Are you a fitness instructor working with pregnant women?
Do you have a plan for teaching pelvic floor exercises to your clients as a part of their overall fitness program?
Are you aware of the variations in ways to teach pelvic floor muscle exercises?
Health and Fitness instructors have an amazing opportunity to reinforce the correct pelvic floor technique in their pregnant clients. Training pelvic floor fitness needs attention to detail as part of your clients overall pregnancy program.
Here are some of the Top 10 Tips to remember when teaching and training your pregnant clients about their own pelvic floor fitness.
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Know where they are. Pelvic floor muscles can be hard to locate. Have some tips in store to help explain the anatomy of the pelvic floor to your clients.
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Know how they work. The pelvic floor has a number of functions. Explaining these includes talking about their role with bladder and bowel control, holding on to wind, supporting the pelvic organs and having a role with sexual function.
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Help feel them working. Have a list of ways to help clients feel their pelvic floor muscles working, for example, when sitting on a ball leaning forwards, feeling the action of the muscles. Use different cues to describe how to connect to the pelvic floor muscles.
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Be accurate first. Incorrect technique can cause pelvic floor problems, so be sure to help your clients master correct technique before building hold time and repetitions.
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Lift and Lower. The pelvic floor lifts inside the pelvis, holds when deliberately held, and lowers when the muscles ‘let go’. Each of these need to be ‘felt’ when doing the exercises correctly.
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Use different positions. Variations are needed to help women feel their ‘best position’ for doing pelvic floor exercises in.
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Train to fitness. Focus on individual pelvic floor fitness programs, training to the endurance level of your clients. Both hold time and number of repetitions can vary for individuals. Allow for individual variation.
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No more stop the flow. Remove the myths, as some women still think that stopping the flow of urine is the way to do pelvic floor muscles exercises. While this can be a check to help ‘find’ the muscles and ‘feel’ them working, it is NOT recommended as a way to exercise the pelvic floor muscles.
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Change and modify as pregnancy progresses. Pregnancy changes the pelvic floor, and the way that it feels. Modify programs according to these changes either in endurance, hold time and repetitions, and the positions used to do the exercises in.
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Release and Relax fully. Pelvic floor relaxation is an important component of doing pelvic floor muscle exercises. Ensure that full relaxation is felt after each lift – pelvic floor tightness can cause problems.
