Pelvic Floor & More

Hi. My name is Olivia. Welcome to a class about the pelvic floor. The pelvic floor is sometimes overlooked in instructions and yoga and exercise but it can be the root of, issues for the sacrum, the lower back, issues within incontinence, many other issues. And so when we do attend to it, there's the opportunity to ameliorate whatever it is going on with you. So let's see what happens.

The first step in, pelvic floor strengthening is actually pelvic floor releasing. So we need to be able to relax a muscle to engage a muscle. And believe it or not, the pelvic floor muscles in response to stress, they just grip. Hold on, and we don't even know it much of the time. And so with that, take a seat up on a couple blankets or a bolster, and you'll also use two blocks in today's practice. Alright. Sitting straight and tall, notice the sit bones.

They're like the casing of the pelvic floor right and left. And then to the front, there's the pubis into the back of the tailbone. And so those four points make like a diamond shape of bony spots or cartilaginous in case the pubis where the pelvic floor lies in between. And what we want to find is a release in that area, just even as you sit, letting the sit bones descend and spread. And as we queue in to the sit bones, you may feel one is more tucked in towards the pelvic floor than the other, and one's more splayed.

And so this is where releasing inner thigh down pulling outer thigh up can be useful. When you turn the flesh of the thigh around the bone, that zip bone that may have felt tucked in will release out. It will flare out. And so you might take that on both sides or one side. And see if you can make a more even sort of structure for the pelvic floor. And then in terms of the tailbone sacrum and their distance from the floor.

If you rock a little forward and back on your sit bones and then you get right on top of the sit bones, that's gonna be about neutral. Let me go over your right on the middle of the sit bones. Alright. And then closing the eyes. Inhale and lift the low band of ribs up as you breathe in and exhale release down. As we inhale, let's imagine the rib cage like an elevator rising and exhale softening.

Draw your shoulders back over your hips. And begin to draw your head back. So the crown of your head aligns over the pelvic floor. And then again, inhale ribs rise. And exhale soften around the hips, inner thighs, outer thighs, and gently open your eyes, interlace your fingers, press your palms forward.

And on the next inhale, you'll lift your arms and rock forward onto the fronts of the sit bones. You can glance up. Exhale rock back onto the backs of the sit bones. Hollow the abdomen back. Inhale rocking up and over the pelvic floor to the front of it.

And exhale rock back. So as you rock on the blankets on the bolster, there's a, like, a massage coming from that, which is beneath you, onto the soft tissues of the pelvic floor. Inhale lift the chest. And exhale rock back and come back to neutral lift through the crown of your head, spread the arms wide, inhale, and then exhale, give yourself a hug, or you can go into eagle arms, garudasana arms, and repeat. Inhale rocking forward on the sit bones towards the pubis, exhale from the belly back, and rock towards the tailbone.

Inhale rocking up and over the sit bones, exhale pull elbows to navel, lower belly hugs back one more time inhale and exhale. Come to neutral, release the arms, lower them down, and change the cross of your legs. If you're sitting cross legged, bring your other shin in front, and we'll repeat. Other index finger on top, press your palms forward. Inhale rocking forward to the sit bones.

Lift your chest. XL hug the belly back, rock to the back of the sit bones. Inhale lifting through the arms, rib cage tall, exhale pulling back, lowering the chest, inhale coming up, and exhale out, inhale and up, and then exhale spread the arms wide, and we'll take the opposite cross of the arm, either giving yourself the hug or coming into the eagle arms and repeat lifting the elbows, inhale. Exhale elbows to belly belly to spine. Inhale. Rock forward.

Feel the pelvic floor come down. Exhale rock back. You'll feel it come off the mat. Inhale or off the blanket. Lift the elbows.

And exhale. Hollow the abdomen back. Inhale. Right back to the middle and release the arms. Lower them down. And we'll take the knees and start some soofy circles. Sometimes they're called where we're going to roll around on the pelvis.

Sometimes we move a little bit on the blankets, feel free to readjust. So you feel stable on the bolster on the blankets, and you're rolling the rib cage in a circle. Arm's gonna help a little bit. And with that, fill yourself role onto the different diamond points of the pelvic floor. So from one sit bone to the tailbone to the other sit bone towards the pubis, and you can take your head and chest into this as well.

And you'll notice you pass through those two points that we were working with before or your front on the sit bones and back on the sit bones. And then coming around to neutral, change the leg cross, and we'll sufi circle the other way. Take your rib cage the opposite direction. This is one of those ones. Just don't think about it too much.

Rolling around There's no real right or wrong here, but you're just feeling feeling the blankets, the bolster, pelvic floor, getting in touch with that region, and inkling for a little bit of release there. And then landing, pulling forward with the chest, and release. Let's take the legs apart, upanisha Konasana. Reach out through the heels. Place your hands on the hip flexor Barry, the tops of your thighs.

And encourage down where the index fingers fall right there at the inner upper thigh. Sometimes it's called the groin release down there so that the pubis starts to release down. And then slip your hands to your inner knees, lift them, place the soles of your feet together, catch your shin or your ankles, lift your chest, and press your heels together, open the inner thighs apart. Now we still want to release the upper inner going down. So you might have to go one hand at a time or maybe 2.

Either way, encourage the upper upper upper inner thigh down so that the pubis comes forward and down. So you're not rocking back towards the tailbone, but you're right up on top again of the the diamond shape of the pelvis. And then taking your shins again, lift your chest draw the ribs forward and up a little bit of backbend feeling here. And with the lift of the rib cage inhale, like an elevator lift the rib cage up, exhale, soften the pelvis, soften the hips, inner thighs. You confirm a little of the buttocks at the moment. Notice that's not the same thing as contracting in the pelvic floor.

The buttocks are outside of the pelvic floor. Sometimes we squeeze the buttocks to get at the pelvic floor. We're still here in the zone of relaxing the pelvic floor. Maybe you start to hug the hips in a little bit. And then let's try that again with a block. So go ahead and take your block.

Place it width wise, because with widest width between your heels generally makes the knees go up and catching your shins again pull forward. Try to rock up on top of the sit bones. Press the heels into the block and from the outer hips in. So the heels and the outer buttocks do the same thing. They hug in. And then you come up on top of the sit bones.

Palvic floor releasing with the inner thighs, letting that be soft, open. And then let's try this with the feet on top of the block. It's the same concept. Just different location of the heat. Now you might bend your elbows so you can keep your rib cage forward.

Still press the heels together. Hug the outer hips in. And then releasing the feet off of the block. You'll set the block aside and come back to feet together. Then it's more open, isn't it? And so coming right up on the pelvic floor, crown of the head back over the pelvic floor.

Shoulders back. And then you'll lift your knees up and extend the legs forward. Okay. So that was all about the opening of the pelvic floor. Now we're going to move towards standing and engaging a little of the pelvic floor. And so for this, you'll set the blankets aside, and you can For now, just leave the blocks coming onto your hands and your knees. Bring your knees and feet wider than the hips.

So your little toes are at the mat edges. Risks can still just be shoulder distanced apart. Curl your toes under. Adomukashvanasana, a little bit spread, the heels, toe in so that you can draw the inner thighs back and back and back. So, again, there's a releasing of the upper inner groins. Uppermost part of your inner thighs from front to Barry.

And let the sit bones spread here. Let the sit bones widen. The only exception might be if you have a hamstring tear then you wouldn't wanna overdo that action. But otherwise, when the sit bone spread, we can get a little more motion. So the pelvic floor isn't so much pointing down to the floor, but it's drawing with the pelvis back and up.

It's moving in that direction. And then walk your hands back to your feet. Same same inner thighs releasing back hands to your hips slowly. Come up to standing. And we'll step the feet a little closer together with a block between the thighs.

So take a block right between the inner thighs as high as you can so that groin area is kind of the target spot. And then you bring your feet together comfortably close. They don't have to be touching by any means. Parallel feet and start to draw the block back, but also up. So to feel that, it can be a little challenging, bend the knees a bit, that we're not drawing the block up, root into the floor with your feet.

And then as you straighten your legs, inner thighs lifting the block up towards the pelvic floor. Buttocks go down sacrum down so we don't reach the back. Let's try it again. Bend the knees. And then as you straighten the legs, root into the earth and start to lift the thigh muscles, all horse sides, lift the block up, and with the lifting of the block, you might catch a sense of the pelvic floor lifting too, can happen.

And when all things are working well, it does happen. Let's try to get and bend the knees. And then as you straight and focus on the inner thigh lift, so that we don't try to squeeze at the pelvic floor from the big muscles of the glutes in particular. Smaller muscles. And the lift of the inner thighs, those are pretty big, but they do contribute to the lift of the pelvic floor. We're gonna keep lifting, and you're gonna lift so much with the block that your heels rise.

We use the block and lift it up and roll it back. And then squeeze the block and keep lifting it up as you take your heels down. Let's try this with the arms up. Arms up, ribs up, and squeeze the block. Lift it. Lift your heels.

And then lower. The heels keep lifting the block. The hint of the pelvic floor, without even asking the pelvic floor to do anything, it might be waking up a little bit. Raising the heels once again and lowering them down and release the arms. Release the block. Set it down.

Step your feet together. Tadasana without the block. Just notice having used the block sense of lift there, inner thighs, tall, pelvic floor tall, and relax, release, take both blocks, place them in front of you, and you'll face the long edge of your mat feet wide. Now going back to releasing hands at the upper inner thighs, and you're gonna roll the groins back as you hinge at your hips. And bring your hands down on the blocks or on the floor would be fine too.

Inhale here. Exhale coming all the way down. You can take the blocks lower, or you can set them aside. Take the blocks or the hands between the feet and release the head down. Now as you release down through the head like we did in down dog, roll the inner thighs from front to Barry, and allow the sit bones to spread exceptions, hamstring tears, and allow the pelvic floor to open.

Inhale. Coming up, walk your blocks forward, take them higher, and then exhale. Imagine a block between the inner thighs. Squeeze an imaginary block and lift it So the pelvic floor starts to activate supports you as you come up. Imagine you're lifting a block and you lift up.

And then we'll turn the heels in the toes out and bend the knees releasing the pelvic floor And then again, straightening is if you have a block between the inner thighs, lift the inner thighs, you might find the pelvic floor lifting. So we're kinda coming in like a backdoor, like, not going straight at the pelvic floor. That will come, but finding the inner thigh lift to support a subtle lift in the pelvic floor too. When you go down, release, when you come up, lift, inhale, releasing down, exhale coming up, pelvic floor lifts, inhale, releasing, inner thighs release, the buttocks can stay firm to keep the knee safely turned out, exhale coming up, inhale, lowering down. One more time. Exhale. Coming up.

And then we'll release to warrior 2 or turn the legs to the right, turning the right leg all the way out left foot in. You can take a slightly wider stance. And we'll try it here too. And so as you bend your knee, we'll take the same pattern to start, inhale releasing releasing into this opening, and then exhale squeezing the inner thighs up pelvic floor, spine lift. Inhale. Let it go.

Exhale. Come in and up. One more time. Inhale. Release. In and up. Now we're gonna change the breath because it can go both ways. So there's some flexibility here. Sometimes when we bend the knee, we really need to lift in the pelvic floor.

So that we don't spill the abdominal contents forward. This is something I spoke about in a different show for this same pose, back relief too. And so let's try the exhale on the bend. Lift the pelvic floor, lifting through the inner thighs. This is if you're hugging a block between the inner thighs and then inhale straighten.

Exhale. Now finding the lift of the frontal hip points with the pelvic floor Inhale, straighten, and one more time, exhale. Inhale. Straighten. Parallel the feet.

Do the whole thing on the left. Turn the legs to the left. Okay. So the first one, you're gonna release into your inhale and bend. And then exhale squeeze the inner thighs up. Imagine you're hugging a block up inhale release.

Exhale. Squeeze up, hug up. One more time. Inhale. Release. Huggging up. Stay here for your inhale.

And then exhale, still lifting in the pelvic floor, even though the inner thighs are opening. Exhale. Sorry. Inhale. Come up and exhale. Bend. And then on the inhale releasing a little bit.

So just as a reminder, as we take one more, the exhale down helps us hold the belly up as we bend deeply. And then come up and parallel your feet, heel toe, step your legs together. So we have lots of choices, lots of choices with how to work with the pelvic floor. Alright. We're gonna go down to the blocks. You'll stack them like so.

One on top of the other, widest width. And those are gonna be like a little stool, little seat. And you'll come down and both feet are a little bit turned out. Maybe about 30 or 45 degrees, not all the way. And the knees also a little bit out.

The eyes a little turned out, so you align hip, knee, foot. Alright. And then you can just relax for a moment. Come back to relaxing. We did a lot of sitting and relaxing earlier. Let the sit bones have a quality of descending and spreading. If one feels a little tucked in, you could make an adjustment.

If one feels tucked under, you could pull back. I can see you start to have a sensitivity to the bottom of the pelvis. Sometimes the sit bones, they seem like feet feet for the torso. And so how we stand on our feet makes a difference. Okay. So we don't have the block anymore, but we're gonna work with the pelvic floor.

We don't even have our inner thighs really working anymore in the same way because we're not standing. So now it's more directly at the pelvic floor. And let's try and keep the buttocks soft so they don't squeeze and try to help. Alright. So you're gonna take a breath in, relax. You can even let the sit bones have a quality of spreading. And then as you exhale squeezing the pelvic floor, lift like it now as an elevator coming up and then inhale and release.

So earlier, we were lifting through the rib cage and now exhale pelvic floor hugs in and up. So it's like a elevator that shrinks smaller and rises and inhale elevator goes back down. One more time. Exhale. Elevator comes in. It goes way up to the top of the building, and then inhale and release.

Okay. And so again, these are tiny muscles within the diamond shape. And they can help us activate our abdomen, our core. And so this can come in handy when we try to do more challenging poses like Baccasana. So this bakasana, it's not so much about striking an arm balance, but we're going to take the entry into bakasana with awareness of the pelvic floor. So you can come up on the block if you're a little bit newer to Vakasana, or it's been a while, maybe put a blanket there.

And Stand up on your block, if you'd like, does help. Take a little squat. And then very similar to this shape we were just in, you'll take the knees apart. Palms on the floor, wrists are shoulder distance apart. And your elbows can bend, and they will.

And the pelvic floor right now might be completely relaxed. And so taking an exhale, not even trying to go into this full pose, just find your pelvic floor lift. It's very similar to what we were just doing on the blocks. And then inhale release and exhale drawing. It's like forward and up a launch pelvic floor towards the chest. Inhale, release, and now launching forward like a bird, look forward, hug your wings, your legs into your upper arms, and then you shift your weight into your hands. And even if you don't come off the block with the feet.

You could lift one foot, but you don't even need to lift any foot to just feel on an exhale how the pelvic floor can project you forward a little bit. And then you may surprise yourself. And be able to balance. But, again, just in the trying, can you connect the transition, the flow into the pose with the exhale in the pelvic floor? And so this kind of approach could also hold true when you're lifting a heavy bag of groceries or doing something where you get some back pain.

You can try to act access the exhale of pelvic floor and see if it helps you activate some of the deep core muscles that can help with some of the more challenging movements even in everyday life. Alright. Coming off the block and onto a blanket or 2. For Mahamudra, you'll take a seat. Extend your legs forward.

Starting in Dandasana. And so now, again, we're in a seated position checking in the sit bones side by side. If one needs some adjusting, you can reach and adjust You set things up for your pelvic floor, and then you'll take the inner right knee, lift it up, open it to the side. And if there's any knee discomfort, you can use a block or your other blanket and support the knee. Like so. It's also if there's no discomfort, you can just let the knee be there. On an inhale and take your arms up.

On an exhale, you're going to clasp your big toe Or if that's far, just place your fingertips on the floor. Alternatively, you could put a strap around your foot or your big toe. And one of the ways you know if you need a strap or not is can you lift the chest and come up and out of the rounded spine. So this is going to be more of a backbend where the mid spine comes forward and the chest Olivia lifts up. Relax the shoulders down.

Inhale. Look up. And as you exhale, chest stays tall, but lower your head down. You can look down or close your eyes. As you inhale, release in the pelvic floor, and as you exhale, lift in the pelvic floor.

Inhale, release the pelvic floor. Exhale. Begin your exhale and then towards the end of the exhale, lift in the pelvic floor. One more thing here. Inhale. And then exhale lifting in the pelvic floor and empty of air, hollow the abdomen back and up. So you've got all three bondas going here.

The mula banda, Udayana banda, and Jalendar banda, and release, lift your head. Come back to Dandasana. I will take the second side. In your left knee, lift, open the knee out to the side, see how your knee feels, if it needs any support. Inhale. Lift the arms.

Exhale. Take what you need so that you can get a long tall spine. Or the mid spine is not rounding Barry, but comes forward. Inhale. Lift the head look up. Exhale chest tall, but lower the head down.

Let's let John Darnpanda. Inhale, pelvic floor open soft, exhale, and start to lift elevator like pelvic floor towards the navel. Inhale, release the pelvic floor, chest stays tall, shoulders soft, exhale, lifting in the pelvic floor. And then last time, we'll add the Udiana bandha when we're empty of air. Inhale. Lots of air coming in.

Exhale. Gin is down, pelvic floor lifts, and then empty of air, hollow the abdomen back and up, projecting the spine even taller. Inhale. Look forward and exhale. Release. Lift your left knee and extend.

The and and a staff pose gaze straight ahead, steady gaze, Drishti stable, stable, Drishti stable mind, And then release and come off of your blanket. Okay. I'm gonna work with our blocks. You could use a bolster too. If you have a bolster, you just put it down with the blanket. Otherwise, 2 setups, 2 options. 1 is lower, one is higher.

Some space between the blocks, medium height, low height, or maybe if you're taller, longer in the torso or a little more flexible or supple, you could come medium and then high. But we want it soft. We'll put a blanket on top. It's one blanket. Your other blanket is going to be a cover for your ankles and then like a pillow for the shins.

So you open it, open it, and then you can make it into a very long, thin rectangle. So it's long enough that it can cover your ankles and then wrap under your shins. And from there, you'll lie back with your ribs on the lower block and the head on the higher one. You may need to adjust things so that you feel fairly symmetrical. If everything just feels too high, you don't feel relaxed.

Lower the blocks down. This is a variation of Soupta badakonasana. And this one is back into the realm of relaxing. So letting go through the hips and thighs. Through the arms and shoulders.

Notice as you relax the belly that it moves with the breath, But the same inhale that inflates the abdomen creates some pressure as the ribs fill with air and the diaphragm moves towards the pelvis. There is some pressure from waistband towards pelvic floor as you inhale. And then as you exhale and the air exits out the nose or mouth and the diaphragm rises towards the shoulders, there's less pressure on the pelvic floor. This is just part of natural, relaxed breathing. And so can you feel now that process and the effects on the pelvic floor? And so as you inhale, it's almost the sense that the sit bones are spreading.

And as you exhale that they're narrowing and the soft tissue between muscles of the pelvic floor, pelvic floor, same, inhale, gentle pressure down and a spread, an exhale, a narrowing, a lifting that's no longer effortful. Just a wave created from the flow of breath. And a very similar experience is occurring in the neck throat when you breathe. There's a widening naturally as you inhale, and a closing, gentle closing as you exhale. So the breath touches the ribs, the abdomen, the pelvis, the neck, and throat, So all of these places where we can have bondas, these seals of energy, we can also have open flow of energy.

This could be your Shavasana for this practice, or you can come down and lie flat. As you're ready, either coming up off of the blocks or rolling to your side if you've come down flat. Thank you for your practice.