“Can you suggest some stretches for tight pelvic floor?” one student asked.
“Tight pelvic floor is good, right?” chimed in the other.
I opened my mouth, and closed it again instantly, feeling like fish out of water.
Pelvis is the “who is who” of human structural anatomy, and pelvic floor is every pelvis’ stability generating
basement.
How could I possibly reduce the vastness of pelvic topic to just one or two stretches?
It is, indeed, that very approach of spot-treating pelvic issues completely out of context (kinda like fish out of water!) that keeps us firmly anchored in the middle of pelvic disorder epidemic.
When addressing sneeze leaks, pelvic pain, severe menstrual cramps, organs prolapse, or
prostate disorders, we rarely look beyond the pelvic bowl. We tend to ignore the impact of “outside of pelvic muscles” on pelvic goings – on.
Converse is also true: the nearsighted spot-treatment approach stops us from seeing the connection between urinary tract disorders, low back, hip, SI joint, knee, and even seemingly far-removed foot pain with faulty pelvic organization or PF dysfunction.
You might be
doing your Kegels* merrily, without realizing that the very way that you breathe is placing excessive pressure on the pelvic floor, inching your organs towards prolapse with every breath. Eeeks!
Or, you might be spending some time every day on pelvic and core work - all without addressing the tightness in your feet, calves and hamstrings. Those tight posterior muscles create a whole new (and unhealthy) dynamic in the position of the pelvis and the function
of the PF, so your daily core workout is, in fact, encouraging further damage.
My super yogi friends, gym – goers, runners, and fitness lovers! Unfortunate statistic shows that we have some of the tightest pelvic basements all around (no, tight isn’t good!) leading to all sorts of oddball compensations, and ultimately pain and dysfunction.
Could you do it?
Put the pelvis back where it belongs - into the body. Understand how pelvis fits in with the rest of the body musculature – feet,
calves, thighs, abdomen, ribcage – and why spot-treating pelvic issues simply won’t work.
Approach your pelvic, groin and hip pain systematically; learn how faulty interactions between various/related parts of the body cause strain on the entire system. For example, by contributing to an altered position of the pelvis and hip, a rigid ankle or old knee injury could be the cause of hip pain.
Use a variety of
techniques - including therapeutic ball and yin practices - to develop better awareness, encourage healthier neuro-muscular patterns, and to lengthen and hydrate the shortened tissues.
Walk away light-footed and with a magic inside (as well as a comprehensive do – at - home program.)
I've been developing this program for a while now, and some of my private clients got a taste of this "full - body" get-better
approach. Afterwards, I've heard words like "wow, my hips feel flowy - is that how they actually supposed to feel?", and " I've been to all sorts of body workers and most of them just pounded on my sore shoulder. Now I see how my sore shoulder is not just my sore shoulder, and every time we do this pelvic stuff my shoulder, incredibly, feels better."
Did I mention magic?
