4 Athletic performance and pelvic floor dysfunction?
Most women will have a pelvic floor that is strong enough for their daily activities; however, it is not uncommon for athletic females to experience problems due to dysfunction of their pelvic floor muscles. This can have serious consequences.
Teixeira et al. (2018) identified that urinary incontinence (UI) can impact on social and mental wellbeing and as a result can cause problems, such as social isolation, low self-esteem, depression and a lower quality of life. They also reported that 20% of women had given up playing sport due to UI. In addition to this there are several risk factors for pelvic floor dysfunction, and these are older age, obesity, childbirth, menopause and exercise (Teixeira et al., 2018). Activity 2 introduces the problems athletes may face around pelvic floor dysfunction.
Activity 2 Pelvic floor health and athletes
Watch the animation below that gives more detail about the pelvic floor, why athletes are prone to pelvic floor dysfunction, and what can be done to restore function to these muscles.
Then answer the following True/False questions.
1. Due to their strong pelvic floor athletes are less likely to experience urinary incontinence.
Discussion
False. Athletes are more likely to experience UI as their pelvic floors can be weakened by high intensity exercise or their overtight pelvic floors can affect their function negatively.
2. Pelvic floor muscles run across the pelvis from pubic bone to coccyx.
Discussion
True. The muscles of the pelvic floor run across the pelvis.
3. In both males and females there are two openings in the pelvic floor.
Discussion
3. False. Males have two opening in the pelvic floor for the urethra and the anus, but females have an additional opening for the vagina.
4. Exercising, sneezing, and coughing will all strengthen the pelvic floor muscles.
Discussion
False. All these activities can add to increase pressure on the pelvic floor and cause UI.
OpenLearn - Supporting female performance in sport and fitness
Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.