Discover the benefits of bridging exercises for pelvic health. Learn how to strengthen your core, support your spine, and enhance overall body stability.
We had the most amazing membership class this Monday. We meet on the third Monday of every month, and it’s a real highlight of my month. I love seeing everyone and hearing about the amazing progress women are making. We followed each class with a question session, which can cover anything at all, and this week was a real corker.
The Importance of Spinal Articulation in Bridging
One of the questions brought us back to bridging—not whether it was a glute bridge or not, but how to articulate your spine: what is articulation, and how do you actually do it?
Many women have been taught to bridge by doing a big tuck under with their pelvis, then peeling bone by bone off the mat. I remember it well because I was also taught that way and taught it that way for a long time. However, I see lots of other ways to approach bridging for different goals.
In the membership, we bridge in so many ways—more than I could count—because it can truly serve different purposes. I love that many women also have their favourite type of bridge because they’ve learned so much about themselves and what their body needs from bridging.
Anyway, let’s go back to the questions and how I answered them. In most people, the lower back has a lot of range of movement and, if you have pelvic organ prolapse, is often where you feel pain. Conversely, most people have more stiffness, tension, and less mobility in their upper spine, called the thoracic region. Each of our beautiful vertebrae has a small degree of movement so that when we move, the force is distributed evenly, which is crucial.
This distribution of force is really important for both pelvic and spinal health. If you move your lower back a lot and your upper back very little, it creates force through the mobile areas, which can lead to pain and discomfort and increases the pressure down into your pelvic floor, making it work harder than it should at times it shouldn’t need to.
Benefits of Bridging Exercises for Pelvic Floor Health
This is huge! If your upper spine is not mobile, chances are your shoulders are rounded, and your head is forward. That heavy, bowling-ball weight of your head is being held up from below. Don’t you feel sorry for your pelvic floor right now? It’s carrying the weight of your world, and it’s just not cut out for that.
So, how should you approach bridging? As I said, there are many ways, but I’d start with a ‘less is more’ approach and build from there. Think of the goal as doing less movement in your lower spine to give your upper spine the chance to contribute.
How to do an effective bridging exercise:
Set-up: Lie on your back with both knees bent, feet hip-width apart, and arms long by the side of your body. Your feet need to be close enough to your bottom so you can stand into your feet, but not so close that you feel squashed or tense.
Action: Stand into the footprints of your feet and reach your shins forward. As you do this, feel your pelvis naturally get lighter and allow it to tip gently and lift up. As it lifts, yawn open the front of your hip sockets. To return, let your tailbone and pelvis become heavy and start moving downwards. As your pelvis moves, it guides the upper spine down with it.
Notes: The movement has a very subtle, articulating feeling inside you, and you won’t feel each vertebra touch or roll down into the mat. It feels like a cloud billowing in the breeze.
Embrace Bridging as Part of Your Wellness Routine
Let me know how you get on with bridging, and if you’re not already in our Facebook group, join in and share your experience—even share a video so I can help you get the most out of it. You can email me at claire@wholebodypelvichealth.co.uk.
