Yoga for Pelvic Health

Reconnecting to the Foundations

Lately in my yoga classes, we’ve been exploring yoga for pelvic health — particularly the relationship between the breath, the diaphragm, the pelvic floor, and the feet. It’s an area that quietly underpins so much of how we move, breathe, and feel grounded in our bodies.

A Breathing Practice

We’ve been using a breathing technique where we breathe in slowly through the nose, then breathe out even more slowly through pursed lips. At the end of the exhalation, when it feels as though there’s no more breath to release, we see if we can breathe out just a little more.

The long exhalation through resistance — the pursed lips — stimulates the respiratory diaphragm and begins to reawaken its natural relationship with the pelvic floor.

The Natural Breath

In a functional breath, when the diaphragm contracts and moves down, it spreads out and gently presses on the internal organs. That downward pressure means the organs need to move down and out, which is why we see movement in the belly, at the sides of the waist, and sometimes even in the lower back if there’s enough suppleness there.

In the same way, the pelvic floor naturally responds by releasing and moving downwards.

As we breathe out, the diaphragm recoils and lifts back up, and the tummy, sides of the waist, and lower back draw gently inwards. The pelvic floor muscles respond too — contracting slightly and drawing upwards.

When everything is in balance, this natural rhythm gently massages the internal organs and alternately releases and strengthens the pelvic floor with every breath cycle.

When the Rhythm Is Lost

Unfortunately, for most of us, this natural relationship between the respiratory diaphragm and the pelvic floor muscles has been disrupted by postural habits, stress, illness, pregnancy, birth, or simply the patterns of modern life. The breath becomes shallow, the diaphragm restricted, and the pelvic floor either overworked or under-responsive.

Tight vs Strong

It’s also important to remember that for healthy pelvic function, the muscles need to be able to release as well as engage. We need that capacity for release for peeing, pooing, and for sexual pleasure.

Often clients tell me they can’t feel their pelvic floor muscles engaging, and they assume this means the muscles are weak. In fact, quite often the opposite is true — the muscles are tight and can’t engage fully because they haven’t been released first.

This approach addresses both sides of the picture: the difference between tight and strong, and between being weak and being able to relax.

Anticipatory Strength

Many approaches to pelvic floor health focus on learning to voluntarily engage these muscles — often through deliberate tightening or lifting exercises. While that can build awareness, it doesn’t always address what happens when we move without conscious control.

In everyday life, we need our muscles to be responsive and anticipatory — engaging and releasing as needed for the demands of movement without us having to think about it.

Just as with any muscle or joint, we need both a range of motion and the ability to control that range. Muscles that are overly tight or overly weak disrupt the natural relationships between the parts of the body.

What we want — especially in the pelvic floor — is responsiveness: the capacity to yield and to support as needed.

A healthy pelvic floor is anticipatory. It senses what’s coming — whether that’s a cough, a step, a lift, or a laugh — and responds instinctively. We don’t need to think about engaging it; it’s part of the body’s natural intelligence.

Through yoga, breath, and mindful movement, we’re reminding the body how to restore that coordination and trust.

Feet and Grounding

We’ve also been exploring how the pelvic floor relates to the feet and legs. In walking, running, and jumping, we also need the pelvic floor to be anticipatory. Pronation is necessary for optimal movement and function, including for the pelvic floor.

It’s the control of pronation that we’re looking for — eccentric control, where the muscles lengthen through the bottom of the foot as we go into pronation, but do so in a controlled way rather than collapsing.

Pronation is linked to the contraction and lifting of the pelvic floor muscles, while supination is the opposite, associated with release and descending.

The simple act of pressing down through the whole foot, feeling both the inner and outer edges of the sole, creates a chain of activation up through the legs into the pelvis. It’s another way of re-establishing grounding, connection, and integrity through the lower body.  When combined with conscious breathing and movements, such as in the pelvic symmetry sequence, this provides another opportunity to remind the body of the natural pathways to support.

A Quiet Remembering

This work is quiet, often subtle, but deeply restorative. It invites the body to remember how to move and breathe in an integrated way, and in doing so, helps us reconnect with a sense of steadiness from the ground up.

Our bodies already know how to do this — yoga gives us a pathway to listen and remember.