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As physical therapists we collect a lot of “tools” for our therapy tool box. Some of them are physical tools like cups, massage balls, or Theraband. Others are treatment techniques like dry needling, visceral mobilization, or myofascial work. Each tool we collect has a purpose to help the pelvic floor in one of the three types of pelvic floor treatment (read more about that here). When developing your plan of care for therapy we are working to find just the right combination of these techniques to help address the issues that brought you to pelvic floor therapy. One of our most commonly used tools at Pelvic Pride is yoga.
Yoga can help improve flexibility, increase blood flow, cultivate a better mind-body connection, reduce stress, and downregulate the nervous system - aka put out that fire! We utilize yoga poses with our patients to hit on all of these benefits and to empower our patients with actionable tasks to do when they are not in the clinic with us. As we have incorporated yoga poses into our practice, we have narrowed it down to these top nine favorite yoga poses for the pelvic floor.
Each of these poses were chosen to help provide direct and/or indirect relaxation to the pelvic floor muscles. Keep in mind the goal for these poses are relaxation, stretching, and letting go in and around the pelvic floor. You will not be tightening or actively engaging muscles during these postures and you
should not experience pain during these poses. If you struggle to get into or maintain a pose try the modified version we’ve described. Once you've settled into each pose, hold this posture for 5 deep breath cycles.
How To: Lay down and place your legs up so they are above your heart. You can lay on the ground, bed, couch; legs can be up on a chair, against a couch, the wall.
Goal: Great for fluid return in legs, do this 1 hour before bed to decrease frequency of voiding at night.
Modification: Your buttocks does not need to be all the way against the object your legs are against like the drawing.
How To: Lay down flat on a surface (floor, bed, couch). This is a great place to work on diaphragmatic (belly) breathing.
Goal: Decrease pressure on the pelvic floor muscles by allowing this position to off-weight the organs that are supported by the pelvic floor.
Modification: If this position bothers your back, bend your knees, or place a pillow under your knees; you can also place a small towel roll beneath your low back.
How To: Lay on your back with legs in the air and hands either holding onto your big toe, arch of foot, or outside of foot.
Goal: Stretch to the inner thighs and superficial pelvic floor muscles.
Modification: If this position feels like an intense stretch decrease the bend to your knees and move feet away from the pelvic floor.
How To: Lay down and pull both knees up towards your chest.
Goal: Stretch to gluteus maximus and low back muscles.
Modification: You can place your hands behind your knees (on the back of your thighs) to decrease pressure in the knee joints. This is a modification if deep squat is too challenging.
How To: Start in a kneeling position and lower chest down towards your thighs with arms stretched out overhead.
Goal: This pose offers a low back stretch and forces each inhale to go more into the low back and pelvic floor region.
Modification: If your thighs feel in the way, take a wide knee stance which allows more room for your abdomen between your thighs.
How To: Lay on your stomach and slowly press up onto your forearms. Take slow deep breaths and monitor how it feels in your low back.
Goal: This posture offers a great low abdominal stretch.
Modification: If this position creates low back pain try doing this in standing as drawn in bottom left.
How To: Start on hands and knees. Breathe in, curve your back and look up towards the sky. Breathe out, round your back, pull abdominal muscles in, look down towards the ground.
Goal: To increase movement through the spine and pelvis.
Modification: Perform spine arching and rounding in standing if being on hands and knees is painful or difficult.
How To: Either sitting or laying down, place your feet together and positioned as close to pelvic floor as you can comfortably.
Goal: Stretch to the inner thighs and superficial pelvic floor muscles.
Modification: If this position feels like an intense stretch decrease the bend to your knees and move feet further away from the pelvic floor.
How To: Get into a squatting position with feet flat on the ground.
Goal: This posture is great for deep pelvic floor relaxation
Modification: If you cannot keep your heels down, try placing a folded up towel, a block or a book under your heels. If you need help with balance try sitting on a yoga block of placing your back against a wall. If this is too hard try the knees to chest pose above.
If you get a chance to try these poses out send us a quick message and let us know what you think!
Dr. Joy
@pelvicpride
