Pelvic Floor Exercises Postpartum: Start With Letting Go
Pelvic floor exercises postpartum usually start in the wrong place. Most programs jump straight to strengthening. Kegels, squeezes, more reps. But many pelvic floors are not weak. They are clenched.
Your pelvic floor is a hammock of muscle at the base of your pelvis. It holds your organs up, it helps you control your bladder and bowels, and it works with your deep core to keep your whole center steady. Most of the time it is supposed to rest at a low level of tension, then contract when you need it and let go when you do not.
But many floors never let go. They live at a 7 out of 10 all day. Clenched through work, clenched through stress, clenched through every lift and carry. A floor that never lets go also cannot fully contract. That is how a too-tight floor leaks, rushes you to the bathroom, clamps down with constipation, and aches.
You cannot strengthen a muscle that will not let go. Release is what gives the contraction somewhere to come from.
What the science actually says
Pelvic floor training works. A 2026 meta-analysis pooled 19 randomized trials of pelvic floor muscle training in postpartum women. The overall effect was moderate. It helped most with urinary incontinence, and it helped somewhat with pelvic floor strength. Supervised programs and higher-intensity programs did slightly better.
Here is the honest frame. Those trials tested dedicated programs in postpartum women. They did not test one specific exercise. And the data are postpartum, not every woman over 30. Training works. But the order matters. Release comes before strengthening. That order is standard practice in pelvic floor rehabilitation.
Find it first
Before you strengthen anything, you have to find it. The deep core is a canister. The diaphragm is the lid. The pelvic floor is the base. The transverse abdominis wraps around the middle like a corset.
Lie on your back, knees bent, hands on your low belly. Exhale and draw in, like zipping up a pair of tight jeans. Feel the low belly cinch in, all the way around. That is the transverse abdominis showing up. When it shows up, the floor gets to stand down.
If you feel downward pressure, you are bearing down. Back off. The cinch is gentle. Think snug hug, not crunch.
Test it
Once you can find the cinch, test it. Knee hovers with hip shifts. Cat cow leg extensions. Adductor rock backs. These moves ask the deep core to hold its shape while the body changes position. One side will feel easier than the other. That is normal. The dysfunction is in the disconnect. One side has not learned to show up yet.
Strengthen it
Dead bugs with a cross-body press. Table tops. These are the strength moves. Hand pushes into knee, knee pushes back, deep core fires in the middle. Press harder and the cinch deepens.
The block squeeze is the simplest strengthener. Ball or block between your thighs, squeeze, and feel the whole deep core system wake up, pelvic floor included. No one has to say engage your core. The squeeze does the teaching.
Lengthen it
Strength is only half the story. The floor also has to lengthen. Hip circles. Easy happy baby. Deer pose. These moves put the pelvic floor at length under load, so it learns to stretch and return.
Let go
This is the step most programs skip. Downtraining is learning to let go.
Kneel with a block in the middle of the perineum diamond, between the pubic bone, the tailbone, and the two sit bones. Let your body weight do the pressing. Or lie on your side with a ball under the same spot. That is the low-load version, a fraction of body weight, and the best place to start.
Soften. Let go. That is the whole exercise. A floor that can let go can also contract fully. That is the range you are rebuilding.
If you are pregnant
You can still do this work. Skip the balls on the belly entirely. Put the ball on your back or sides against the wall, and let the slow breathing be the medicine. For the release work, use the side-lying ball version only. Skip the kneeling block for now. Unclenching is safe work at every stage. Once your provider clears you postpartum, the belly work is waiting.
It is never too late to begin
Fourteen years postpartum, two years after twins, ten months after a C-section. The timeline does not matter. Your tissues do not have a calendar. The work is the same. Find it, test it, strengthen it, lengthen it, let it go.
Doing something is better than doing nothing. You get to begin more than once in this life.
Keep going
This work is from my Deep Core class, one of seven in the Myofascial Release Bundle. The class teaches the full sequence, so the floor learns to let go and contract, not just one or the other. Let me know if you need the link!
