How to tell if your pelvic floor is tight or weak

pelvic health
Written By Jessica Adams

Pelvic floor dysfunction encompasses a wide range of conditions that can affect your overall health and wellbeing. In this blog post you can learn some signs and symptoms that might indicate that your pelvic floor muscles are contributing to negative changes in pelvic health; such as stress or urge urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse and pelvic pain. Before we get there though, it is important to note that the muscles make up only one part of the pelvic floor and sometimes dysfunction exists in other structures or as a consequence of medical conditions. This is why having an individualised pelvic floor examination is important to understand your pelvic floor and appropriate treatment options. 

What is good pelvic floor muscle function?

You can think of the pelvic floor muscles like other muscles in the body, meaning they can contract and relax, but with a specialised function in maintaining good bladder, bowel, sexual and reproductive health.

We are able to consciously contract some of these muscles and other ones contract without us even thinking about it to help us go about our day to day activities! Just like your spinal muscles work to keep you upright throughout the day, your pelvic floor muscles are supporting the pelvic organs upwards and squeezing around the urethral and anal openings to maintain continence. They also coordinate with each other to support changes in pressure, such as when you sneeze, stand up or exercise or during sexual activity. And when you do go to the bathroom, these muscles also relax to varying degrees allowing for complete emptying of the bladder and bowels alongside when you rest in a horizontal position.

Therefore, we want pelvic floor muscles that are strong AND flexible. Both of these elements are equally as important as each other and when combined, can be termed mobility. Having mobility of the pelvic floor muscles means you are able to contract them through their full range of motion, strongly when needed and also with extensibility beyond their resting length when needed. To learn more about the interplay of strength and flexibility, you can view our recent Instagram post.

what signs and symptoms might I experience of poor pelvic floor muscle function?

When the pelvic floor muscles aren’t working as well as we would like them to they can start to impact our day to day life. Some things to look out for include:

  • Leakage of urine with sneezing/ coughing/ laughing/ exercise, on the way to the bathroom or incidentally throughout the day 

  • Needing to wait or strain to start or finish the flow of urine or a stream that trickles or stops and starts

  • Feeling as though you go urinate too frequently or with urgency 

  • Chronic UTI’s or pain with urination 

  • Lack of control of wind or faeces

  • Faecal smearing on underwear or inability to get clean after a bowel movement

  • Infrequent bowel movements that are firm or hard to pass

  • Chronic fissures or haemorrhoids

  • Pain with inserting tampons, medical exams or sexual activities 

  • A sensation of perineal bulging, dragging or aching 

  • Pelvic pain around the hips, groin, lower back and abdominals

what are the next steps for improving my pelvic health?

If you feel that your pelvic floor health could be improved the best thing to do is reach out to a pelvic floor physio who can chat to you about your concerns, assess the muscle function and create a tailored treatment plan. Whilst this can sometimes feel scary, our physiotherapists offer compassionate care and expert understanding when treating these conditions. You can use our booking tool to see what days and times might suit you best.

Author: Jessica Adams, 2024
Jessica Adams