Bottoms Up!
“The adult diaper industry is a $1.2 billion problem in the United States.”
It's estimated that our sedentary lifestyles contributes up to 15% of total healthcare costs in the United States. That's billions of dollars of lost productivity and wasted cost and millions of hours spent recovering from avoidable illnesses and enduring unnecessary pain.
Many of us sit at our desks all day, then sit in our cars or on buses or trains to get home before sitting down to dinner and then retiring to the TV room to sit for another several hours before getting into bed. Then we do it all over again the next day, week after week, year after year, decade after decade.
This sedentary lifestyle wreaks havoc on our health, contributing, along with poor dietary habits, to spikes in obesity, heart disease, Type-II diabetes, hypertension and a host of other chronic, lifestyle-related illnesses.
But there's also another casualty of sitting too much, one that doesn't get nearly as much attention as our epidemic of chronic illnesses.
Sitting too much turns the muscles of our hips and pelvis to mush through underuse. This is especially true of your pelvic floor muscles. Weak pelvic floor muscles can lead to all kinds of troublesome outcomes for both women and men, including incontinence (bladder and bowel), diminished sexual function sensitivity, pelvic pain (prostatitis in men), compromised stability of the trunk (making us prone to injury and premature decrepitude) and sub-optimal athletic performance due to lack of sufficient core strength.
Your pelvic floor muscles serve several important functions. As the name suggests, these muscles (and other soft tissue) act as the floor of the pelvis, forming a sort of trampoline at the bottom of the pelvic girdle that supports the pelvic organs, including the bladder, the bowel (colon), the uterus (in women) and the prostate (in men). The pelvic floor muscles have passages which run through them, one for the urethra, another for the anus and, for women, a third for the vagina. These muscles are therefore important for controlling the flow of urine and feces out of the body. If they're weak we have less control, leading, potentially, to incontinence (leakage) of one type or another.
It's a good idea, then to give these muscles some love, especially if you sit too much or generally aren't very active. The good news is that you don't need a ton of time or a gym membership to activate and strengthen these important muscles. You can train these muscles wherever you are: while you're watching television, sitting at your desk, even while you're driving. But first you have to know where to find them.
Image source: Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center (https://pelvicpainrehab.com)
Sit in a comfortable chair with your feet on the floor and your hands in your lap. Take a long, slow breath in, inflating your abdomen. As you exhale, contract and left your pelvic floor (bottoms up!). These are the same muscles that you would engage to stop the flow of urine or poop if you were sitting on the toilet. Try to isolate these muscles while relaxing the muscles of the abdomen, thighs and buttocks.
Once you know what it feels like to engage your pelvic floor muscles you can start strengthening them, which, like any other muscle, simply involves contracting and releasing them for multiple repetitions. Pelvic muscle contractions can either be held (for a count of five, say), and then released (resting for a count of five), or pulsed. Contractions should be coordinated with the breath, so that you are engaging the muscles on the exhale and releasing/resting them on the inhale.
Pelvic Floor Muscle Training: Beginner Level
If your pelvic floor muscles are weak or atrophied then you'll want to start slowly and give yourself plenty of time to re-build strength before moving on to more challenging exercises.
Start in a comfortable seated position, as described above, with the muscles of your abdomen, thighs and buttocks relaxed
inhale slowly for a count of five, filling your belly with air
as you exhale slowly lift and contract your pelvic floor muscles (bottoms up!) and hold for a count of five (for a total count of ten, including the inhale and exhale). This is one repetition
repeat for ten repetitions (your total set count will be 100)
perform one set of ten repetitions three times a day, every day, for four weeks before moving on to the next challenge
Pelvic Floor Muscle Training: Intermediate Level
You should be able to complete the pelvic floor muscle training for beginners regimen comfortably before moving on to this more challenging program.
same setup as in the first step above
inhale slowly for a count of four, filling your belly with air
as you exhale slowly lift and contract your pelvic floor muscles (bottoms up!) and hold for a count of six (for a total count of ten, including the inhale and exhale). This is one repetition
repeat for thirty repetitions (your total set count will be 300). This should take about 3-5 minutes
perform one set of thirty repetitions three times a day, every day, for eight weeks before moving on to the next challenge
Pelvic Floor Muscle Training: Advanced Level
You should be able to complete the intermediate pelvic floor muscle training regimen comfortably before moving on to this more challenging program.
sit in lotus position or with your legs crossed in front of you
inhale slowly for a count of four, filling your belly with air
as you exhale slowly lift and contract your pelvic floor muscles (bottoms up!) and hold for a count of six (for a total count of ten, including the inhale and exhale). This is one repetition
repeat for fifty repetitions (your set count will 500)
now switch to pulsing your pelvic floor muscles, using the same breath count as before; inhale for a count of four, then pulse your pelvic floor muscles for six beats, holding them lifted after the last beat and through the next inhale (four beats) before pulsing them again on the exhale
repeat for another thirty repetitions (your set count for pulses will be 300 while your total set count will be 800)
perform one set of 80 repetitions once a day, every day. This set should take between 15- 20 minutes to complete
Pelvic Floor Muscle Training: Ninja Level
In yoga the muscles of the pelvic floor are collectively known as Mula Bandha, which in Sanskrit means "root lock." Locking the Mula Bandha by lifting and compressing the pelvic floor muscles is thought, in the yogic tradition, to contain and recirculate our prana, or life force.
Skilled yoga practitioners will activate and energize their Mula Bandha throughout their asanas, or poses, lifting and contracting the muscles of the pelvic floor during exhales, as in the exercises above. Aligning the mind, the body and the breath throughout challenging yoga poses cultivates awareness, turning our focus inward, developing body clairvoyance while also building strength and stamina.
Activating and energizing the muscles of your pelvic floor while active (as opposed to at rest, as in the exercises above) will train you to engage these muscles by default, without having to think about it. This will protect your lower back from injury during exercise by helping to stabilize the spine and will also help you maintain good posture by setting the tilt of the pelvis at an optimal angle.
It could also help keep you out of diapers.