Welcome back to our Move With Us series! In honour of Women’s Health Week this week, today we’re going to go through some beginner activation and strength exercises for our pelvic floor.

As Osteopaths and Pilates instructors, we see lots of women of all ages with pelvic floor issues. Our pelvic floor is so important but is so often either lacking strength and endurance or simply struggling with activation. Weak or inactive pelvic floors can contribute to tension or overloading other areas of our body to compensate, for example tight low backs or overactive hip flexors.

Have a go at today’s exercises and see where you’re at. If you’d like any help with activation or would like progressions to push yourself further, please reach out! We’d be happy to help.

Pelvic Tilts

• Pelvic tilts are a great way to mobilise the pelvis and lower back, while also beginning to warm up the core and pelvic floor

• Lying on your back with your feet on the mat, hip distance apart

• Gently tilt your pelvis towards you so that you’re drawing your belly button in towards your spine

• Moving back through neutral, tilt your pelvis away from you so that you’re increasing the arch in your low back

• Slowly move through this movement, increasing the range of motion as you feel able

Hip Twist Level One

• Hip twist is a great exercise for pelvic floor strength and challenging your pelvic control

• Lying on your back with your feet on the mat, hip distance apart

• Activate through your pelvic floor, slowly drop one knee out to the side only as far as you can go before either your pelvic floor switches off or your pelvis tilts to the side (this may only be a couple of centimetres to begin with)

• You can place your hands on the hips to monitor pelvic movement

• Drawing in through your core and use your pelvic floor muscles to draw the leg back to the start position

• Repeat on the other leg, trying to minimise pelvic shifting as you swap legs

• Aim for 2 or 3 sets of 6 - 8 on each leg

Overhead Reach

• Overhead reach challenges your core stability through upper limb movements

• Lying on your back with your feet on the mat, hip distance apart and lift your arms so that your arms are at shoulder height

• Draw in through your core and slowly extend your arms overhead

• During the movement, the aim is to control rib movement and avoid increasing lower back extension by using your core strength to stabilise the area (imagine a stack of books on your ribs, stopping them from flaring with movement)

• Aim for 2 or 3 sets of 6 - 8 movements

Scissors Level One

• Scissors further challenges core control in a different plane of movement

• Lying on your back with your feet on the mat, hip distance apart

• Activate your pelvic floor and draw in through your core as you slowly lift one leg up to a table top position (hip and knee at 90 degree bend)

• Maintaining control through your pelvic floor muscles, slowly lower the leg back down to the mat and repeat on the other leg

• Your lower back should remain in a neutral position, not arching as you lift or lower your leg

• Aim for 2 or 3 sets of 6 - 8 on each leg

We hope you found this helpful! Feel free to repeat this series multiple times through out the week and keep Moving With Us. If you have any questions or need any advice on any of these exercises, please don't hesitate to reach out and chat to us.

Remember that you shouldn’t feel pain during any of these exercises. If they are painful for you, consider avoiding that exercise or decreasing the intensity. We are always here to help if needed.

If you’re after some more advice or are in need of some hands on help, we’d love to see you at Collective Motion! Collective Motion offers Osteopathy, Myotherapy, Dietetics and Pilates and is conveniently located to service our Bentleigh community as well as its surrounding suburbs including Bentleigh East, McKinnon, Ormond, Glenhuntly, Murrumbeena, Carnegie, Oakleigh, Gardenvale, Brighton East and Hampton East. Click below to book an appointment and let us help you get moving again.