Men’s Health Videos

Why is pelvic health important?

Everybody uses their bladder and bowels so it’s a function of everyday life that you should be able to work normally and trust them. And yet, one in three women leak urine at some point in their life.

What are pelvic floor exercises?

Your pelvic floor is a muscle like any other in your body. And you need to exercise it to keep it strong and healthy. Luckily, your pelvic floor exercises do just that.

What things increase your risk of having a weak pelvic floor?

You might develop a weak pelvic floor if you suffer from chronic constipation, or if you have a chronic cough or respiratory problem. You might also have it if you are carrying too much weight or if you do repeated heavy lifting.

A quick way to find your pelvic floor

Imagine you’re desperate to have a wee and you’re trying to stop yourself. Feel the pull from your muscles from around the back passage and feel that pull coming up to the front passage and you should be lifting those muscles up and in.

Yet another way to find your pelvic floor

The best way to try to find your muscles is to take a deep breath in and then sigh out. And then squeeze the muscles around the back passage and front passage.

Why is the pelvic floor important?

If you have a weak pelvic floor, you might find that you have leakage from your bladder, leakage from your bowel - in both men and women. You might find that you have a heaviness or dragging sensation in the middle.

The pelvic floor explained

The pelvic floor is the best bit of the body. The pelvic floor is made of a bowl of muscles that all work together to give you support to your organs. It also helps you give continence so you don’t leak from the front or the back end.

How do you find your pelvic floor?

While you’re sitting, if you feel your two sitting bones, the area in the centre between them that you can kind of feel as you do a little wiggle, is your pelvic floor deep underneath.

Another way to find your pelvic floor

Another way is to just make sure that when you sit down you relax your legs, you relax your tummy, relax your bottom cheeks so that none of these squeeze – we don’t want movement up and down as you’re doing your exercises.

Common signs that can indicate a pelvic floor problem

Commonly if people have a problem with their pelvic floor, they might find that when they cough or sneeze or laugh, they leak a little bit. They have that oops moment into their pants or into a pad.

What should I do if I have pelvic pain?

People with a really tight pelvic floor might find they have some aching around the pelvis anywhere from the front, the lower tummy area, to the lower back. They may also feel like they are sitting on a golf ball or tennis ball or it might just feel really tight inside.

Why do we need to do pelvic floor exercises?

We need to do pelvic floor exercises to make sure our pelvic floor is strong. Often people will find that maybe they start a new hobby. Say, they start running when they’ve had some children. They start to have some leakage.

Who can benefit from pelvic floor muscle exercises?

They are very very useful for women who’ve just had a baby. Also men who’ve had prostate operations for cancer that might have some leakage as well.

Who shouldn’t do pelvic floor muscle exercises?

Those are people who are getting pain downstairs. Or potentially, if they are having leakage, it could be that instead of the muscle being really weak, the muscle is really tight.

What organs does your pelvic floor support?

The pelvic floor supports all the organs of the pelvis. In men and women, it’ll support your bladder at the front with the tube coming down from the bladder.

Why is it important to have confidence in your pelvic floor?

One of the main benefits of having confidence in your pelvic floor is just having the ability to go out and enjoy your life. People who have pelvic floors that are not confident that they are going to do their job properly are going to avoid exercise.

Why should we care about Pelvic Health?

A third of women wet themselves and the good news is that physiotherapy has up to an 80% cure rate for stress incontinence.

What happens if your pelvic floor becomes weak?

So if your pelvic floor becomes weak, one of the common problems people experience is leaking. So they wet themselves if they laugh or cough or sneeze or if they are jumping which is a problem because it stops people from exercising.

How often do you need to do your pelvic floor muscle exercises?

Pelvic floor exercises have to be done all the time. Regularly. Every day. Otherwise you’re going to lose strength again. So the guidelines are that if you are leaking, you should be doing a set of pelvic floor exercises three times a day.

The Elevator Cue…

I like to teach people a yoga move. It’s called "Mula Bandha". Its aim is to try and get all of the fibres of the pelvic floor contracting together. Because we know some people feel it at the front or some people can feel it at the back but the other muscle fibres aren’t engaging.

A cue for men…

Imagine that you’re walking into water where the water is cold. And the gentleman knows that the next wave is going to catch him and what he does then is imagine he’s lifting his scrotum right out of the water.