Reclaim Your Pelvic Floor

Hi, I'm Wendy, and I'm here with Nicole, and we have a pelvic floor toning routine for you today. For this routine, you're going to want to have socks or little wash cloths, and you're going to wanna have a over ball that's deflated or a regular small Pilates ball with a little bit of the air taken out. And then it's also optional to have a big Swiss ball, but you can also just use this ball for those exercises. So, we're gonna start on our back. Remember, when you're coming down onto your back, you wanna support your core, do a little log roll to come down.

And we'll place our feet up against the wall. You wanna lift your hips up and place the deflated ball underneath the sacrum. And then you'll take your washcloths or just you'll have socks on and place the washcloths underneath the heels. So, we wanna think about engaging our pelvic floor just even staying in this position. So, doing that big Pilates breath, inhaling into the back and into the sides of the ribs.

And as you exhale, think of lifting up on your pelvic floor, almost like you're thinking about a purse string, just sort of cinching that purse string. And you wanna think about your pelvic floor almost like a trampoline. And as you engage, you wanna engage the entire circumference of your pelvic floor. So, one way to do that on the exhale is to think of drawing your sitz bones towards each other and your pubic bone, and your tailbone towards each other, and then lifting up. So, we're going to be doing that throughout this entire routine.

Let's start with legs parallel. All you're going to do is inhale, bend your knees, yep. Find that Pilates breath, exhale, lift up on that pelvic floor as the legs reach up. So, inhale, bend in the knees, and exhale, imagine drawing those sitz bones towards each other. Inhale as you bend, and exhale up.

Nice and easy. Just barely pressing your heels into the wall if that feels okay for you. Two more. Nice little warm up, thinking more of engaging that pelvic floor and the core, then of using those legs and quads to press your legs up. Stay right here.

You just gotta bring one leg out to the side. So, inhale, one leg comes out. And the hips don't move. And the other leg doesn't move, inhale, barely pressing those heels into the wall. Exhale, imagine little magnets on those inner thighs, drawing the legs back together.

Inhale in, stay nice and stable. Exhale, almost like you're doing a little Kegel, but you shouldn't be gripping or clenching anywhere. It should be more of a lifting up. One more each side. Inhale, reaching out, and exhale, doing your research scene if one side's a little bit stronger or easier to move than the other, and back in.

Now, you're going to rotate out from your hips and bring those heels together and think of those inner thigh squeezing towards each other, inhale, bend your knees. Yeah, and then just exhale, press straight up. So, just little frogs against the wall. Again, just to kind of warm up, you really wanna work your pelvic floor by moving your legs in a variety of positions that can really help tone the hamstrings, tone the inner thighs and the outer thighs without overworking one muscle group specifically. And that can really help with the overall toning of your pelvic floor.

So, here we're gonna start with some swimming frogs. So, inhale, bend those knees, and then bring your legs out and then back. Yep, inhale in and then exhale out. You might make this a little bit smaller of a range, and that's totally fine. Just think really of reaching those knees out to the side, opening up through the hips instead of just moving the feet out.

Three more, exhale as the legs come together. Lifting up, last one, and back together. Good, so, here we're gonna do a little bit of running. You're gonna bend one knee and straighten the other leg and exhale press up. If that feels okay, you can just stay flex through your feet or you can flex and point, it's up to you either way.

Just adds a little bit more challenge, makes your brain work a little bit harder and gets those ankles moving a little bit more. Three more. And one, bringing the legs all the way up and then bring 'em out a little bit. You're just gonna do some little leg circle. So, bend in the knees, and then bring in the legs back up.

Yep, so, inhale in out again. You're rotating out from your hips. You're almost trying to get the inside seam of your leggings up towards the ceiling. So, you're really opening through your hips if you can. Two more, opening up, and exhale, lift up on that pelvic floor, and back.

Great job, so from here, I'm gonna take these out and you're going to scoot yourself back just a little bit if you can, with the ball, just to get yourself in the ideal alignment here and just keep your feet on the wall, yeah. So, same thing. You're gonna stay right here. You're gonna draw those ribs together, and you're just gonna press your feet into the wall and that'll activate those inner thighs. That'll activate the outer thighs.

You don't wanna feel it in your back. Just press the feet into the wall, continuing to lift up on that pelvic floor. Yep, last one. Good, and then you can put your hands on the insides of your inner thighs, and you can inhale as you exhale, push your inner thighs against your hands, your fingertips and then release. Yep, so again, exhale, just a little bit of contract release still starting that movement right from that pelvic floor.

Yep, last one. And then you'll take your hands and place them right on your thighs. So, same thing, you're pushing your feet into the wall. Shoulders are down. You're just gonna inhale as you exhale, push into your thighs, and at the same time, push your feet into the wall and then release, doing that a few times as you push your feet into the wall, push into your thighs as well.

Shoulders are relaxed. And remember, you're recruiting that pelvic floor Last one. And then you're going to bring your arms all the way down to the side, yep. And see if you can just do a couple little pelvic curls as you tuck your tail under, and then inhale back. So, now you're relaxing your legs a little bit.

You're barely pushing your feet into the wall. You're just getting a little bit of a pelvic curl. Remember, you just wanna tuck that tail. It's not rounding through the upper back. You wanna stay open through the shoulders as you curl and roll under and get that movement through the lumbar spine.

Great, one more. And then you'll come back to a neutral position right here. Yep, and see if you can exhale. Just bring one foot up off of the wall just a little ways and point the toes just a little bit, yeah. And then as you exhale, you're gonna tap that toe down towards the wall and then inhale, bring it back up.

So, a little bit of lower abdominal work here. Don't wanna curl that tail under. You wanna stay nice and neutral as you move the leg. And you're still recruiting that pelvic floor. So, try and start every exercise with that pelvic floor engagement.

One more, and then we'll do the same thing on the other side. Shoulders still nice and wide, great work, yeah. And then exhale, tap. So, it's a small range. If you want, you can scoot yourself a little further away from the wall, or you might find that you need to deflate the ball a little bit.

Yep. Last one, and together. Good, so from here, you're gonna go back to tucking your tail under and you're just gonna come up to a bridge as you really push your feet into the wall. And you might not come up that far, and that's fine. See if you can exhale, start to soften through the sternum, drop the ribs down and come all the way back down to the ball.

Yes, so inhale, pressing into the wall with your feet, exhale, curl up bone by bone. Again, imagine that marble rolling from your pubic bone all the way up to the sternum, and then exhale, roll on down. Two more, inhale nice and long through the spine. Exhale, curl and bridge up. Nice job staying relaxed through the shoulders and the neck, and then come all the way down.

Great job, you're gonna bring one leg in front of the other knee for little piriformis stretch, pressing the knee away and drawing the foot that's on the wall back in towards you. So, keeping this foot on the wall, yeah. And then this comes away from you as you're imagining this knee coming towards you. A little oppositional stretch can really help stretching out that piriformis. If you're tight in your piriformis or in your hamstrings, that's really gonna affect your pelvic floor alignment.

And then you can switch it out to the other side. And I like using a wall or a chair so you can have your feet up so you don't have to hold your feet in, and then you can keep that opening through the chest without rounding through the back to have to hold onto the legs. Keeping the foot flexed so the stretch is not in the knee. And then go ahead and bring that foot back to the wall. All right, so now you're gonna take that pelvic curl and you're just gonna tuck under and see if you can come all the way up into a bridge, articulating through the spine and then exhale, roll all the way back down, landing on the ball.

And again, exhale, curl and bridge up, pressing your feet into the wall. You might just come up, part way, and that's fine. It's just about really creating space in the spine and getting some more mobility through the spine. Two more, exhale as you curl up your shoulders, stay nice and wide. And all the way down, lengthening your hips away from your shoulders, last one.

Exhale, curl and bridge up, engaging that pelvic floor, drawing the sitz bones towards each other without clenching or squeezing your glutes, and then come all the way back down. All right, so now we're gonna come up to a standing position so you can carefully roll off to your side and grab your deflated ball, and we'll come up for some standing work. Doing that log roll to come up. We'll come all the way up and you might end up deflating this ball a little bit more. Again, depending on the size of your ball, I just want you to put it underneath your foot, one foot, and press into the ball.

Yes, so it's great to have a unstable surface to do a little bit of pelvic floor work. See if you can open up through the hip a little bit so the knee's gonna go out towards the wall a little bit more, and you might need to take a step away from the ball with your other foot, and then just bring the ball back in. You can reach it out sort of at an angle. So, as you press out, the ball's going out and then you're gonna pull it back in, or you can bend that knee that's on the ball and press it out at an angle a little bit more in front of you, either way. So, pressing into that standing leg.

An unstable surface is a great way to balance and tone that pelvic floor. So, whether it's using a deflated ball or walking more on pebbles and sand than just on concrete. All of that can be great for toning your pelvic floor. One more and then we're gonna switch sides. You can always hold onto the wall or hold onto a chair as you do this one as well.

Let's try it on the other side. Good, so, leg can stay straight, right knee's gonna bend as you just press that ball out to the side, yep, and then pull it back in. And you're thinking of really sinking down into that right side and pulling back again, thinking of those magnets drawing those heels together and continuing to draw the calves and the inner thighs all the way up through the pelvic floor as you pull the ball in and just go straight down. One more. And in, great job.

So, we're gonna take that ball out, shake out your legs a little bit. You can either inflate this ball a little bit more and place it behind you to do a little bit more work against the wall, or you can use a stability ball to place behind you if you have one of these at home as well. So, take a few steps away from the wall, placing the ball a little bit around about where your low back is. And your feet are gonna be a little bit in front of your shoulders. So, you're sort of leaning into the ball, use this ball as support and just take a few breaths and allow yourself to open up through the shoulders in the chest.

So, this ball can help you to see where your alignment is in that upper thoracic spine if you're pinching your shoulder blades or rounding your back. We're just gonna start with some nice squats here. As you bend your knees, just inhale down, and again, exhale, engage that pelvic floor, and come up. Yes, inhale in down, and exhale in up, perfect. Just want to go straight down and straight up so you're not sticking your tail out, and see if you can add some arms.

So, you'll just come down, reach your arms up, and then bring 'em all the way back down. Inhale as you reach and open through that chest, pushing through the heels and the knees are going perfectly forward. Opening it in a little extension and lift from the sternum. Two more. And last one, arms come all the way up, all the way down.

You're gonna bring your heels together. So, remember, you're opening up through the hips trying to get the insides, the seam of the leggings all the way up towards the ceiling or facing the wall in front of you, good. And here, you're just going to do the same thing. Just inhale as you come down, exhale, squeeze and zipper up as the belly draws in and the pelvic floor draws up. So, pushing a little bit more through the heels, look at the back of the legs working.

So, a little more energizing here. Same thing, you can bend those knees and come up. Yep, you can inhale, reach your arms just out in front and then exhale down without arching that back or pinching the shoulder blades together. Three more. Great job keeping your ears right in line with your shoulders.

So, your chin might have to come back just a little bit so the base of your skull is towards the wall behind you. One more. Great job, you're gonna bring your feet really wide, almost like a horse stance. Yeah, and same thing, you're opening up through the hips. Yep, and here you're just gonna bend those knees and come down and then draw the heels together, lift up and come up.

Yeah, so focusing on the shoulders, staying nice and open. Yep, starting to bring that breath again to the core and the pelvic floor and trying not to stick your tail out as you go down towards the floor, but your tail's just gonna go straight down and straight up. Last one. Good, come down one more time. And this one, you're just gonna hold for a few breaths.

So, just stay right here. See how relaxed you can be through the shoulders. If this feels uncomfortable for you, you can always have your feet a little bit closer or wait to a little bit further along postpartum to have your legs all the way open like this. But this is a great stretch and opening for the pelvic floor. Maybe you can come down even a little bit lower, a couple more breaths, and then slowly come all the way up.

Great job. Okay, so from here, you're gonna bring your feet back parallel again. If this ball's feeling okay, just go ahead and keep it here. And you're just gonna bend your knee and do a high knee. So, you wanna come down and then just bring one knee up so it's a little bit higher, yep, and then come down low, and then the other knee comes up.

Yep, so arms can go out as you bend down, getting a nice big high step. So, again, working the hips, working the legs in a bunch of variety of positions can help tone that pelvic floor. Two more each side, getting that heart rate up Last one, and come all the way up, good. You're going to bring your feet maybe a little bit closer here. Yep, and you are going to bring your palms or your hands up, your palms together, and see if you can just bring one leg up and reach it back and then come up.

And then maybe the other leg comes back behind you as you press through the heel of the leg that's in front, if that feels okay with your arms in front of your sternum. A little more balance work, great job. Just a few of these, pressing through that leg that's in the front through the outside of the toe, the outside of the heel, but also pressing through the inside of the ankle, last one, and up, great job. You're gonna bring this ball down. You can sit on a chair if you don't have a ball, and just sit on the ball here.

Again, bring those feet nice and wide if you can, and just do some nice big hip circles on the ball. Again, moving around, strengthening, toning that whole pelvic floor, the whole circumference of your pelvic floor, stretching, strengthening, and then see if you can go in the opposite direction. Great job, coming back to a seated position, inhale, scrunch those shoulders up towards your ears, and exhale, slide 'em down. Great job today toning your pelvic floor.