how to strengthen your pelvic floor
Strengthening your pelvic floor muscles can be a fantastic way to prevent many pelvic health concerns, such as leakage of urine and prolapse. The best way to start training your pelvic floor muscles is to see a pelvic health physiotherapist who can assess if you have any overt or underlying concerns, assess your current level of function and teach you the correct technique. As we cannot see these muscles ourselves and often struggle to sense the internal contraction, many women feel as though they are contracting their pelvic floor correctly but are actually doing something completely different (such as squeezing their bottom or holding their breath)! Many others also have what we term an overactive pelvic floor, and actually need to focus on their flexibility rather than their strength to achieve optimal control. As such, it is highly recommended to have a pelvic floor assessment and an individualised at home program.
Specific pelvic floor exercises are often recommended to be completed by 1-3x/ day in various positions and can be designed to fit your lifestyle. Some people find it easiest to allocate a specific time each day whilst others find it easiest to incorporate them with other tasks or day to day activities. Regardless, these muscles need a consistent stimulus to create desired changes in strength, hypertrophy, endurance and power and pelvic health physiotherapists are the perfect person to design this program based on your needs. In some cases, we also recommend tools such as biofeedback devices, hand held mirrors or pelvic floor weights to help with the ability to sense the correct movement.
Another simple way to encourage your pelvic floor muscles to move without focusing specifically on them is by taking long and deep belly breaths throughout the day, as these muscles move in sync with the muscle of respiration (the diaphragm) without you even thinking about it! Another good practice is to try and squeeze & lift the pelvic floor muscles prior to sneezing or coughing to help re- enforce the natural reflex and prevent leakage of urine with these activities.
Otherwise, your pelvic floor muscles will also contract any time you engage in structured exercise such as walking, running or strength based training and also release with general hip and pelvis based stretches but you don’t need to consciously think about them during these tasks unless taught by your pelvic floor physiotherapist. For this reason, we recommend trying to hit your exercise guidelines for adults by being active on most if not all days, completing strength training 2x/ week (including a focus on the muscles around the pelvis) and avoiding prolonged periods of inactivity. Your daily pelvic floor exercises also form apart of our exercise guidelines for pregnancy, and continue after you’ve given birth too.
Beyond these activities and for any specific pelvic floor concerns or preventative based care it is best to seek out professional and individualised advice. How often you do structured pelvic floor exercise and what positions you might complete it in is also highly independent based on your circumstances and goals. If you want to optimise your pelvic floor strength and flexibility you can click here to book in to see one of our pelvic floor physiotherapists.
Author: Jessica Adams, 2025