Leakage When You Jump? Ft. Rebecca Maidansky PT, DPT
Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist, Rebecca Maidansky says this “If you pee a little when you jump or run, it can mean a couple things. Most likely it is that your pelvic floor is not strong enough to control the increase in intraabdominal pressure with the jumping movement. Another option is that your pelvic floor isn’t coordinated enough. You may think you’re doing a kegel or contracting your pelvic floor, but in reality maybe you’re bearing down and pushing through these muscles. A third possible explanation for leaking with jumping or impact activity is that you’re holding your breath and bearing down, putting increased stress on your pelvic floor”.
In order to control this occurence it’s important to be aware of and exercise your pelvic floor and abdominal muscles just as you would the rest of the muscles in your body. I’m not talking about the expired “clam” series exercises; I’m talking about controlled movements that work your pelvic muscles including, but not limited to, lunges, jump squats, narrow stance squats, hip thrusts, plank variations, etc. These are controlled exercises that work those intrinsic muscles often forgot about when doing ballistic/high intensity exercises (that might lead to SUI occurences).
Rebecca PT, DPT says to avoid this, “Avoid exercises that exacerbate your symptoms. Running with leakage is like running on a poorly healed ankle sprain. Instead of running while leaking, I would recommend doing pelvic floor strengthening with impact activities like jumping rope, line jumps, jump squats or split squats so your pelvic floor gets stronger and ready to control your bladder against impact. Another thing you can do is decrease the length of your run, and slowly increase the distance you can run without leaking, just like you would when recovering from an ankle sprain”.
So what have we learned here folks? Pelvic floor muscles need to be trained and strengthened just like the rest of the muscles in our body. They are such important muscles that are often overlooked and poorly exercised, yet need YOUR UNDIVIDED ATTENTION! Proper therapy, training, and exercise is what will help with this very treatable condition; but again, just like strength training, needs to happen on a regular basis with emphasis on DAILY ROUTINE!
Authors:
-Michelle Riley Certified Personal Trainer
-Rebecca Maidansky DPT, PT @ladybirdpt
