will still expand, but so will your spine. You’re sending your breath to your entire body, encouraging the fascia to expand, making you feel taller. Each exhale is an opportunity for you to maintain the expansiveness you gain from full-body inhalation. 

I recently went on a trip to New Zealand, where my family and I spent eight hours on a strenuous hike. Not one moment did my breathing feel strained. That’s the magic of full-body breathing: sharing the load and not just relying on the diaphragm or pelvic floor.

Poor Posture

Your posture affects your pelvic floor in many ways, direct and indirect. One indirect manner is through the suppression of your breathing. Rounded shoulders restrict you from full-body or vertical breathing. When you have a hunchback, you’re more likely to breathe through your chest or belly, which may weaken or tighten your pelvic floor over time.

Your posture also affects your pelvic floor by changing the position of your pelvis. The pelvis bears the weight of your upper body and transfers it to the lower body. Postural misalignment hampers this delicate balance, causing your pelvis to tilt out of its normal range.

This abnormal pelvic tilt impacts the pelvic floor in several ways, all contributing to a weak pelvic floor.

1. It changes load distribution in the pelvis, stressing the muscles and fascia of the pelvic floor.
2. It alters the position of the pelvic floor within the pelvic cavity, increasing tension in the area.
3. It shifts the position of the pelvic organs, causing the pelvic floor to work harder to keep them in place.

Another way your posture impacts the pelvic floor is through elevated intra-abdominal pressure. The normal curvatures of the spine absorb the impact of this pressure before it reaches the pelvic region.

When these curvatures become too pronounced, the downward pressure on your pelvic floor increases. This additional pressure stresses the pelvic floor, commonly leading to pelvic organ prolapse.

Too Much Sitting

Perhaps the item on this list you are most guilty of is prolonged sitting. It’s a safe bet to assume that you are sitting as you are reading this article. But I guarantee that you would want to stand up or at least sit up straighter after this section.

That’s because pelvic floor muscle activity decreases as you change your body position from standing to sitting to lying down. The hours you spend sitting are hours when your pelvic floor is mostly inactive. Over time, your pelvic floor muscles can become deconditioned as a result.

But that doesn’t mean you should go out and buy a standing desk right now. Simply sitting up straight can already help your pelvic floor. A study found that pelvic floor muscle activity increased just by moving from a slumped sitting posture to an upright position. The same was true for participants with and without urinary incontinence.

The far-reaching impact of this change in posture can be attributed to two things. First, sitting upright facilitates diaphragmatic breathing. Second, it recruits more abdominal muscles. Both are important for activating the pelvic floor muscles.

How does a weak pelvic floor affect you?

The pelvic floor primarily supports our pelvic organs (i.e., the bladder, bowel, rectum, prostate, vagina, and uterus). Thus, weakness in the pelvic floor leads to urological symptoms such as:

• pelvic organ prolapse
• inability to hold your urine
• frequent urination
• lack of sensation during sexual intercourse
• premature ejaculation
• erectile dysfunction

Because the pelvic floor is connected via fascia to so many other parts of the body, weakness in this area can wreak havoc even on distant units. These are just some of the possible effects of a weak pelvic floor:

• hip or lower back pain
• weak arm and leg movements
• decreased vagal tone

That’s why it’s crucial to care for your pelvic floor.

How do you strengthen a weak pelvic floor?

Even if you are already experiencing symptoms of a weakened pelvic floor, there is hope. You can start by being more mindful of your breathing, posture, and sitting time.

Practice taking slow, deep breaths through your nose, sending your breaths throughout your entire body. Reducing the time you sit and practicing better posture will also strengthen your pelvic floor, especially if you have a tilted pelvis. I wrote about how to effortlessly achieve a healthier posture in this blog.

In addition to these measures, exercise catering to the pelvic floor will go a long way towards treating a weak pelvic floor. And I don’t mean exercises like Kegels that focus solely on the pelvic floor.

The pelvic floor is partly made up of fascia, a network of connective tissue that runs along the entire body. Fascia in the pelvic floor is continuous with the feet, abdomen, chest, tongue, and top of the head. That means you need to train your entire body while improving the tone of the fascia to strengthen the pelvic floor.

These are exactly what we do in our Pelvic Floor Fitness class. All exercises are full-body and cater to the health of the fascia. This class also improves pelvic floor awareness and encourages lengthening and rebound. We also sprinkle breathing exercises throughout the 45-minute workout, making it a well-rounded class for the pelvic floor.

Rev6 students taking the Pelvic Floor Fitness class experience breakthroughs in as early as a few months after taking the program. Older practitioners report no longer needing to wake up in the middle of the night to urinate; a long-time dancer shares more range of movement and resilience in their pelvic floor.

If you would like to experience radical changes in your health and performance too, you’re welcome to join our live-streaming classes or follow along with our class replays! Explore how you can get started here.