Episode 357/365: Baby Mommas, Double Unders, Bladder Control, and a Little Bit of Pee?

Hey MWodies,

Happy new year and welcome back to the Mwod 2012.  I’ve just landed after traveling to Australia with the family and it’s time to wind this show back up!

Today’s episode is really geared towards everyone, but it is a special homage to all of those baby mommas and athletes out there that experience the dreaded pee-drops that happen during intense jumping or force production episodes.  We tend to not talk directly about the pelvic floor too much in exercise (besides always yelling sphincter to belly button before you get tight),  but if you understand how the the trunk creates stiffness at all, then you are certainly aware of how this lower muscular system creates  the floor to your diaphragm roof.  As we’ve always maintained on mobilitywod, position is king.  If you recall, poor mechanics and set ups can cause a whole host of neuromuscular shut down that we call positional inhibition.  Well, the same is true of the pelvic floor.  In the Movement and Mobility trainer course, we perform a demo that illustrates how poor spinal positioning literally forces people to breath up in their necks not effectively with their diaphragms.  Well, the lower pelvic floor diaphragm doesn’t behave any differently.  Set your spinal position first (butt sets position, abs brace position) by getting neutral, set your abs, take a big breath, and then brace into extension like it’s your job.  I suspect that traditionally, we’ve had to talk about pelvic floor dysfunction a bit more when we’ve worked with athletes that aren’t regularly handling large loads.   For example, we tend to see much more attention to the details of bracing and bracing sequencing under the high tensions developed in squatting and deadlifting.  Interestingly, we tend to see the dreaded pee leak occur most often in “lower” intensity exercises like jump roping, that require much less bracing to successfully (albeit not optimally) completed.  I’m sure that the pelvic floor masters out there would also agree that there is an additional component of duration/endurance in these tasks as well.  Besides, most coaches obsess about lifting spinal mechanics with barbells, but spontaneously go spine-awareness blind and unconscious when their athletes start jumping, running, or perform any sort of mundane conditioning.

Today’s Mwod stars one of my Australian colleagues that specializes in retraining and rebuilding the pelvic floors of athletes and non-athlets like.

As one of my friends says, practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent.  Reinforcing poor pelvic positioning and sequencing in “basic” movements will set the stage for greater loss of spinal stability and pressures  when the stakes get higher.  Load ordering matters. Position matters.  Bring some new awareness to your sphincter and see what happens to your deadlift. And Double under.

Kstar

ps. Not sure why this video is green.  I can only guess that my Australian friend altered someone to reflect the Green and Gold….