Unlock Your Yoga: The Surprising Power of Your Pelvic Floor

Yoga is transformative. We already know that. But have you ever considered how much deeper it could go if you connected it to your pelvic floor? This isn’t just about adding a new layer to your practice. It’s about unlocking your body’s inner strength in a way that makes your entire yoga practice (and life) more powerful, grounded, and free.

Quick vocabulary time and also a didyouknow: We have 8 (yep!) senses. The usual suspect five, and three more: proprioceptive, vestibular, and interoceptive. While all relate to your wholeness, humaness, and relationship to your world and self, this post's info focuses on interoception.

Interoception is your body’s ability to sense and interpret internal signals, like hunger, heart rate, and muscle tension. In the context of pelvic health, it’s your awareness of how your pelvic floor feels during movement, breath, and posture. Tuning into these sensations helps you connect deeply with your body, release tension, and activate muscles more effectively for better pelvic health and a more grounded yoga practice.

Pelvic Floor Muscles: The Unsung Heroes of Your Body

The pelvic floor is a group of muscles that act like a hammock, supporting everything from your bladder to your bowel and your reproductive organs. These muscles are your body’s foundation, giving support to the entire torso and spine, and even contributing to emotional wellbeing. When you pee or poop, your pelvic floor muscles contract and relax to control the flow. During sex, they help with sensation and even orgasm by contracting and releasing rhythmically. A healthy pelvic floor keeps everything functioning smoothly, ensuring stability and support while you move, breathe, and live life.

But here’s the kicker: strengthening your pelvic floor isn’t about tightening it like you’ve been told to do with Kegels. In fact, the key to pelvic floor health often lies in lengthening and releasing these muscles. Especially if they’ve been overactive, overstimulated, or neglected.

When you lengthen your pelvic floor, you give it the space to function properly. Think of it like stretching before a workout. When you stretch, you release tension, allowing the muscles to perform better. The same goes for your pelvic floor. Lengthening creates more mobility and coordination, giving the muscles the ability to contract and relax more effectively.

So yoga doesn’t just lengthen your body. It gives you the tools to actively lengthen your pelvic floor during movement, breathing, and stretching. This is where the magic happens.

But first...Let’s Bust Some Myths Around Pelvic Health

There are too many myths (as well as a lot of inaccurate quick fixes and sometimes shitty noise on social media) about pelvic health, and it’s time to set the record straight.

Myth #1: “Leaking when you laugh, sneeze, or jump is just part of having kids.”

Reality: While this can be especially common for postpartum women, it doesn't just affect women or even women who have had babies, and it doesn't have to just be part of life or choices. Leaking is often the result of a pelvic floor imbalance, which means it’s time - and possible! - to focus on both lengthening and strengthening these muscles to restore proper function. Yoga can help you connect to your pelvic floor, release tension, and build the strength you need to resolve symptoms, or even to stop leaks before they start.

Myth #2: “Painful sex is normal. Just drink some wine.”

Reality: BARF on that advice (which, gross as it is, is still quite common, even in medical settings). Painful sex is a sign that your pelvic floor is likely too tight, uncoordinated, or stuck in a protective tension. It is also absolutely not something you have to ignore, bear through, or even hide. This is where the power of yoga, combined with pelvic floor expertise, comes into play. With the right techniques, you can bring gentle attention to the muscles that might be causing discomfort, release that built-up tension, and reconnect to your body in a way that opens you up to deeper intimacy and pleasure.

Myth #3: “Back pain is just an orthopedic problem. Take a pill or get an adjustment.”

Reality: Back pain that just won't kick with exercises or adjustments can often be traced back to pelvic floor dysfunction. When the pelvic floor is too tight or weak, it causes imbalances in the spine and the rest of your body. Yoga, when combined with pelvic floor awareness, helps you address core strength from the ground up to relieve back pain at its roots. This creates the space to break free from that persistent pain cycle and reconnect with the movements you love.

Myth #4: “Stress is all in your head.”

Reality: Stress is stored in your body, and your pelvic floor is one of the main places it can show up. Bodily functions feeling out of wack, discomfort, or tension in this area are often the body’s response to emotional or mental stress. Yoga that emphasizes pelvic floor awareness helps you release stress on a cellular level, creating more relaxation and space in your body to support your emotional wellbeing. It's also just really nice and calming, and yoga is the special sauce for lathering up the pelvic floor in self-love.

Why Pelvic Floor Awareness Makes Yoga Better

Now, let’s talk about how connecting to your pelvic floor transforms your yoga practice.

1. Yoga Is About Breath, Not Squeezing

The pelvic floor is a dynamic structure that works in rhythm with your breath. Inhale, and the pelvic floor relaxes; exhale, and it engages. Yoga teaches you to use your breath to release tension and activate muscles naturally. This isn’t about squeezing or forcing anything. It’s about finding ease and support through the breath, which enhances pelvic floor strength and flexibility.

2. Your Pelvic Floor Needs Movement, Not Isolation

Why don't I like Kegels as a quick fix? Because Kegels isolate one small area of the body, but the pelvic floor is connected to your entire body. Yoga’s dynamic movements allow the pelvic floor to move with your body in real time. When you flow through poses, your pelvic floor engages and releases in a natural, full-body, functional way.

3. Sensory Awareness: Feel Your Pelvic Floor, Don’t Force It

Yoga invites you to tune in and truly feel what’s going on down there. When you move with intention and awareness, you start to sense when your pelvic floor feels tense, relaxed, or balanced. Yoga teaches interoception (there's that vocab word again), the ability to listen to your body’s internal signals. This awareness helps you connect with your pelvic floor’s natural rhythms, so you can sense what it needs without forcing it into a static, mechanical contraction.

4. Your Pelvic Floor and Nervous System Are Connected

When you’re stressed, your pelvic floor can clench up without you even realizing it. Yoga, on the other hand, works directly with your nervous system. The deep breathing, grounding, and movement patterns in yoga help calm the nervous system and release any tension in the pelvic floor. It’s not just about muscle strength, it’s about creating an embodied sense of safety and ease. When you practice yoga, you’re not just strengthening your pelvic floor. You’re teaching it to relax, release, and respond to your body’s needs.

5. Yoga Creates a Whole-Body Connection

Your pelvic floor isn’t just muscles and tissues. It holds emotional weight, too. Life experiences, stress, trauma, and even societal pressures ("I have to just accept that I peeze (pee and sneeze)!" or "My pain is too taboo!") can affect how we connect to our pelvic floor. Yoga addresses this connection on a deeper level by integrating mind, body, and spirit.

The Real Power of Connecting to Your Pelvic Floor

It’s time to stop viewing your pelvic floor as just another part of your body to “tighten” and start recognizing it as a central muscle group that impacts everything from movement, to breath, to your emotional health.

When you practice yoga with pelvic floor awareness, you gain access to whole-body strength. You unlock the power of lengthening and strengthening simultaneously, releasing tension and building resilience.

Yoga + pelvic floor expertise = limitless potential.

Don't ignore your pelvic health. Give it some love with a familiar movement practice and experience yoga in a way you never have before. Stronger. Freer. More aligned. More you.

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