5 Pelvic Floor Exercises You Can Actually Fit Into a Busy Day

One of our patients is a mom of three kids under 5, living on a farm, gardening, managing the farm books, and cooking every meal for her family. After having her third baby, she found herself needing up to three incontinence pads a day — leaks that happened while lifting her kids, bending over to pull weeds, or even from a simple cough. She was worried about her symptoms getting worse. She didn't like having to carry supplies with her everywhere. And she felt embarrassed on the occasions the leaks happened in public. Her doctor recommended pelvic floor physiotherapy, and her first reaction wasn't doubt about whether it would work — it was a practical question: when am I supposed to find the time for this? If that sounds familiar, keep reading. This is for you. You are not alone One of the most challenging parts of pelvic floor physiotherapy isn't the exercises themselves — it's taking that first step to book the appointment. Sometimes the barrier is financial. Just as often, particularly for women, the barrier is time: - You're busy with work - Arranging childcare for an appointment is its own logistical puzzle - Maybe the symptoms — the leaking, the pressure, the occasional twinge — don't feel like "enough of a bother" yet to justify the time Here's the reframe worth sitting with: those aren't reasons to keep pushing through. They're signs that your pelvic floor muscles aren't performing the way they should — and that's a fixable, trainable thing, not a life sentence. The pelvic floor is a group of muscles that support organs like the bladder, uterus, and bowels. These same muscles also control when you go to the bathroom, and play a role in sexual function. When they're working well, they can reflexively squeeze right before you cough, relax when you need to urinate or have a bowel movement, contract rapidly during an orgasm, and stretch significantly during childbirth. But plenty of things can knock this system off track — physical or mental trauma, aging, or a range of medical events: - Childbirth - Surgery - Sexual abuse - Menopause - Cancer treatment (among others) None of these mean your pelvic floor is "broken." It means, like any other muscle group in your body, it's responded to what it's been through — and it can respond to training too. Spending time with a pelvic floor physiotherapist is genuinely worth the investment, and meaningful improvement often comes from just a few well-chosen exercises, tailored to you specifically. Here are five to start with. 1. Deep breathing Yes, it's really this simple — and this exercise helps with a surprisingly wide range of conditions, from general pain to prolapse, post-surgical recovery, and postpartum symptoms. Sit, lie down, or move into your favorite yoga pose — child's pose is a favorite for this one. Take a deep breath in through your nose, letting your belly expand, and feel your pelvic floor muscles relax as you do. Then exhale through your nose, and notice a gentle "lift" through your pelvic floor as you breathe out. If you're having trouble actually feeling those muscles, try sitting on an exercise ball with your knees out wide. The light pressure gives you something to feel against, making the contract-and-release pattern much easier to notice. 2. Glute bridge This exercise brings your hip, core, breath, and pelvic floor together, working as one coordinated system. It's more challenging than deep breathing, but it's a favorite for people recovering from prolapse or navigating the postpartum period. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Take a deep breath in, then as you breathe out, lift your hips off the floor while contracting your pelvic floor. Keep your knees steady and parallel with each other throughout the entire movement — that stability is doing as much work as the lift itself. 3. Kegel elevators Think of this as a shake-up to the basic kegel. In daily life, you don't need to live with a maximum pelvic floor contraction for every activity — so this exercise trains you to modulate the intensity, not just switch it on and off. Here's how it works: take a deep breath in. Breathe out and contract your pelvic floor muscles to about 30% — think of it as the "first floor." Completely relax the pelvic floor on your next breath in. Repeat, this time contracting to the "second floor," roughly 60% of your maximum. Finally, make your way to the "top floor" with a full kegel on the last repetition. 4. Chair sits This is a genuinely functional movement — you already do it multiple times a day without thinking about it. All you're adding here is awareness of your breath and your pelvic floor as you move. Start seated. As you breathe out, stand up from your chair. As you breathe in, lower your hips and then your knees gracefully back down into the seat. Simple, but repeated with intention, it builds real strength into a movement your body relies on constantly. 5. Happy baby Time to dial into the tension in your pelvic floor with a pose that's relaxing and quietly challenging at the same time. Lie on your back and grab the backs of your legs, drawing your thighs toward your belly. Bonus points for combining this with the deep breathing exercise above. To take it further, grab onto your feet directly — or if you're flexible enough, hook your fingers around your big toes. No time to spare? Get creative The good news: these exercises don't require a dedicated block of time or a yoga mat in a quiet room. You can weave them into a day you're already living. Doing kegel elevators during a Zoom call — no one on the other end will know. Stiff and exhausted at the end of the day? Happy baby before bed, instead of one more scroll through your phone. Before you know it, you've fit your pelvic floor exercises into less than ten minutes of your day, without carving out any extra time at all. Our patient mentioned at the start of this article found real success this way. One of the most effective exercises for her turned out to be the sit-to-stand movement from the chair sits exercise above. Once she'd mastered the movement pattern, we made it functional by adding weight. Eventually, she was able to lift her toddler using proper technique to prevent leaking — without even having to think about it anymore. The bottom line Pelvic floor symptoms are common, but "common" doesn't mean you have to just live with them. A handful of exercises, done consistently and built into a day you're already living, can meaningfully change how your body handles the everyday demands you're placing on it — lifting kids, coughing, gardening, or anything else life throws your way.