Is It Bad to Have a Tight Pelvic Floor? What Every Woman Needs to Know
Part One: Is It Bad to Have a Tight Pelvic Floor? What Every Woman Needs to Know
Part Two: What Causes Tight Pelvic Floor Muscles? How Tension is Held in the Body
Part Three: Why Kegels Make Tight Pelvic Floor Muscles Worse (And the Gentle Practice That Will Actually Help)
Part Four: How to Relax Tight Pelvic Floor Muscles Through Breath and Body Wisdom
For years, women have been told that pelvic floor strength is the answer to everything. Leaking? Do Kegels. Feeling unstable? Squeeze tighter. Low back pain? Time to strengthen your core. The message is always the same: if something feels off “down there,” the solution must be to contract, brace, and build more tension.
But what if the problem isn’t weakness at all? What if the real issue is that your pelvic floor is holding on — too tightly, for too long — and can’t remember how to let go?
Many women I work with come to me after months, even years, of diligently doing all the “right” things. They’ve followed the advice, done the exercises, and tried to be strong. And yet, they still feel disconnected from their core. They’re leaking on runs, waking up multiple times a night to pee, or feeling sharp pelvic pain that takes their breath away. Sex becomes uncomfortable. Their lower back aches by mid-afternoon. And worst of all, they start to believe their body is broken.
But here’s the truth: your body isn’t broken. It’s just out of balance.
Tension in the pelvic floor is incredibly common — especially after pregnancy, birth, or years of compensating for poor core function. And while Kegels might seem like a logical fix, they often add more tension to a system that’s already stuck. What your body needs isn’t more squeezing — it’s more space. It’s a chance to breathe.
Your pelvic floor is meant to be responsive, not rigid. It’s supposed to rise and fall with your breath, adapt to pressure changes, and support you with both strength and softness. When it’s constantly contracted, your whole system goes into protection mode — and symptoms like urgency, leaking, pain, and pressure start to surface.
So no, having a tight pelvic floor isn’t “bad” — but it is a sign that your body is asking for a new approach. Not one rooted in force or fear, but one grounded in reconnection. A return to your breath. A remembering of how your body was always designed to move, support, and heal from the inside out.
Why a Tight Pelvic Floor Causes Problems
Your pelvic floor is meant to be dynamic — a soft, intelligent system of muscles that responds to your movement, breath, and internal pressure. Ideally, it contracts when you need stability and relaxes when the moment has passed. But when those muscles become chronically tight — often without you even realizing it — they lose that flexibility. They stop responding in the way they were designed to.
Think of it like any other muscle group in your body. If you held your shoulders up by your ears all day long, your neck and upper back would start to ache. You wouldn’t expect strength or fluid movement from a muscle that never rests. The same is true for your pelvic floor.
When the pelvic floor is stuck in a contracted state, it becomes less effective — not more. It can’t provide the support your body needs during movement or load-bearing activities. It restricts blood flow to the pelvic tissues, limiting oxygen and nutrients your muscles need to heal and function well. Over time, this tension radiates outward, often showing up as hip tightness, sacroiliac joint pain, or persistent low back discomfort.
A tight pelvic floor can also interfere with the body’s natural ability to empty the bladder or bowels fully, leading to issues like urinary urgency, constipation, bloating or a feeling of incomplete elimination. These symptoms are frustrating, but more importantly, they’re misunderstood.
Most women are told these problems are due to weakness — that their pelvic floor is “too loose” or “too soft” — and so they respond with more Kegels, more clenching, more trying to “hold it all in.” But in reality, that very tension is often what’s causing the problem in the first place.
When your pelvic floor is over-recruited and under-relaxed, it becomes disconnected from your core’s natural rhythm. The breath can’t move freely through your body. The nervous system shifts into a protective state. And the symptoms that surface — leaking, pain, pressure, and digestive issues — aren’t signs of failure. They’re signals. Invitations. Your body is asking to soften, to recalibrate, and to come back into balance.
The solution isn’t to strengthen harder — it’s to reconnect. To create space. To remember how your body was designed to function: in harmony with gravity, with breath, and with ease.
Signs Your Pelvic Floor is Too Tight
Most women have never been taught to recognize the signs of a tight pelvic floor — and even fewer have been told that symptoms like leaking, urgency, or pelvic pain can be rooted in tension, not weakness. But your body is always communicating with you. When your pelvic floor muscles are overworked and unable to relax, they send clear signals. Most of the time, we just don’t know how to interpret them.
Let’s explore the most common ways a tight pelvic floor speaks through the body — not to alarm you, but to help you listen with more understanding.
Bathroom-Related Clues
You may notice frequent urges to pee, even if your bladder isn’t full. Maybe you wake up multiple times at night to use the bathroom, or you feel like you can’t fully empty your bladder. Many women find themselves planning errands and activities around access to a restroom, which can feel exhausting and isolating.
Straining during bowel movements is another red flag. When your pelvic floor muscles can’t release properly, the natural rhythm of elimination is disrupted — and over time, this creates even more pressure and dysfunction.
Physical Discomfort That Lingers or Moves
Chronic tension in the pelvic floor rarely stays contained to the pelvis. Because your pelvic floor is part of your deep core system, this tightness can ripple outward.
You might feel:
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Lower back pain that intensifies as the day goes on
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Tailbone tenderness when sitting
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Hip discomfort that seems to move from side to side
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A sense of pressure or heaviness in the pelvis, especially after long periods of standing or walking
These sensations aren’t random. They’re the body’s way of saying, “I’m holding too much.”
Intimacy That Feels Disconnected or Painful
Your pelvic floor plays a key role in intimacy — and when it’s tight, so much can be affected. Pain during sex, difficulty reaching orgasm, or a general sense of numbness or disconnect are all common experiences. Many women unconsciously tense up during intimate moments, even if they deeply desire connection. This isn’t a failure of the body — it’s a protective pattern. One your body learned to keep you safe. And with the right support, it can be unlearned.
When you learn to listen to these signs as invitations — not problems to fix, but messages to decode — you begin to build trust with your body again. And from that place of trust, healing can begin.
Not Sure if Your Pelvic Floor is Tight? Try this Simple Test
You don’t need a diagnosis to start tuning in to your pelvic floor.
In fact, your body is already offering clues — if you know how to listen.
Here’s a gentle self-assessment you can do right now to check in with your core and pelvic floor coordination. It’s not a “pass or fail” test, but simply a window into how your deep core system is responding to pressure — and whether it’s functioning in harmony.
How to Try It:
Lie on your back and place your hands just below your belly button. Take a breath or two to settle. Now, gently cough.
As you cough, notice what your lower belly does beneath your hands. Does it press outward into your hands? Or does it gently draw inward toward your spine?
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If your belly draws inward during the cough, that’s a good sign. It means your core system — including your pelvic floor and deep abdominal muscles — is coordinating well and responding to pressure in a healthy way.
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But if your belly bulges outward, that’s a signal that your core muscles aren’t managing intra-abdominal pressure effectively. In other words, your pelvic floor and deep core may be out of sync — a common sign of underlying tension or dysfunction. The result is poor organ position, reduced core circulation and increased inflammation throughout the body.
This outward bulge might seem small, but it often reflects a deeper issue: the muscles meant to stabilize and support you are either too tight to respond fluidly, or too disconnected to activate in rhythm with your breath and movement.
The good news? This isn’t something to fear — it’s something to retrain.
And the path back isn’t through more bracing or squeezing. It’s through breath.
Through softness.
Through remembering how your body is designed to work together — not in parts, but as a system.
This Common Approach to Pelvic Floor Dysfunction Can Actually Make Things Worse
If you’ve ever told your doctor you’re leaking during workouts or constantly feel like you have to pee, there’s a good chance you were told to “just do Kegels.” It’s one of the most common — and most oversimplified — recommendations for pelvic floor dysfunction.
But here’s the problem: if your pelvic floor is already tight, adding Kegels can actually make your symptoms worse.
Kegels are often taught as the default “strengthen your pelvic floor” exercise — but they’re only helpful if your muscles are truly weak and underactive. For many women, the issue isn’t weakness at all. It’s chronic tension. Muscles that are already holding on, overworking, and unable to relax.
When you add repetitive Kegel contractions to a system that’s already over-recruited, you layer on even more pressure and imbalance. I’ve seen this time and time again in my practice. Women come to me after faithfully doing Kegels — sometimes for months or even years — expecting relief. But instead of getting better, their leaking increases. Their pelvic pressure becomes more noticeable. Sex becomes even more uncomfortable.
It’s not because they did anything wrong.
It’s because their body was asking for release — and they were unknowingly adding more tension.
Your pelvic floor doesn’t just need strength. It needs coordination, responsiveness, and rhythm with your breath and core. And that’s not something you can access through squeezing alone.
There is a gentler, more intelligent way to restore your pelvic health — one that works with your body’s natural design, not against it.
What Actually Resolves a Tight Pelvic Floor
The true solution to pelvic floor dysfunction isn’t found in more tension, more squeezing, or more willpower. It’s found in teaching your body how to let go. To soften. To return to the rhythm it was always meant to move in.
Healing a tight pelvic floor begins with helping those muscles remember how to relax — not just in isolated exercises, but within the natural flow of your breath, movement, and daily life.
Inside The Core Recovery Method®, I guide women through a process of unwinding chronic tension and rebuilding strength from the inside out. It’s not about controlling your body — it’s about listening to it, and working with what it already knows. Here are three key components of that process:
1. Breath Training
Your breath is the direct line to your pelvic floor. Every inhale and exhale is meant to create a gentle expansion and release within the deep core system — including the pelvic floor muscles. But when your breath becomes shallow or stuck (which often happens after birth, surgery, or years of stress), the pelvic floor gets stuck too.
Relearning how to breathe in a way that supports release rather than bracing can bring immediate relief. It creates space. It tells your nervous system you are safe. And it helps the pelvic floor remember how to move again — without force, without effort, just as it was always designed to.
2. Releasing Connected Areas
The pelvic floor doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s deeply connected to the hips, glutes, lower back, and even the jaw and diaphragm. When tension builds in one area, it often spills into others — creating a web of tightness that keeps your whole system stuck.
That’s why we don’t just “target” the pelvic floor. We release the surrounding structures, unraveling layers of compensation and gripping that may have been holding on for years. As these patterns soften, your pelvic floor begins to function better — not because you forced it, but because you freed it.
3. Restoring Natural Movement Patterns
Your pelvic floor is designed to move automatically — to respond to breath, pressure, posture, and motion without you having to think about it. When we retrain this natural rhythm, we move out of hyper-awareness and into embodied trust.
No more clenching when you lift your kids. No more guessing whether you should be doing Kegels at a stoplight. Your pelvic floor learns to support you in real life — not just during workouts, but in every moment.
This is the foundation of true healing. Not rigid routines, but repatterning from within.
It's not Weakness. It's Holding, and it’s Fixable.
The short answer? Yes — a tight pelvic floor is something you can absolutely address to relieve symptoms and restore ease in your body. But not in the way you’ve been taught.
You can’t squeeze your way out of pelvic floor dysfunction. These muscles aren’t weak — they’re stuck. Holding tension. Bracing for impact. Doing too much, for too long.
Instead of adding more effort through endless Kegels, what your pelvic floor truly needs is space. Permission. A safe environment to let go and remember how to move with the breath again. Because when your core and pelvic floor are supported with gentle breathwork, reduced tension in surrounding muscles, and freedom to move — they remember their job. They return to the rhythm they were designed to follow.
This is exactly why I created The Core Recovery Method®. We don't focus on force — we focus on function. Inside the protocol, I guide women through a process of retraining breathing patterns, releasing tension from the hips, glutes, and spine, and restoring the natural movement of the entire core, pelvic and spinal system.
The result? Your pelvic floor begins to support you automatically — not through effort or constant awareness, but through embodied trust. You move through your day with more ease. You stop bracing. You stop leaking. You start living in a body that feels stable, open, and strong from the inside out.
If you’re experiencing the symptoms we’ve talked about — like leaking during workouts, pelvic pain, pressure, or constant bathroom urgency — please hear this:
It’s not just part of being a mom.
It’s not just aging.
And it’s not your fault.
You can train your tight pelvic floor to relax. You can feel supported again. And you can do it in a way that feels safe, gentle, and fully aligned with your body’s natural design.
