10 Pelvic Floor Exercises to Try for Strength

If you’re heard it once, you’ve heard it a hundred times: cultivating a strong foundation is a fundamental part of feeling supported in your yoga practice. And while your core muscles are often cited as being responsible for your stability, there’s another essential area that plays starring role in your daily routine, whether you’re on or off your mat. Enter the pelvic floor.

“The pelvic floor is the foundation of nearly every movement we make. It stabilizes the spine and hips, supports breathing and posture, and even influences circulation and hormonal health,” says Ed Gemjin, physical therapist and general manager of The Gym Venice. “When it’s weak or overactive, you can see issues ranging from back or hip pain to digestive discomfort and poor balance.”

Julianne Collazo, yoga instructor and founder of  Yoga Islands, a yoga and Ayurvedic training program, explains that the pelvic floor is a group of muscles that act like a hammock supporting your reproductive organs, bladder, and lower digestive tract. A healthy relationship between your abdominal and pelvic floor muscles can create a powerful base from which all of your movements—including yoga poses—are centered upon.

“While anatomy differs slightly between men and women, both rely on pelvic floor muscles for posture, continence, and sexual function,” says Gemjin. Additionally, any discomfort within the pelvic region has the potential to create not only tightness but limitations in flexibility and stability.

The good news: Yoga can help (re)build the connection between the core and pelvic floor. Read on to learn more on integrating pelvic floor strengthening stretches into your routine.

Strengthening, Stretching, and Stabilizing the Pelvic Floor

“When we talk about engaging the pelvic floor in yoga or movement practices, we often focus on technique, on how to activate these deep, supportive muscles,” says Collazo. She notes that along with the how, the why is equally essential. “It’s not just about strength, it’s about vitality, hormonal harmony, and emotional balance.”

A strong core is integral in optimizing overall wellness. Activation of the core muscles helps stabilize the spine, providing support against the pull of gravity while also maintaining vertical alignment. Yet, a stable core also results from a partnership that includes pelvic floor exercises.

When you learn how to strengthen the pelvic floor, your muscle memory retains that information, curating a solid foundation for balance, engagement, and strength. By stretching, strengthening and stabilizing these areas, the pelvic floor muscles and their co-existing connective tissues provide support to their neighboring abdominal muscles and vital organs.

Here, experts share insight on how to effectively exercise the pelvic floor during yoga and otherwise so you can cultivate a steady, supportive baseline for optimal balance, stability and strength.

10 Pelvic Floor Cues for Strength

Pelvic floor functionality is relevant for both males and females. The following pelvic floor exercises are designed for everyone.

1. Think of stopping the flow of urine

A simple anatomical cue such as this one, which relates the action to everyday life, can be helpful to anyone, especially beginner yoga practitioners.

2. Imagine holding in a sneeze

“I avoid rigid cues like ‘squeeze’ and instead encourage subtle, breath-based awareness,” says Gemjin. “’Exhale and gently lift from the base of your pelvis,’ or ‘Imagine holding in a sneeze.’”

The goal here is to create connection rather than tension in the muscles, and stability rather than strain.

3. Imagine you’re picking up marble

“To help students feel it, I sometimes cue it as, ‘Imagine a marble resting on the pelvic floor and try to lift the marble as you exhale, then let it release as you inhale,” says Joe Miller, yoga anatomy teacher and Feldenkrais practitioner.

4. Engage your mula bandha

“In yoga, we use the phrase mula bandha, which is engaging or contracting the anus and sex organs with a feeling of pulling up and in. Many poses, even long deep breathing, can be done while engaging mula bandha and creating a more stable, strong pelvic floor,” says yoga instructor and Teaching Power Yoga for Sports author Gwen Lawrence.

“The old saying, use it or lose it, could not be more true here,” says Lawrence, who explains that it’s imperative to engage the pelvic floor regularly. She notes it’s especially relevant for those experiencing weakening musculature due to aging.

5. Lift the pelvic floor toward your navel

By relying on anatomical landmarks, this cue not only engages the appropriate muscles, it creates awareness of the relationship between the pelvic floor and core muscles.

6. Feel the muscles between your sit bones gently hugging in and up

This encourages lateral and vertical activation. Think of mirroring the actions of contraction and release practiced during bridge lifts and Kegel exercises, strengthening the pelvic floor and deep core muscles, rather than relying on the power of the gluteals and quadriceps.

7. Exhale as you engage

There’s a relationship between the diaphragm and the movement of the pelvic floor. Miller explains that during relaxed breathing, the pelvic floor lengthens to allow the descent of the diaphragm as you inhale. It contracts and lifts a little as you exhale. “It can also assist active exhalation, helping you press out a little more air,” says Miller.

“But if it’s chronically contracted (hypertonic), it can make relaxed breathing more difficult,” he says. Hence the need for awareness as to whether you’re constantly engaging it or not. Collazo adds that people tend to lose connection to the pelvic floor when they hold their breath—so don’t forget to exhale as you engage.

8. Imagine sipping a smoothie through a straw from your perineum

This visual helps activate the lifting and drawing in motion subtly and without force. Collazzo explains that this visualization can help students practice the action of activating the mula bandha area. 

9. Practice pelvic thumps

According to Lawrence, a pelvic thump is an exercise that stimulates the root chakra, increasing your sense of stability and helping you feel more secure in your body and in life.

How to:  

• Sit in an easy, crossed-leg position.
• Extend your arms down, palms flat on the floor alongside your hips.
• Take an inhale and push the floor away lifting your butt and hips and exhale drop down.
• Repeat this for 1-3 minutes.
• Sit and breathe into the resulting sensations.

10. Cue the pose rather than the muscle

Miller avoids specifically cueing engagement of the pelvic floor in his asana practice. “It’s not that I never cue anything about it, but I generally focus on the bigger, more global actions of the pose that should help it engage when it needs to,” he explains. Think shapes like Chair Pose, Bridge Pose, and even Child’s Pose.  “Ideally, it contracts reflexively when we need that extra support, so I don’t tend to micromanage it.”