Are your pelvic floor exercises actually doing more harm than good?

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]They can present with back pain. It can present with constipation. It can present with urgency frequency cuz remember your bladder is sitting right here on top of these muscles. So when the muscles are tense, your bladder is feeling like there's something something activating it. And so it's like, "Oh man, I got to pee. That means I have to pee. This tension is telling my bladder I have to pee." But it's really that your bladder is not that full, it's that these muscles are telling you to do that. You can also have trouble peeing cuz you can see that your urethra goes through here. And if the muscles are really tight, sometimes it can be difficult to urinate because it clenches off the pee. And then with sex, it can cause pain. If they're really tight, it can prevent blood from getting to the genital organs. So for men, they can have erectile dysfunction. For women, they can have difficulty getting orgasms or difficulty getting arousal because they're not getting blood flow to the clitoris. Sometimes it can also cause premature ejaculation in men. And so these muscles are so important, and all we hear about is Kegels. And Kegels are exercises to strengthen these muscles.

[00:01:02]But Kegels are good when you have a normal pelvic floor, meaning like there's no tension, it's completely normal, it's acting normal, you're not having any symptoms at all. But if you have any of the symptoms I talked about, doing Kegels might make it worse because you're now tightening muscles that are already tight.

[00:01:17]We also talked about pelvic floor relaxation, doing exercises to specifically relax these muscles. So that can be diaphragmatic breathing.

[00:01:26]That can be doing like a figure four stretch.

[00:01:29]That can be doing happy baby pose, which are yoga poses, or child's pose. All these things can sort of stretch and lengthen these muscles so they can learn to relax again. Now when it's really bad, you have to go see a pelvic floor physical therapist who can really work with you to identify which of the muscles are maybe more dysfunctional and maybe work specifically on those.

[00:01:49]Um but I think it's it's so important, it's under evaluated and under discussed when it comes to sexual function. It's a hugely important part of sexual function.