How Your Posture Can Help (Or Hurt) Your Pelvic Floor Health

How are you holding your body right now? You’re probably sitting somewhere (in front of a computer or your phone?) and there's a good chance you are slouching or hunched over. Except NOW there’s a much higher chance that you’re sitting up straight or course-correcting because you got called out.

Well, we’re going to be doing some more of that today, because we’re going to be talking about posture. We’ve addressed the connection to pelvic floor muscle activity a bit in past articles, but today we’ll be expanding on how your posture affects your pelvic floor, and yes, there's more to pelvic floor health than just Kegels.

You sit (and stand) for a big fraction of each day, and think nothing of it, but how you do it can have a surprisingly large impact on a number of aspects of your body. And especially lately, there’s a good chance you’ve been hearing the term “ergonomics” a bit more than usual, too.

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What is the Posture-Pelvic Floor Connection

Whether you're working from home, scrolling through your phone, or binge-watching your favorite shows, there's a good chance your posture has taken a hit. After post-pandemic, remote work has become more normal for millions of people, and with it comes makeshift home offices that weren't designed with ergonomics in mind.

The shift to remote and hybrid work means many of us are sitting more than ever, and more often in positions our bodies weren't meant to sustain for 8+ hours daily.

What This Means for Your Pelvic Floor

Your pelvic floor doesn't work alone. It's constantly coordinating with your diaphragm, abs, and back muscles to keep you stable. When your posture shifts out of alignment from all that sitting, this entire system gets thrown off.

Poor posture affects the group of muscles and ligaments that support your internal organs when you sit or stand, impacting both their flexibility and strength.

Think of it simply as your lower back sitting right above your pelvis. When that curve flattens from slouching or exaggerates from swayback, it changes how much weight your pelvic floor has to bear.

Research shows that slumped sitting reduces pelvic floor muscle activity when compared to sitting upright [1]. You're not consciously relaxing these muscles—the position just prevents them from working properly.

The science is clear: an 8-week posture correction program improved pelvic floor strength by 26% and reduced leaking by 65%. Studies also show that women with chronic pelvic pain saw a 45% pain reduction after 12 weeks of posture work alone [2].

Good posture strengthens both your pelvic floor and other core muscles, improves flexibility to keep everything in your abdomen and pelvic region properly supported, and even helps with breathing.

Bad posture, on the other hand, can lead to back pain, pelvic pain, and a cascade of other problems throughout your body.

So today, we'll be talking about some common posture problems created by our modern sitting habits and some easy ways you can fix them.

What are You Doing Wrong?

Slumping/Slouching

Growing up, you probably heard your mother say, "Sit up straight" or "Stop slouching" at least a thousand times. Well, we've all been there.

To be honest, most of us have lost whatever good posture we had as kids. The modern reality is that we're constantly hunched over something: our laptops during work calls, our phones while scrolling, or sinking into the couch for yet another Netflix binge.

When you sit up straight with good posture, your pelvic floor muscles are getting used, even when you’re just sitting there.

If you’re sitting with a slumped posture, your pelvic floor muscles are just sitting around without really doing much of anything, and your pelvic floor can loosen.

Slouching in a chair decreases the activity of your transverse abdominal muscles, which help provide bladder control (along with the pelvic floor muscles) [3].

Slouching is also a problem for your pelvic floor (and other parts of your body) when standing. This forces you to breathe less deeply, and this prevents your diaphragm from exercising its full range of motion while you breathe.

This is a problem because your diaphragm combines with your pelvic floor to keep the organs, muscles, and other body parts in your abdomen in the right places, and when the diaphragm's range of motion is limited, your pelvic floor is also missing out on the flexibility and strengthening it should be getting, and could become overly tense.

When you maintain that natural curve in your lower back, pressure spreads evenly across your core muscles. But slouching collapses your ribcage toward your pelvis, pushing everything downward onto your pelvic floor. It's like asking someone to catch something heavy while their arms are pinned down.

Swayback does the opposite. Your pelvis tilts forward, stretching your pelvic floor into a weakened position. The muscles can't work effectively when overstretched, just like you can't throw hard if your arm is already fully extended.

Pelvic Position

The positioning of your pelvis can also contribute to bad posture (often in combination with slouching). When your pelvis is too far forward (also called forward pelvis tilt), you can hurt your posture just the same as though you're slouching your back [4].

Try to picture it: your pelvis is too forward, and this will cause your lower back to arch more than it should (this is called swayback) [5]. In turn, this has three negative consequences:

1. As with slouching, it constricts the range of motion for your pelvic floor and leaves the corresponding muscles and ligaments weaker and tighter than they should be (i.e., a hypertonic pelvic floor)
2. It strains your hamstrings, which keeps them overly tight
3. It robs your glutes of the opportunity to get the work they should when you’re standing with good posture
4. Your pelvic floor can't relax properly during breathing or bowel movements, which often leads to constipation or incomplete bladder emptying
5. The compressed position keeps muscles semi-contracted all the time, eventually creating painful trigger points

Put it all together, the forward pelvis tilt/swayback can worsen issues relating to urinary incontinence or pelvic organ prolapse.

When your pelvis tilts forward, your pelvic floor shifts from a flat "hammock" supporting from underneath to more of an angled "slide." Instead of catching the weight of your organs from directly below, the muscles work against gravity at a bad angle.

This makes them work three times harder for the same result, and over time, they get tired and weak.

This type of posture is quite common, and contributing factors can include sitting too much, stretching too little, and not being sufficiently aware of your posture. But the good news is that there are a number of steps you can take to improve your posture, specifically as it relates to your pelvic floor.

How Bad Posture Leads to Pelvic Pain

When your alignment is off for months or years, your pelvic floor muscles work overtime trying to stabilize your core. This constant overwork creates trigger points—tight, irritable spots that radiate pain throughout your pelvis, lower back, and hips.

Poor posture also concentrates pressure downward onto your pelvic floor instead of spreading it evenly. Think of pressing repeatedly on one spot of a trampoline—eventually that area weakens and hurts.

The pain usually starts gradually. First, you notice occasional discomfort after sitting or standing for a long time. Over the next few months, it becomes more frequent during activities like lifting or exercise. Eventually, some people develop persistent pain even at rest.

The confusing part: your hips, lower back, and pelvic floor share nerve pathways. So poor posture, straining your back or hips, can create pelvic pain even when your pelvic floor isn't the main problem. This is why posture correction often helps even without directly treating the pelvic floor.

Easy Ways to Improve Your Posture Immediately

Th below are "best practices" and are generally helpful. But particularly for serious problems, see a physical therapist.

Whether it's pelvic floor exercises or muscle activation in any other part of your body, physical therapy is the best way to get a totally individualized map to fixing your posture.

The broadest advice, which underlies the rest, is to be aware. We know it’s hard to stay on top of your posture, especially when you’re paying attention to other things, but give it a shot.

You can start by setting an alarm on your phone as a quick, periodic reminder. This is admittedly a bit annoying and probably not a long-term solution, but it can help you get in the habit of checking in with your body and your posture.

And don’t be too hard on yourself; building better posture habits is a long-term play, and there will be times for everyone when you forget and find yourself doing something you meant to avoid. But that’s OK. Just keep at it, and you will find that you are making progress sooner than you think.

1. Posture Correction When Sitting

Sitting posture is important. Let's go over some tips below:

• Pay attention. Try to check in with yourself and how you’re sitting periodically
• Choose a seat that promotes good posture and doesn’t prevent you from following the other suggestions below. Your knees should be at the same level as your hips or lower
• Keep your feet on the floor and place your ankles directly in front of or aligned with your knees. Avoid tilting your knees in or out
• Try not to be continually tense. In particular, try to keep your neck and shoulders relaxed
• Use a low back pillow or support if you need to
• Avoid crossing your legs, either at your knees (one ankle up on the other knee) or at the ankles with both feet on the ground
• Lastly, don’t sit for too long without a break. Taking a minute every so often to get up, stretch, walk around, etc, will help with your posture and beyond

Sitting puts 40-60% more weight on your pelvic floor than standing. That's not a problem if you sit properly. But poor posture increases the load while decreasing your muscles' ability to handle it.

If you want to strengthen your foundation while sitting, keep in mind that proper posture works best when combined with pelvic floor exercises. Regular Kegel exercises build the muscle strength your posture depends on to work effectively.

If you have prolapse, use firmer chairs and stand every 30 minutes. If you have pelvic pain, use a cushion with a tailbone cutout.

2. Posture Correction When Standing

Standing posture is important too:

• As with sitting, pay attention. Try to check in with yourself and how you’re standing periodically
• Keep your weight balanced, both from side to side and from front to back. Your weight should mostly be on the balls of your feet
• Don’t lock your knees, and keep your feet between hip- and shoulder-width apart
• Don’t jut out your hip to either side (typically this is done while you’re keeping most or all of your weight on the foot towards the side your hip is jutting out)
• Avoid letting your shoulders roll forward too much so you’re not hunched over. But at the same time, don’t exaggerate the extent that you pull back your shoulders or straighten your back. You (probably) don’t have a drill sergeant yelling at you; don’t act like it
• Also, as with sitting, try not to be continually tense. In particular, your shoulders and neck should feel (and look) relaxed
• Pay attention to the position of your head. Don’t crane forward too much. Your earlobes should be aligned with your shoulders

3. Stretching and Staying Loose

Having healthy muscles is not just about having strong muscles. If a muscle (any muscle) can’t relax or lengthen properly, it can’t actuate or contract properly.

That is especially true for the pelvic floor muscles and other abdominal muscles, like the glutes, that interact with your pelvic floor. When your pelvic floor is too tight (you may have seen this being called high tone/overactive/hypertonic), that can cause a number of problems, including pain with sex or bladder control issues.

Bad posture can contribute to muscles in your pelvic region and core that are too tight.

Conversely, trying to make sure you don’t keep your muscles tense, actively stretching and relaxing your pelvic floor with down training can help make sure your core muscles can extend and contract in the way they need to, so they can do their jobs.

Signs Your Posture is Affecting Your Pelvic Floor

Your body warns you before major problems develop:

• You can't stand comfortably for 10+ minutes without shifting weight or leaning on something
• Your lower back aches after 30 minutes of sitting, but feels better when you stand
• You notice your head jutting forward in photos
• Your shoulders round forward even when you try to sit straight
• Leaking that gets worse as the day goes on
• Pelvic heaviness after prolonged sitting or standing, or low back pain combined with urgency or frequency

If you suspect you have an issue with your pelvic floor, you can do a simple self-check:

1. Stand sideways in front of a mirror without adjusting your posture
2. Your ear should align with the middle of your shoulder
3. You should see a small curve in your lower back—not flat, not exaggerated
4. If you spot two or more problems, prioritize fixing posture alongside any pelvic floor work

If you're concerned about pelvic floor weakness, adding Kegel exercises to your posture corrections gives you the best results. Regular pelvic floor training strengthens the muscles that proper alignment depends on.

If you're not sure whether you're doing Kegels correctly—and many people aren't—kGoal trainers provide real-time biofeedback to guide you through each exercise.

kGoal Classic is an insertable trainer for women with an adjustable design that fits comfortably while you work on building strength. kGoal Boost works externally for both men and women, letting you train your pelvic floor without interruption.

The Takeaway: Does Poor Posture Hurt Your Pelvic Floor?

Bad posture is more than just bad. It can contribute to or exacerbate pelvic floor dysfunction as well as lower back or pelvic pain (among other potential consequences). And the vast majority of people could stand to improve theirs.

But it can usually be improved by adopting good habits for sitting, standing, and resting positions, as well as stretching, strengthening, and developing core strength. So, for your pelvic health and many other parts of your body, channel your inner parent and straighten up!

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