The pelvic floor does NOT push your baby out! The uterus does–the pelvic floor just needs to move out of the way! During pregnancy, skip the kegels, and rather focus on learning how to RELEASE tension in the pelvic floor.
Common exercises for pelvic floor release typically include deep squats and butterfly poses–exercises primarily focused on wide knees. These exercises tend to target stretching more of the front half of the pelvic floor.
While it is helpful to include these types of exercises as a part of your pelvic floor routine, it is equally important (maybe even more important) to include exercises that target the rest of the pelvic floor too!
When focusing on releasing tension in your pelvic floor, we want to include:
- External hip rotation, wide knees, to target the front half of the pelvic floor.
- Internal hip rotation, knees in and hip-shifts, to target the back half of the pelvic floor.
- Asymmetrical position with both internal and external hip rotation, to target the pelvic floor diagonally.
The pelvic floor is complex! The simple response to “How do I prepare my pelvic floor for birth?” is usually: “just do Kegels.”
This simple answer is not necessarily helpful for the majority of us (some of us may benefit from Kegels, which are pelvic floor contractions, but most of us are dealing with a pelvic floor that is too TIGHT as opposed to LOOSE).
But, as you can probably tell, there are a lot of different types of exercises you can be doing to help release tension in your pelvic floor to prepare for birth! As a starter, you can join our FREE mini-course that introduces how you can prepare your pelvic floor for birth by signing up for our newsletter!
If you feel ready to jump right in, you can join our full course and bundle it with childbirth education and prenatal fitness to save 15%!
5-Minute Pelvic Floor Mobility Workout
In this quick 5-minute pelvic floor mobility workout, we guide you through exercises that target both external and internal hip rotation to release various parts of your pelvic floor.
As a bonus, this workout also incorporates thoracic (spine) mobility. The position of your rib cage can affect your pelvic position, which in turn influences pelvic floor tension. Therefore, we address not just the pelvic floor but also the spine to support pelvic floor release.
The workout begins with pelvic tilts, involving front-to-back spinal movement. You can enhance this by placing a yoga block under one knee for a hip shift, creating an asymmetrical pelvic position. Alternatively, you can explore widening your knees or ankles to change hip positioning.
Next, the workout progresses to an adductor rockback with thoracic rotation. This exercise stretches one inner thigh muscle while rotating the spine.
Finally, you’ll move to the 90/90 side camel. This exercise involves an asymmetrical hip position with internal and external hip rotation. It also includes lateral thoracic mobility for side body stretching and hip extension to release the hip flexor.
Your pelvic floor birth preparation should include much more than just deep squats and butterfly pose! Finding different hip positions can target different portions of your pelvic floor, which is vital to preparing your pelvic floor for birth.
Join our online prenatal fitness programs and pelvic floor prep for birth course for daily workouts to stay strong throughout your pregnancy as you prepare for birth.
Prepare for Your Birth with MamasteFit Prenatal Fitness Programs
If you want more daily workouts to support a strong pregnancy as you prepare for birth, join our online prenatal fitness programs!
MamasteFit is unique in that we are one of the ONLY prenatal/postnatal training facilities in the United States. We develop our workout programs from our experience of working with in-person pre/postnatal fitness clients and work closely with physical therapists to refine our programming. In addition, we are birth workers, so we combine our experience as perinatal fitness trainers and birth professionals to ensure that our programs actually support your birth preparation and recovery!
Our prenatal fitness programs are offered in several formats:
- 40-Week Prenatal Strength Program in the Teambuildr App:
- This program is a self-paced workout with shorter demo videos. This is ideal if you like to workout in a gym setting and prefer a traditional workout delivery format.
- This program syncs to your current week of pregnancy, so you can start anytime, with one-time payment or month-to-month payment options.
- This program has a full and mini version, depending on how much time you have to dedicate to workouts!
- Prenatal On-Demand Fitness Program:
- If you prefer to follow a video as you workout at the same time, this workout program will be the best option!
- This program syncs to your current trimester, so you can grab the trimesters you need!
- Prenatal Yoga Classes:
- If you want prenatal yoga, join our prenatal yoga program! This also syncs to your current trimester.
Learn the science of pregnancy and birth to take the mystery of labor away! Understand why you are feeling what you feel, and learn strategies to confidently move through pregnancy and birth!
- 9h+ of Video
- Support Group
- Close Captioning
- 5 Workouts/Week
- Gym Workouts
- Self-Paced
Instructor
GINA
Workout on-demand with our prenatal fitness workout videos! Each workout is 30-40 minutes to follow along as you exercise at the same time!
- Birth Prep
- All Trimesters
- Mobility Work
Instructor
GINA
Find comfort and relief from pelvic girdle pain throughout your pregnancy and postpartum period! This program incorporates myofascial sling focused exercises to stabilize across the pelvic girdle joints.
- 3 Weeks
- On Demand Workout Videos to Follow