Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy for CrossFitters
Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy is such a hot phrase being talked about everywhere right now. It’s important to understand how it can help you if you’re experiencing stress urinary incontinence (SUI) during high impact activities such as CrossFit. Athletic Edge Physical Therapy is San Diego’s leading pelvic floor physical therapy clinic.
First, what is SUI? Stress urinary incontinence is when you leak urine when a stress is placed on the pelvic floor that it cannot maintain pressure against. For example, you perform a box jump and leak; the impact from the box jump placed a demanding force on your pelvic floor and bladder that it couldn’t withstand, and therefore you leaked urine.
This not only happens with running and jumping activities, but also heavy lifting, sneezing, or even laughing. These all put pressure down into our core canister and our pelvic floor.
Factors that contribute to SUI:
Stress itself (high stress job, stressful Homelife, etc) often place us in a fight or flight mode at all times and that alone can cause tightening of your pelvic floor, core, and whole body which leads to unwanted leaks.
Weakness of the pelvic floor muscles: this can be simply because you never learned how to actually contract and relax your pelvic floor to your benefit, or it happens often during pregnancy and postpartum due to a constant stress being placed on the pelvic floor for ~9 months.
Child birth: Whether vaginal or cesarean, these both can contribute to pelvic floor weakness and therefore stress urinary incontinence.
Posture: constantly flexed or extended postures (imagine working at a computer long periods of time day in and day out, leaning forward while carrying your new born, standing/walking while pregnant and having an excessive increased pressure to the anterior pelvic floor), all of these plus more, cause an imbalance of pressure in our pelvic floor and core canister.
Menopause/Hormonal Changes: The decrease in estrogen levels during menopause can lead to the thinning of the vaginal and urethral tissues, weakening the support for the bladder.
Obesity: Excess body weight increases pressure on the bladder and pelvic floor, leading to greater strain and a higher likelihood of urine leakage.
Previous Pelvic Surgery: Surgeries such as hysterectomy can alter the support structures of the pelvic floor, increasing the risk of developing SUI.
Chronic Coughing: Conditions such as chronic bronchitis, asthma, or smoking-related coughing can repeatedly increase abdominal pressure, weakening the pelvic floor over time.
How can pelvic floor physical therapy help?
A trained pelvic floor physical therapist will be able to perform an internal and external exam of your pelvic floor, surrounding musculature strength and mobility, balance, and assess how you move during your sport (i.e. CrossFit, running, lifting, etc) to see when you’re experiencing symptoms and then develop a plan of care moving forward. You can also book a session with us if you’d like to learn more: https://athleticedgept.janeapp.com/.
During your sessions if there is any tightness and/or weakness upon the internal exam, your PT can provide trigger point releases, educate you on how to correctly contract/relax your pelvic floor (PF), and go over modalities that you can use at home to assist this further.
There will also be thorough education and practice on how to breathe in congruence with your PF, with correct core bracing strategies so you can then utilize this during your workouts to help reduce leaking.
Conclusion:
If you or someone you know has been experiencing leaking with activities, or even laughing, sneezing, coughing, you can totally fix this and you do not need to live with this forever. I encourage you to seek out a pelvic floor physical therapist, and if you’re in the San Diego area, please reach out to us! Athletic Edge Physical Therapy specializes in pelvic floor physical therapy for the fitness athlete of any age or experience level. If you’d like to schedule an appointment with one of our highly trained professionals, please visit our link: https://athleticedgept.janeapp.com/ .
