Mara Nicandro NMT – Holistic Neuromuscular Massage Therapy for Vital Wellness

The pelvic floor, are you sitting on your pain?

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by

Mara Nicandro
in , , ,

We are all meant to have strong, responsive and resilient pelvic floor musculature, one that works in concert with the rest of our body to support our pelvic organs, one that can contract when it needs to and keep things in and one that can relax when it needs to and let things out (or in). So, why this alarming statistic?

“The number of American women with at least one pelvic floor disorder will increase from 28.1 million in 2010 to 43.8 million in 2050. During this time period, the number of women with UI will increase 55% from 18.3 million to 28.4 million.

Why are so many women lacking a strong, responsive and resilient pelvic floor musculature? We sit, a lot and a lot of us sit with our pelvis tucked under, essentially sitting on our sacrum.

  • We’re not using are glutes like we should, under-working glutes.
  • We stand with our pelvis pushed forward and/or tucked under.
  • We do way too little walking – regular, old fashioned walking.
  • We clench our pelvic floor.

So let’s start working on creating a strong, responsive and resilient pelvic floor musculature. After all, none of us want to be part of any of stats cited above and we’ve got a lot of living to do between now and 2050. So let’s start on being mindful of how you sit and stand:

  1. Stack your pelvis over your ankles when you stand. Get a plumb line out – tie a string to an object. Use the plumb line and a mirror to check and make sure your pelvis is stacked over your ankles when you stand. Get familiar with what this feels like in your body so you can replicate it without a plumb line or a mirror. Please note: if you’re wearing heels, of any height, this won’t work.
  2. When you sit, don’t tuck. Keep your weight off your sacrum and your pubic bone & ASIS in the same vertical plane (see red line in aligned pelvis).

The problem begins when we normalized it to the point where we think there’s very little, if anything, we can do about pelvic floor dysfunction. The first step is to acknowledge, be mindful, and intervene to take back control of your body. References: Forecasting the prevalence of pelvic floor disorders in U.S. Women: 2010 to 2050. Wu JM, Hundley AF, Fulton RG, Myers ER. LisaLLC