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If you’ve ever been in a group fitness class, you’re probably already tired of being harped on about your posture - at least, you should be if your instructor is any good.
Posture and body alignment aren’t just for chiropractors. They’re an incredibly important part of fitness and functional movement. And unfortunately for us, most of us in the modern world have terrible posture.
Sitting on our tailbones, slouching our shoulders forward, and hanging our heads way forward are common postural issues for most, but especially moms. All that time you spend on the couch, cooing down at your baby while they nurse? It’s wonderful, and it also tends to throw your body way out of whack.
Especially when it comes to the pelvic floor, posture can be what makes or breaks you. You can do all the Kegels and exercises you want, but if you’re walking around with your torso slumped it’s going to have big consequences.
Here’s why proper posture is so important for the pelvic floor specifically:
It creates space for breath
You know your diaphragm, that balloonish thing that expands into your belly as you breathe in and shrinks as you breathe out? Think of it as sort of a mirror to your pelvic floor (they actually oddly look alike). When they’re in alignment, there’s plenty of room for your diaphragm to descend when you breathe, which allows for deeper breathing that fills your whole abdomen rather than being confined to your chest.
This increase in pressure pushes down on your pelvic organs and encourages movement, both in those organs and in the pelvic floor. When done as a part of regular breathing, this encourages circulation and flexibility in the pelvic floor.
If you’re slouching and your diaphragm is in a dramatically different position to your pelvic floor, the breath will often stay in your chest, overexpanding your ribs (which puts tension on the ligaments between your ab muscles), adding tension to your shoulders and neck, and creating shallower breathing patterns. This all combines to increase the pressure on your pelvic floor while reducing the movement of your organs. More pressure with worse circulation = bad.
It helps maintain balance
One of the core functions of your pelvic floor is balance and stability. Working in tandem with the other core muscles (namely the deep abdominals, the multifidi of the spine, and the diaphragm), the pelvic floor braces, tenses, and relaxes to help you maintain your center of gravity. It’s one reason the pelvic floor can get so thrown off in pregnancy - that big baby bump that keeps you from seeing your toes is a bit of a shocker for your stability muscles!
When pregnant especially, but often I see women keep this posture subconsciously after pregnancy as well, we tend to tuck our pelvises forward and stick out our bellies, creating a curve in the lumbar spine. At the same time, we slouch our shoulders down and jut our chins out away from the midline of the body.
All this means that there’s a lot of extra pressure on the abdomen, which your pelvic floor will be struggling to control. Not only that, but those weirdo curves we’re putting in our spine and the tensing in our butts from tucking forward lead to muscle weakness there as well, which means they can’t support the pelvic floor like they should. And since our deep abdominal muscles are almost always a bit weak after being stretched in pregnancy, you’ve got a big ole’ recipe for body disharmony.
It helps maintain intra-abdominal pressure
Remember that pressure I mentioned up above? One of the things the pelvic floor does for us is help us manage the fluctuations in the pressure in our abdomens. This is why we’re taught to brace and exhale when lifting something heavy, for example. It’s also why women who hold their breath while they push during childbirth are more likely to tear (same goes for pooping, people. Don’t hold your breath!). When we hold our breath and bear down during exertion, all that extra air in our abdomen is pushed against the pelvic floor and the ab muscles. Now, this is fine in small bits and can be managed by being aware of tensing your pelvic floor and abdomen when needed and breathing strategically. But when your posture sucks, those muscles are already under extra pressure because your slouching has limited the room in your abdomen. It’s also much harder to properly tense your muscles, whether consciously or just in reaction to exertion (which should happen automatically to some degree) when your muscles are overstrained by constant pressure and misalignment.
Maintaining good posture means your body is better able to manage the changes in pressure when you inhale, lift something, or push a baby out.
So, hopefully by now you’re starting to see why ignoring your posture will get you into trouble where your pelvic health is concerned. You can do all the Kegels in the world, but if you’re slouching all day you’re likely going to have pelvic floor issues. And paying attention to your posture not only while you’re working out, but as you go about your daily life, is one of the simplest things you can do to make your movement more effective and reduce pain and strain. Simple doesn’t always mean easy, though, does it? For many of us, bad posture has become a body habit that can be difficult to shake!Here’s a good way to start: Stand tall, with your feet about hip width apart. Roll your shoulders one at a time and let them land so they’re about in line with your ears - this might mean you need to tuck your chin back a bit too (it will feel like you’re getting a double chin at first). Then, without slumping your shoulders, rock your pelvis back and forth a bit on the spot. Once you’ve gone forward and backward a couple times, find a neutral position in the middle. Ideally, your ears, shoulders, hips, and ankles should now all be in one straight line. One way to test this is to take a yoga strap and hold it by your ear or shoulder with the weighted metal end hanging down. If you notice the strap is dangling far forward or behind your hips, make adjustments accordingly. Now that you’ve got a good idea what proper posture should feel like, the real chore is maintaining it. Because I’m willing to be that as soon as your attention goes to something else, you’re gonna fall right back into your usual slump!
One way I like to remind myself to check my posture is to check in every time I look at my phone. If you’re like me, you probably check that thing a zillion times a day. Every time you do, make a conscious effort to bring your head back over your shoulders, relax your shoulder down and away from your ears, and check out what your hips are doing. The more you do this, the easier it will be to maintain the alignment your body so desperately needs! If you’re sitting, let this check in be a reminder to maybe get up and move around a little bit, or at the very least to make sure you’re sitting on your butt, not your tailbone (they’re called sitz bones for a reason, people!)
If you’re feeling a lot of tension or soreness while working on your posture, good! Your muscles haven’t been used this way in a while and will take some adapting. If you’re really uncomfortable or stiff, reach out to me and I’ll send you a list of stretches you can do in 5 minutes that will provide relief right away.
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