Rehabilitate Your Pelvic Floor & Core The Easy Way  Your pelvic floor is a group of muscles that support your bladder, uterus and bowel. When these muscles are strong they keep the uterus in place and prevent prolapse and incontinence (involuntary leakage of urine or feaces). The pelvic floor also allows you to 'hold on' to control your bladder and bowel function until you are able to relieve yourself in an appropriate place. It is meant to provide a springy resting place for our pelvic organs, with enough give to allow for shock absorbent and movement without crushing our bladder or uterus and is able to relax to allow the bladder and bowel to void and to allow for childbirth. Your pelvic floor works with certain muscles of the trunk to enhance out posture and control some movements, and prevent dysfunctional pain of the back and pelvis. It also has the very important function of providing sensation and feed back to enhance the sexual experience for both partners. Altogether these many faceted functions make your pelvic floor very important in your life and it is worth it to prevent loss of tone and if that happens to rehabilitate it as quickly as possible. What can you do to keep your pelvic floor health or rehabilitate your pelvic floor if you have already lost tone? Your very first step is to become reacquainted with the muscles of the pelvic floor, I like to call this exercise Pelvic Floor Awareness: Sit in a chair as uprightly as possible, and just allow yourself to focus on the feeling around your vagina, you may notice that in this posture it feels tight and closed. Now allow yourself to slump and notice the change in the feeling to one that is perhaps more open and loose. Do this until you have made yourself aware of these changes in sensation, they will become important later in this article. Please note this is not an exercise that will tone up your pelvic floor, it is an exercise in awareness, so that you are more able to isolate those muscles during exercise. Many of us are already aware of pelvic floor exercises called “Kegel's” most women who have had children are introduced to them during their hospital stay or during their birth preparation exercises. The problem is many of us do not get around to doing them often enough to be effective. We might concentrate on them immediately after the birth of our children and then as life gets busy again, we cannot find the time or simply do not remember to do them. I do mine in the car, as I am traveling to and fro and no-one can even tell I am doing them. Except for the slightly smug look on my face. Now that you have become more aware of your pelvic floor, let's look at some exercises and other ways of rehabilitating it. Pelvic Floor Awareness is key to doing Kegels' and one of the ways we can do our Kegels without taking time out, (except in the car) is to do them while urinating: Easy Kegel's: Sitting upright focus on your urethra, where the stream comes from and slow the flow. This can be done while urinating (very difficult at first) and also can be done in a chair (just don't let go for real,) remember to just pretend. Do not jerk the flow to a stop (for real or pretend) concentrate on slowing the flow in a smooth way, feel yourself drawing up inside and then hold it, at its highest point and hold it for a count of three breaths. Continue to breathe normally all the way through as you release, slowly and smoothly, relaxing right down until you can feel yourself open just little bit like a flower beginning to bloom. Do this in an upright position with your head held high and your back straight and breathe gently all the way though, do not hold your breath. If you hold your breath you may use the wrong muscles by mistake, many people use their lower abdominal muscles thinking that they are their pelvic floor muscles and wonder why they still leak a little when they laugh. Even easier rehabilitation via Vibration Platforms: The latest innovation which is proving to be very effective is the Whole Body Vibration Platform. Vibration platforms have a lot of research backing them up and are being used in rehabilitation, therapeutic clinics and fitness centres all over the world. The research proves that they not only build muscle strength and improve bone density, but also provide an easy way to help rehabilitate stroke and accident victims. The special vibrating platform stretches the muscles, all the muscles in the body, even the ones around our organs and deep inside our body, which activate Tonic Vibration Reflexes (TVR). Because the vibration plate oscillates at 30 to 50 times per second these TVR muscle contractions happen at the same speed. In conventional muscle training a maximum of 40% of the muscle fibres are activated, the vibration platforms activate between 95% and 97% of the muscle fibres. This also means that the deeper stabilizing muscles, such as the spinal muscles and the pelvic floor muscles are activated and rehabilitated while using the platform. This means if your are a little bit lazy like me and want an easy way to get control of your pelvic floor you can stand on a vibration platform for 10 minutes a day and let it do all the work for you. Great for just after a baby when you are often feeling too tired to exercise and for those of us who are nearing 50 and work too hard. This is now my preferred way of exercising my whole body along with some yoga, and I can definitely feel a difference. I have had four children and have been in a wheel chair and now I can sneeze without any leakage most of the time! That is such a breakthrough for me, I can't wait to tell all of my friends. What about some nutrition just for your bladder? A 2004 study showed an association between a lower risk of overactive bladder, which leads to symptoms of urgency and leakage, and higher intakes of protein, Vitamin D and potassium. It might be sensible to include foods rich in these nutrients including oily fish, nutrient dense fruits, vegetables and whey protein or meats in your diet. One other idea for you before we finish: put up some little reminders in places that will catch your eye, some brightly colored stickers or I like to use those little tags for marking pages you can get at the newsagents (they don't leave marks on the walls or tear paint off). Whenever you see a sticker it is a signal to freeze and become aware of your pelvic floor, to check and see if it is switched on. Try releasing the muscles, if you feel a relaxing or lowering, give a big grin, your muscles are starting to work without your having to focus on them! If not, smile and give yourself a pat on the back for remembering to check and gently draw the muscles in. You have developed Pelvic Floor Awareness and are now well on the way to creating a rehabilitated pelvic floor. As a body practitioner I can tell you that muscle memory (yes even muscles have memory cells) can help you create new and improved muscle habits, just by working at it and having awareness. Soon if not already you will be able to laugh, dance and even sneeze without having to worry and your sex life won't be too bad either! Click here to Return to Vibration Platform Product Page...    balanceNOOSA Massage, Beauty & Fitness Phone 0408 003199