Pelvic Health & Orthopedic Physical Therapy
Addressing your questions about pelvic, women's, and musculoskeletal health. Health is a journey. Movement is healing!
One of my biggest pet peeves as a pelvic health PT is when runners or weight lifters think they need to leak urine to prove a good work out. Ugh! First of all it's gross. Second of all we don't see a problem with having an accident? If you are peeing unintentionally during any activity which does not include you sitting on a toilet you should see a pelvic and women's health physical therapist. Let me explain why.
The abdominal cavity has four sides to it. The top is the diaphragm. The front is the abdominal wall. The back is the spine and back musculature. The bottom is the pelvic floor. When you leak urine with exercise it indicates to me that something in this system is not operating to its best ability. In fact there may be more than one thing. Urine leakage generally indicates pelvic floor weakness. Weakness in this area means that one key aspect to the "core" is not optimally functioning. When we take a closer look what a pelvic and women's health physical therapist may find is that other aspects of the abdominal cavity are working less efficiently or compensating due to lack of coordination with pelvic floor musculature. Okay, okay you don't leak all the time. Just after the 10th mile on the pavement. Or just when you hit your rep max with dead lifts. This is still something we can work on. Yes it could still be a deficiency in pelvic muscle strength or endurance. It could be that the force of running on pavement or your form as you start to tire change your ability to activate pelvic floor muscles. It could be you don't even realize you are holding your breath with lifting which creates increased pressure on the bladder. So the moral of the story remains the same. You still should not accept urine leakage with exercise. A pelvic health physical therapist can help assess and treat this type of urine leakage and improve your work outs. Comments are closed.
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AuthorHello! I am Caitlyn, Doctor of Physical Therapy and Board Certified Women's Health Physical Therapist working in St Louis, Missouri. Faculty in developing residency program. Endowarrior Categories
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July 2021
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