It’s no surprise that exercise is important for your health.

And a great way to incorporate exercise into your routine is by syncing it with your menstrual cycle. This follows the ebbs and flows of your hormones to maximize your energy levels, muscle building capacity & weight management.

But what if you have a weak pelvic floor and have symptoms when you exercise?

First let’s take a look at what forms of exercise are best matched with each phase of your cycle and why.

Menstrual

During the menstrual phase your estrogen and progesterone levels and energy levels are at their lowest. This is a great time to focus on restorative forms of exercise. Instead of high impact, intense workouts that can stress your body out during this time, calm yoga (without inversions) or walking will be gentler on your body.

Follicular

In the follicular phase estrogen and follicular stimulating hormone (FSH) are on the rise, increasing your energy levels. This is a great time to add in cardio, gradually becoming for intense in your workouts to boost metabolism and build lean muscle.

Examples of exercises: fast walking, running, hiking, dancing, cycling, jump roping

Ovulation

Ovulation is the peak of your hormone levels and when you’ll have the most energy to participate in intense workouts.

Examples of exercises: HIIT, interval sprints, boot-camp style

Luteal -

The Luteal phase is split into two parts. Over the typical two weeks your estrogen, progesterone and luteanizing hormone drop which gradually lowers your energy levels. The beginning of the luteal phase you’ll still have higher energy levels, which is a good time to focus on strength training, rather than high-impact workouts. Then the second half of the luteal phase transitioning to low impact, core training or yoga as your energy diminishes.

Examples of exercises: (1) strength training, power yoga (2) Pilates, yoga

Unfortunately, a weak pelvic floor can put a damper on many of these forms of exercise. This occurs when your pelvic floor is unable to withstand the amount of pressure placed on it during the exercise or is unable to maintain stability in the supporting joints.

The most common symptoms while exercising are:

01 Urinary incontinence or peeing your pants

02 Pelvic pressure or heaviness, which is a sign of pelvic organ prolapse

03 Back, pelvis or hip pain

Now, the pelvic floor does not work in isolation, meaning all the deep core muscles should be addressed, however for the purposes of this article I am focusing on the pelvic floor.

Here are my top tips to sync your cycle when you have a weak pelvic floor:

01 Assess your pelvic floor function

If you are experiencing any of the symptoms listed above (or others) you really should have your pelvic floor assessed. The most skilled provider to do this is a Pelvic Floor (or Women’s Health) Physical Therapist, trained in performing internal pelvic floor assessments.

You may also be guided to perform one yourself, if you are unable to see a PFPT in person. Then you will be able to use this information to learn how to appropriately connect to your pelvic floor.

02 Learn how to coordinate your breathing and pelvic floor

Your pelvic floor and your respiratory diaphragm work together as part of your core. While you are exercising, you can use this coordination to maximize control of your intra-abdominal pressure on your pelvic floor.

Some factors that impact this coordination are: posture, breathing habits, and muscle tension.

03 Figure out what your exercise limit is

Once you know how to coordinate your breathing with the pelvic floor, you can begin to figure out what exercises you can do without having any symptoms. You not only want to know what you can do once, but also over multiple repetitions to check your endurance.

Since you want to sync your exercise with your menstrual cycle, this means you’ll be changing the forms of exercise over the course of your cycle. From low impact & restorative to high impact cardio & strength training. Your muscle function will also change over the course of your cycle, as your estrogen levels drop it can become harder to coordinate and control the pelvic floor.

So you’ll want to take this into consideration when testing what exercises you can do without any symptoms.

04 Choose exercises that focus on building up to your workout goals

Once you know what your body is not ready to do yet in it’s full glory, but you want to be able to do in the future, you can build up by choosing exercises that support this goal. For example, if you are unable to run without peeing your pants, you can start with lower impact plyometrics, mobility & strength training that still gets your heart rate up, strengthens and coordinates your pelvic floor with similar movements, without causing your to pee your pants.

If you want to learn more about strengthening your pelvic floor to sync your cycle to exercise worry free, let’s chat! Schedule your complimentary consult call now.