What Exercises Are “Bad” for My Pelvic Floor?
“What exercises should I avoid?”
“What are the best/worst exercises for XYZ?”
“I think my exercise program is making my symptoms worse”
“I’ve heard I should never lift or run with a prolapse”
“I only do low-impact exercises because I was told that high-impact exercise was harmful for XYZ”
These are questions and comments I hear all of the time, particularly from new patients. So let’s dive into these questions a bit.
First off, it’s important to know that there are no inherently “good” or “bad” exercises for your pelvic floor.
If I were to tell you to avoid certain exercises without ever seeing you perform that exercise, I am doing you a major disservice and potentially hindering your progress or keeping you from an activity you are passionate about.
When it comes to pelvic floor health (strength, mobility, function), what’s more important is the quality of your exercise.
Let me give an example of a time that my initial judgement of an exercise was wrong.
A couple of months ago, I had a women come into the clinic with a 5cm diastasis recti (abdominal separation). She was showing symptoms of poor deep core strength and recruitment and struggled with some lower level core exercises. She had recently tried burpees and reported she felt really good while doing the. Now, this is where I jumped to judgement, thinking “she's definitely not ready for that quite yet”. Later, I beat myself up over that initial judgement because you know what? She went on to do a burpee with good form and adequate core stabilization. She was given tips to ensure she maintained form with all reps, and was given the thumbs up for burpees. If I had written off burpees before watching her perform them, I would have been wrong.
Now this is not always the case. Other times, I have patients with seemingly good strength and pelvic stability unable to complete a burpee with appropriate quality.
I share this to say that if I had immediately placed a burpee on the “bad” list, my first patient would have missed out on a high intensity movement that she was yearning to return to. (I can’t say I’ve ever yearned to do a burpee, but we all have our things haha)
Quality of movement trumps all else when determining whether an exercise is “safe” or not.
So, what if I do have poor quality while performing an exercise? Is it “bad” then?
Short answer: no
Rather than forever writing off crunches, burpees, planks, push-ups, etc., focus on modifications you can make to the movement that you are able to do successfully. From there you can progress to the full movement as quality allows.
Because the truth is, that exercise is still not “bad”, you are just not ready to complete it safely yet.
“What if I can perform the movement well, but I’m having pelvic floor symptoms?”
Short answer: quality of movement goes beyond form and symptoms are typically a stop sign
If you seem to check all of the boxes in regards to form, yet you are still experiencing urinary leakage, pelvic pain, prolapse symptoms, etc., your quality is not quite there yet.
If there are symptoms occurring, there is still something going on (potentially not as visible to the eye) that needs to be addressed.
Maybe it’s your breathing technique.
Maybe it’s your pelvic floor coordination.
Maybe it’s tightness in your pelvic floor muscles.
The list goes on.
Ideally, get some professional hands and eyes on you to address any missing components.
In conclusion…
Exercise is very important for your pelvic floor and just your overall health and well-being. More important that your program itself, however, is how you are executing that program. No exercises are in and of themselves “bad” or should be forever avoided, unless you hate the exercise then by all means find something else you like haha.
What exercises have you been told are “bad” or “good”? Have you been afraid to complete any exercise on the “bad” list?
I would love to hear your experiences/fears regarding certain exercises!
