The Whole Woman Blog

While breathing a certain way may seem simplistic, and perhaps even irrelevant to conditions such as pelvic organ prolapse, it is in fact true that natural breathing while under the forces of gravity is what creates and maintains the pelvic organ support system. 

Conventional culture teaches that the rib cage should expand out to the sides with each in-breath. However, the lower ribs can only expand laterally when the upper abdominal wall is held in. Western women like the look of a small waist, so they cultivate a small midriff by habitually holding in their upper abdominal wall. It is not surprising therefore, that the type of breathing that supports a small waist is generally considered ‘natural’ by yoga and physical therapy. Reversal of natural breathing is the single most important factor in loss of pelvic organ support.

All healthy babies and young children breathe naturally. The...

Urologists and gynecologists have looked at the problem of urinary incontinence through an exceedingly narrow lens, and onto a diamond-shaped set of muscles called the “pelvic floor.”

This field of vision arises when a woman is placed on her back in the lithotomy position, on either an exam or operating table, with knees bent and feet held in high stirrups.

From this perspective Dr. Arnold Kegel devised his theory of pelvic floor strengthening in the treatment of urinary incontinence, by way of simplistic and conceptually flawed exercises known as kegels. It is also the position women are placed in for incontinence surgeries, all of which are associated with negative long-term outcomes.

In reality, kegels have no bearing on the female urinary continence system,...

Has the entire world of physical and movement therapy gone mad? Instead of people moving toward a more natural sense of body awareness, ease and comfort, they continue to be led down the Path of the Hard Body – a cultural contrivance that has replaced chopping wood and carrying water with the vanity of the asphalt jungle gym.

“Biomechanics is going by the wayside” exclaims Thomas Meyers, Structural Integration therapist and author of Anatomy Trains. According to Meyers, the New Biomechanics remains loosely defined. Yet, it seems to have at its foundation the perspective that instead of the body hanging on the skeleton like a suit on a coat hanger, the skeleton floats in a bag of soft tissue. While both views are equally incomplete, at least the Old Biomechanics is based on 500 years of anatomical study about how muscles and bones operate. The New Biomechanics being espoused by manual therapists, trainers, and yoga teachers is as amorphous and mystifying as...