Integrative Spine & Pelvic Health

How do I know if I have tension in my pelvic floor? 👀

A “tight” pelvic floor doesn’t always feel like tightness.

It can show up as:
• Pain with s*x
• Pelvic or tailbone pain
• Hip or low back pain
• Difficulty fully emptying your bladder or bowels
• Urinary urgency or frequency
• Feeling like you’re constantly clenching or holding tension
• Even leaking in some cases

And one of the biggest things I see in the clinic? Stress.

Your pelvic floor is part of your body’s response to stress. When you spend long periods feeling anxious, overwhelmed, guarded, or under pressure, those muscles can have a hard time fully letting go.

But stress isn’t the only reason.

Sometimes the pelvic floor is simply doing too much. If your glutes, deep core, hips, or breathing system aren’t managing load efficiently, your pelvic floor may start picking up the slack — and over time, that can contribute to tension and symptoms.

Past pain, injury, pregnancy, birth, surgery, and trauma can all play a role too.

And here’s the important part:

Tight doesn’t necessarily mean strong.

Sometimes the first step toward a stronger pelvic floor is actually teaching it how to relax, lengthen and let go.

If you recognize yourself in this, your symptoms may be telling you more than you realize. 🤍

Postpartum care sometimes looks like this. 😂🤍

You’re trying to heal, your back hurts, your pelvic floor needs some love… and your baby would prefer to be held/rocked/bounced approximately 24 hours a day. 👶🏼

We get it.

You don’t have to have childcare figured out or wait for the “perfect” time to take care of yourself.

Bring the baby. We’ll figure out the rest. 🤍

Rouge’s

Holding your breath when you lift? Your pelvic floor notices. 👀

A lot of women unintentionally hold their breath and brace HARD when they lift—whether it’s a heavy weight, a laundry basket, or their toddler.

When you hold your breath, pressure builds inside your abdomen. That pressure has to go somewhere…and some of it gets directed down toward your pelvic floor.

That doesn’t mean you should never hold your breath when lifting. Breath holding and bracing can be appropriate with heavier strength training. But if you’re noticing:

• leaking when you lift
• heaviness or pressure vaginally
• pelvic pain
• feeling like you have to clench your pelvic floor constantly
• or avoiding heavier weights because of symptoms

…it may be time to look at how you’re managing pressure.

For many women, learning to exhale through the hardest part of the movement is a great place to start.

Your pelvic floor doesn’t need you to stop lifting.

It needs to learn how to manage the load. 💪🏼

SAVE and SHARE with your lifting bestie - this for your next workout—and pay attention to what your breath does when things get heavy.

☕️ Is your morning coffee making you p*e ALL morning?

Coffee isn’t automatically a bladder irritant for everyone—but for some people, caffeine and other components of coffee can increase bladder urgency and frequency.

And that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to give up your coffee. 🙌

Try this:
💧 Drink a glass of water before your coffee
☕️ Enjoy your coffee
💧 Follow it with another glass of water

This can help you stay hydrated and may make your morning coffee a little more bladder-friendly.

The goal isn’t to fear coffee—it’s to figure out what YOUR bladder responds to.

If you’re still running to the bathroom constantly, leaking, or feeling strong urgency, there may be more going on than your morning cup of coffee. 🤍

Google: “It’s probably your pelvic floor.” And “This is normal”

Just because leaking, pelvic pain, painful s*x, constipation, heaviness, urgency, low back pain — even that feeling that you constantly need to stretch your hips — can all involve the pelvic floor and these symptoms are common after having a baby 🤰 but not normal.

Your symptoms can be influenced by your:
✨ breathing + diaphragm
✨ hips and spine
✨ abdominal wall + pressure management
✨ nervous system
✨ bowel + bladder habits
✨ hormones
✨ scar tissue
✨ strength, mobility and coordination

And sometimes the problem isn’t that your pelvic floor is weak 🤯

It may actually be too tense, overactive, poorly coordinated, or compensating for something else.

That’s why you deserve more than a Google diagnosis.

You deserve someone who asks why your symptoms are happening — and builds treatment around your body.

Google can give you possibilities.
A pelvic floor PT can help you connect the dots. 🫶

I almost didn’t make it to tennis practice today because I was tired.

But I reminded myself that reaching my goals isn’t about showing up at 100% every single time.

Some days, showing up looks like giving it everything you have. Other days, it looks like giving what you have available.

Either way, you showed up.

Because consistency isn’t perfection. It’s choosing to keep showing up—even when your 100% looks a little different that day. 🤍

Comment TENSION 👇🏻 if you have these signs 🪧

“But how can you tell I might have pelvic floor tension without doing an internal exam?” 👀
Because your pelvic floor doesn’t work in isolation — and sometimes your body starts giving me clues before we ever assess the pelvic floor directly.

Things I may notice:
✨ You have a hard time sitting still.
Constantly shifting your weight, crossing and uncrossing your legs, or changing positions may be your body trying to find relief from tension or discomfort around the hips and pelvis. It can also show up in people with hypermobility, who may create extra muscular tension to feel more stable.
✨ You clench your jaw.
Jaw clenching can be one sign of a nervous system that tends to “hold” tension. And yes — I often see jaw tension and pelvic floor tension living in the same person.
✨ You naturally stand with your feet turned out.
That externally rotated position changes what’s happening at your hips. Sometimes it’s simply your anatomy, but sometimes it’s a strategy your body has adopted because that position feels more comfortable or gives certain muscles a break.
✨ You constantly feel like you NEED to stretch your hips.
Stretching feels amazing… but if you’re stretching the same areas over and over and the tightness always comes back, I start asking why. Your hips and pelvic floor work closely together, and that persistent “tight hip” feeling may actually be part of a bigger tension or stability pattern.
✨ You’re constantly stressed, anxious, or feel like you can’t fully relax.
Your pelvic floor responds to your nervous system. When your body spends a lot of time in a heightened “fight-or-flight” state, you may unconsciously brace, clench, or hold tension — including through your abdomen, hips, jaw, and pelvic floor.

Sometimes treating pelvic floor tension isn’t just about stretching a tight muscle. It’s also about teaching your nervous system and your body that it’s safe to let go. 🤍

None of these things alone diagnose a tight pelvic floor.
But they’re clues. 🕵🏼‍♀️

Your body usually starts telling the story before you ever get on the tabl