Hi, I’m Kathleen Carter founder of Work Carter Fitness. I believe that when you work smarter, your muscles naturally work harder. And that’s what Work Carter is all about. The fitness world tells us that we have to squeeze and tense everything to get results. But I truly believe if we learn how the muscles work and let them do their jobs, our bodies are able to get better results and diminish pain without us tensing or squeezing the muscles. Which means, during this course we will not be doing kegels. What? Crazy talk. This is a self guided course so please go at your own pace.

Do you have hip pain? Tail bone pain? Do you leak when you sneeze or walk or run? Is sex painful? Do you get SI pain? All of these things can be caused by the pelvic floor not functioning properly. I want you to live a life that isn’t held back by needing to pee all the time or having chronic hip pain or not enjoying the pleasures of life. Hopefully by taking this course, you are positioning yourself to both prevent and get rid of any issues arising from pelvic floor dysfunction. I have many success stories of clients overcoming issues caused by the pelvic floor- sometimes it’s a few weeks and sometimes it’s months. But I do believe it’s possible.

This course is meant to educate you on the pelvic floor and help you on your own journey to overcoming any hip pain, incontinence, painful sex, or any other pelvic things that may be going on. It in no way is meant to replace pelvic floor therapy that your body may need. So if you are experiencing any of the symptoms listed, I highly recommend seeing a pelvic floor therapist.

The pelvic floor is a group of muscles. It’s not an imaginary sheath like you may think (and I thought for years even as a fitness professional). It’s truly a group of muscles. Just like the abs are grouped together (you have 4 layers of abs), or the quads are grouped together (you have 4 anterior thigh muscles) or the hamstrings are grouped together (you have 2), the pelvic floor is a group of muscles. And muscles need to be strengthened. But they also need to know how to relax. Sometimes they need soft tissue work. We are going to talk about all of these things.

Let's look at a skeleton and see where the pelvic floor muscles are.

The pelvic floor can get affected in many ways because remember- it’s a group of muscles. Some of the most common ways I've seen the pelvic floor get affected are tailbone injuries, chronic tensing/tucking/squeezing of the glutes, and childbirth. Notice I listed childbirth last? Well, it’s because we teach women that pelvic floors aren’t affected unless they’ve had a baby. Which is dumb. It’s like saying people can’t get back pain unless they lift weights. Everyone has pelvic floor muscles (yes, even men) and they can get injured from many different causes.

So now let’s talk about the pelvic floor’s function. It is the group of muscles located at the bottom of your pelvis. Think of your pelvis like a bucket - the pelvic floor muscles are holding up the bottom of the bucket. It helps support your internal organs. And it works together with your diaphragm and abs to create your core. We can look at it as a canister. The top of the can is your diaphragm, body of the can is your abs, and the bottom of the can is your pelvic floor. They work together to help us breathe and support our internal organs.

Let’s stick with this visual of a can. The can should be perfectly stacked. Diaphragm over pelvic floor. Structurally, this means the ribcage should be stacked over the pelvis for the canister to work at its best. But it can get out of whack and that can cause issues. We won’t dive into this too much in this course but it’s important to note that the abdominals job is to keep the ribs and pelvis stacked at all times so that the diaphragm and pelvic floor are the happiest they can be.

Breathing, the thing we do to keep us alive. Why is it important? When the diaphragm, abs, and pelvic floor all work together, the body is happiest. How do they work together? When we take an inhale the diaphragm and pelvic floor descend together. So let’s think about that for a moment. As we take air in, the diaphragm moves down and the pelvic floor moves down because they’re taking on air. (Or at least that’s supposed to happen). The abs, will move out a little bit but shouldn’t move too much. Now, I’m not going to tell you belly breathing is bad for you, but I will say it’s not the most ideal when you’re standing up because we want our organs more protected and not moving around too much. We ideally want the canister to stay as is and the pelvic floor and diaphragm moving downwards on the inhale. If there’s a lot of tension in the pelvic floor, the breathing mechanics will be off. The pelvic floor won’t move down like it should, and then the air pressure is pushed outwards into your abdomen. And we don’t want all that pressure going outwards. (side note: hernias are mismanaged air pressure).

Now, let’s use the concept of belly breathing because most likely we are all pretty comfortable with it and this example will help us understand what should be going on in your pelvic floor. So I’m not saying this is what should be happening- we are just using this example of belly breathing to gain some understanding. Place your hands on your belly and take a deep breath in. The abs move outwards when you breathe, yes? Let’s take this concept and think about our pelvic floor now. So just as the abs move outwards because they’re expanding due to taking on air, the diaphragm and pelvic floor should do the same. It’s like filling up a balloon. Think of your pelvic floor as a balloon. As you breathe in the pelvic floor expands down because it’s getting bigger with air. So let’s place our hands on our belly again because I think this visual really helps… take a deep breath in and fill up your belly with air. It gets bigger or expands out because you’re taking air in. We are going to dive more into pelvic floor breathing in a bit but let’s go ahead and try a couple breaths. Stand with feet a little wider than your hips and take a deep breath in. We are going to breathe in through our nose and out through our mouth throughout this course. Think about the space front to back (pubic bone to tailbone) and side to side (leg to leg) expanding downward as we inhale. Let’s try a few. Now if you don’t feel this right away that’s totally normal. It took me years to really feel it. But that’s why I’m doing this, to hopefully help you find it faster. Let’s try a few more breaths and remember- when you inhale, it expands downwards because it’s taking on air.

Another way to think about this... when you go to the bathroom, you have to relax your pelvic floor muscles in order for things to be released. In contrast, you can also press down on your pelvic floor to "help move things along faster" when you're going to the bathroom. This bearing down is not what we want. We want the nice and easy relaxed feeling in the pelvic floor muscles. You can play around with this while using a toilet.

We are going to talk more about pelvic floor breathing in a bit because it’s uber important. But we are going to take a break to talk about foam rolling your pelvic floor because what is the pelvic floor again? Muscles. And what do muscles need? Soft tissue work to release them- massages, foam rolling, etc. If the pelvic floor muscles are tight, then it’s going to be hard to push a human through them. Sex is going to be painful. And a lot of times incontinence is caused by the muscles being too tight as well. If you’ve ever been to physical therapy then you know the manual therapy (the hands on) is super helpful in gaining some change. It won’t fix the mechanics but it will help.

We are trying to massage the pelvic floor muscles using some different techniques. As a reminder your pelvic floor muscles are: - Located at the base of your pelvis - Think pubic bone to tailbone - and inner thigh to inner thigh - I like to find my sits bones (that pointy part in your butt) and work from there. Start where you hamstring attaches to your booty, and walk about an inch up to find your SITS bone. Please note: you may experience some soreness after doing self releases. This is normal. It's like when you're sore after you go get a massage. You should not be in pain. If you are in pain, you may have applied too much pressure while doing the self releases. Take a break and allow the area to recover. You can try again with less pressure next time. If the pain continues, please see a pelvic floor physical therapist.

We will release the muscles ourselves by lying on our sides and massaging the bottom hip. The goal is to find the bones in the booty and work on the inside (towards the middle) of the bones to release using your thumb. My thumb hooks into the muscles underneath the bones. I only show one side as an example, but please do both sides.

If it's more comfortable you can lie on your side, and massage the top hip. I only show one side as an example, but please do both sides.

You also can get into the front of your pelvic floor muscles. They need release too.

I love using a lacrosse ball. This is a go to for having in my bag for long days sitting at a desk or traveling. Simply place it in the pelvic floor muscles and relax into it. This can be a very passive way of massaging the muscles.

I purchased my pelvic wand from intimaterose.com This tool is great. Their website provides instructional videos as well.

The SI joint can get compressed when we carry a lot of tension in our glutes and hips. Releasing it can bring a good amount of relief.

The tensor fascia latae. Rarely talked about but when massaged, can make a big difference in hip pain. This muscle helps facilitate hip flexion and internal rotation but can get overworked when the Gluteus Maximus is not as strong as it should be.

Another muscle that can get overworked if the glute max is not working the way it should be.

If you've ever had any kind of abdominal surgery, you have scar tissue. It's important that we work on our scar tissue so it doesn't cause any issues. Here are some simple ways for you to work on your own scar tissue.

We are back to breathing. Part of the reason I wanted to take some time to foam roll first is because you can’t breathe and expand muscles that are tight. Tense your belly and try to breathe into it. It doesn’t feel good right? So one of the most important things we need to learn is how to relax the pelvic floor so it can expand the way it needs to.

When we look at how muscles function, they have two ways of loading or working. They need to eccentrically load or stretch and they need to concentrically load or contract. I like to think of a rubber band. When you stretch it, you don’t want any tension in it, right? So think of inhaling as a stretch- there should be no tension. And when we exhale- guess what, you still don’t need tension. That rubber band is going to come back right to where it started. You’re getting rid of air so it’s naturally going to deflate. This is where other courses will tell you to do a kegel. I don’t think you need to. I truly believe our muscles are smart and will do their job if we let them. Sometimes they need a little help but in this case, I believe if you exhale, the muscles will contract naturally (Now, I will put a disclaimer on this... if you have been to a pelvic floor therapist and they’ve given you instructions, please follow them).

Let’s revisit: when we inhale, the pelvic floor expands down because it’s taking on air. When we take on air, something has to get bigger. When we exhale the pelvic floor lifts or contracts up because it’s deflating. Let’s just try to breathe in and let the pelvic floor expand down. Do not force it down, bulge it down or anything else. Just take an inhale, make sure you’re not trying to make anything happen and see what happens. Let’s take some time here. You may not feel anything yet. That’s okay. When something is new, it takes time. Just take a nice calm inhale through your nose and you can think either relaxing down or expanding down. Different cues work for different people. Just pay attention to what you know. Keep prating this on your own.

This is my favorite way to think about breathing. If you are a woman taking this course, you have three holes. If you are a man taking this course, you have two holes. Women, we always have to be overachievers right? If you think about each hole having its own grouping of muscles, it can make it easier to feel the muscles working or not working. It may be easier to expand one more than the others. It took me forever to feel the front expand or relax. So let’s close our eyes, And focus on the front hole. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. We are going to take a few moments here. Great. Now, let’s try the middle hole. Now, the back hole. Did you notice if one is harder or easier than the others. Totally normal. And that will also tell us what’s holding tension and might need a little extra attention.

Happy baby. Side lying. Squat. Seated on a chair. cross legged. Really any position. You can try this on a train. Lying in bed. Sitting at dinner, at your desk, standing, etc.

For this you need a small core ball or a pillow. - The goal is to not tense the pelvic floor, back, or hips but rather simply use the inner thighs to press in on the ball.

You need to have a wall you can sit back against for this exercise.

This may not feel comfortable for everyone so watch the video before attempting. Use a partner if needed to hold your hips in place.

No equipment needed.

For this, you will need a small core ball or pillow. Please pay attention to the form in the video. If you start to feel your back, pause, take a step back and revisit after some deep breaths. You should not feel your back and if you do, it's probably because you're tensing the hips.

You will either need wedges for your heels or you can roll up your mat and place your heels on the mat. But your heels should be higher than your toes. This helps get any ankle immobility out of the way so you can stay stacked for the squat.

The pelvic floor is a group of muscles. It works together with the diaphragm and abs to make up your core. It helps support our organs. When we inhale the pelvic floor should expand downward. When we exhale, it should deflate or contract up. If we’ve had injury to the area either from tailbone injuries, childbirth, or chronic tension it can affect the pelvic floor muscles ability to relax and function the way they should. We can foam roll, massage, etc to help relax and loosen these muscles. When we breathe in, the pelvic floor relaxes or expands and when we exhale it contracts. It will do this naturally but if it’s out of sync or has a lot of tension, then we need to spend some time focusing on it. Also, learning to use the abs to keep the ribs stacked over the hips will be super helpful for pelvic floor health. You can practice this anywhere you are. But the most important take away is the pelvic floor needs to know how to relax. It won’t expand if it can’t relax.