Pelvic Floor Exercises – How do I do Them?

The pelvic floor is the group of muscles at the base of the pelvis that join the front of the pelvic bones to the back of end of the spinal column at the coccyx. They are important to provide support for the pelvis and internal organs plus help manage incontinence.

The starting point for doing pelvic floor exercises is to do them when still, lying down and progress from there.  Keep breathing normally and do not hold your tummy in tight.

There are many variations of pelvic floor exercise protocols, just like there are many variations of exercises to work your leg muscles, so a good overall program and starting point is as follows.

How to perform pelvic floor exercises

Imagine we are going to make your pelvic floor act as a lift and travel up slowly up several floors then controlled back down again.

1. Breathe in
2. Breathe out and slowly lift the front (as if you were stopping wee), middle (entrance of the vagina, like you were holding in a tampon or sucking a pea up a straw) and back of the pelvic floor (holding in wind if you were on a date with Brad Pitt) all together to level 1, pause.

We are then going to level 2, 3 and then roof.

3. Slowly relax the muscles going back through the levels one at a time

Repeat 10 times, 3 sets 2 times a day

If you are unsure how to do a pelvic floor contraction, if you are in fact contracting your pelvic floor or there is pain when you do so please book online to see one of our Women’s Health physiotherapists to check what you need to work on.

Amy Greenlees

Physiotherapist

Exercise Physiologist

Available at:

Contact CBD Wynyard Physiotherapy