Pelvic Floor Health for Men
I guess a good question to start with is, would you like to improve your sex life? The muscles of the Pelvic Floor allow for arousal, penetration and ejaculation. When did you last train your pelvic floor muscles with specific exercises at the gym?
Training for Everyday Life – Like any muscle, the Pelvic Floor needs to be trained to remain strong. I have delivered core sessions in schools to children aged 13 years. Did you know that the boys in this age group were unaware they had Pelvic Floor Muscles? Awareness is the first level of training, and most of your reading this will have had a go at squeezing something. A six-week supervised course will teach you about the pelvic Floor, where it is, how to engage it and why you should train it.
Prehab Before Any Pelvic Surgery, Back Surgery or Radiation Therapy
A high percentage of men are unaware they have a Pelvic Floor and do not think about the Prostate until something is wrong with it. A study of risk factors and knowledge of the Pelvic Floor muscles in powerlifters found that Pelvic Floor Dysfunction was high. Seventy-four per cent of men did not know why they should train the muscles, and over seventy per cent did not know how to train them. If you are diagnosed with prostate cancer (one in eight men will have a prostate cancer diagnosis), treatment options are monitoring, surgery, hormone treatment and radiation. In the Clacton and Colchester area, men will be offered prehab if they have surgery to remove the Prostate, but not for the other treatments. A 2021 study concluded that functional assessment of the pelvic floor muscles showed a decrease in activity or a weak voluntary contraction post-radiation. It will be easier for you to train the muscles before trauma. Training the muscles keeps neural pathways open, creates strength and endurance and helps to keep the area hydrated and tissues gliding. Join a Men Only Pelvic Floor Prehab course to learn about the pelvic Floor, train the muscles, learn breathing techniques to help reduce pain, gently improve the core connection, improve strength and flexibility of the hip, and learn self-myofascial release.
Rehab post-surgery or during Radiation and Hormone Therapy – There is good evidence that supervised Pelvic Floor Muscle Engagement causes a decrease in Urinary incontinence rates. Unsupervised pelvic floor muscle engagement has similar effects to no training in post-operative urinary incontinence. Pelvic floor muscle training enhanced quality of life postoperatively. Join a 6-12 week Men-only Pelvic Floor course – you will learn about the pelvic Floor, how to engage the muscles, breathing techniques, and how the core is a system and to integrate the pelvic Floor exercises into everyday movement.
What is the function of the Pelvic Floor?
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Sphincter Control. These muscles allow you to pee and poo and prevent leakage of urine and faecal matter.
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Sex. The muscles allow for arousal, penetration and ejaculation. Like all muscles in the body, they need to be trained to remain strong.
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Stability. The pelvic Floor is part of your core and helps to stabilise the spine, optimising movement and postural control. When you cough, sneeze, laugh, or lift something heavy, your respiratory and pelvic diaphragm help regulate the pressure in the cavities, called intra-abdominal pressure.
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Sump Pump. Because the tissue and vessels are interwoven when you work the pelvic Floor, it improves fluid dynamics and moves the blood and lymph.
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Support. Although less so in males, the pelvic diaphragm supports the organs of the abdominoplevic cavities.
Functions of your Prostate: The Prostate helps produce semen from the sperm the testicles emit. Thick mucus-like fluid from the bulbourethral gland (Cowper’s gland) below the Prostate helps to neutralise the acidic urine in the urethra. The Prostate produces Prostatic -Specific antigen ((PSA) – high levels of this can indicate prostate cancer). The Prostate helps to pump out the sperm during intercourse. The Prostate also acts as a filter to remove toxins. The prostate nerves help create and maintain erections. Secretions from the Prostate can help protect against urinary tract infections. It controls urine flow down the urethra and ensures urine and sperm do not get mixed when a man ejaculates. The male hormones dihydrotestosterone result from testosterone being converted to DHT by the 5-alpha reductase enzyme in the Prostate; this hormone is responsible for the male sex drive.
All that from a gland that weighs about 30 grams!
Please contact me for information about joining group sessions, 121 sessions or treatments
07767 384983
Further reading and research
Anatomy, Abdomen and pelvis, Prostate – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK540987
Prevalence of pelvic floor dysfunction, bother and risk factors of the pelvic floor muscles in Norwegian male and female Olympic weightlifters.
2020 – DOI:10.1519/JSC.0000000000003919
Pelvic floor muscles after prostate radiation therapy: 2021
doi:10.1590/S1677-5538.IBJU.2019.0765