Are squats bad for the pelvic floor?
If you’re someone who has pelvic floor symptoms such as urinary leaking, pelvic pressure, or lower back pain, you may be wondering if any of the exercises that you’re doing are contributing to your symptoms.
You may have heard that you should “never do X” or “always be sure to do Y”.
There’s a lot of noise out there and sometimes advice from one person contradicts the recommendations from another. It can be confusing!
Recently I heard someone say that squats could be bad for your pelvic floor so I wanted to address it here.
The truth is that there’s no definitive answer as to whether squats are bad for you (or your pelvic floor) because it can depend on so many factors.
I’ll get into those in this post so keep reading! But I will say that in general, squats are safe AND also a great exercise for your pelvic floor!!
In this blog post, I’ll go over the exceptions for when that may not be true and why I love squats for most of my pelvic floor patients.
Why are squats a good exercise in general?
Let’s start with the obvious. Squats are great for improving lower body (and core!) strength and can even help improve or maintain hip and ankle mobility. But you probably already knew that.
I love squats because they’re about as functional of an exercise as they come. What I mean is that all of us have to squat every day, whether we realize we’re squatting or not. Because whenever you go to sit down or stand up from a seated position, you’re squatting!
When you get into and out of your car? That’s a squat. When you go to sit down at a desk? Squat. When you pick up your kiddo off the ground? Squat!
We might not immediately think of those actions as squats, but they are indeed the same motion!
In my career, I’ve seen too many patients who have struggled with those simple tasks because they haven’t practiced squats outside of their daily lives for many years so their strength has dramatically decreased.
When we’re squatting as part of our workout, we’re training our bodies to be strong for all the times we need to squat in our lives!
Here’s a video tutorial of some squat variations so that you can include them in your own workouts.
Squats and your pelvic floor
What I want to add as a Pelvic Health Physical Therapist is that squats are also great for improving pelvic floor mobility and coordination!
You see, when we lower ourselves into a squat, the pelvic floor should stretch while still supporting our pelvic floor organs. And this should happen without us thinking about it. Where we often run into trouble is when this process doesn’t happen automatically or smoothly.
And if you have pelvic floor symptoms while squatting, that’s a pretty big sign that there is a pelvic floor issue.
Pelvic floor symptoms can be caused by a variety of issues. Everyone always assumes that they’re weak in their pelvic floor. And that may be true. But it could be that:
your pelvic floor muscle strength is fine but your hips or core are weak and your pelvic floor is compensating for them
or that for one reason or another, your pelvic floor is tightening when it should be relaxing, or relaxing when it should be tensing (which would be a pelvic floor coordination issue)
or your squat form may be inefficient so your body is just asking your pelvic floor to do way more than it’s designed to do so it’s not handling that well
There are so many potential factors at play!
So if you do notice symptoms during or after squatting, then yes, squats may be bad for your pelvic floor and I’d recommend omitting them from your exercise routine for now. Not forever, but just for this moment in time, until you can figure out exactly why you’re having those symptoms. Because once you do identify an issue, like those noted above, you can work on fixing it!
How can Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy help?
An evaluation with a qualified Pelvic Health Physical Therapist (like yours truly!) is where you can really dive into the why behind the symptoms. At my clinic, Durham Pelvic, I’ll do a full head-to-toe assessment as well as a pelvic exam (as long as you’re comfortable with one). This way, I can determine whether the root cause is in the pelvis or outside of it (or both!).
If you’d like to book an evaluation or just have more questions about pelvic floor therapy, I’d love to chat. You can book a discovery call here or fill out a contact form here and then I’ll reach out to you personally. You don’t have to accept pelvic floor symptoms as your new normal and I’d love to help you overcome them!
