Stress urinary incontinence is the involuntary leakage of urine which occurs when there is an increase in abdominal pressure for example with activities like.
Coughing
Sneezing
Laughing
Jumping
Running
Weightlifting
Some Key Causes;
Pelvic Floor Muscle Weakness – this can be at any stage of life. The guidelines for having pelvic floor strength that will support you for “high impact” exercises state that you should be able to achieve a 30second pelvic floor muscle contraction and repeat that 10 times without fatiguing as well as 30 quick contractions. If you can’t achieve even one pelvic floor muscle contraction for 30 seconds then your pelvic floor needs some work!
Urethral instability – this is when your urethra (where urine comes out of) is essentially moving too much, to explain this I use the example of a garden hose, if the hose is straight water can stop and flow through it easily when the tap is turned on or off. However, if the hose is moving around all the time, water can escape at any moment and without warning! The same is the case for urethra!
Obesity – this is a difficult subject to discuss but the research shows that if you are overweight and lose 10% of your body weight, 80% of your SUI symptoms will resolve! So for example, if you weigh 80Kg and you lose 8kg then 80% of the time you won’t experience Stress urinary incontinence.
Technique – If you are not sure if you are doing your pelvic floor exercises correctly I strongly recommend that you have at the very least a one off appointment with a Pelvic Health Professional to have this assessed. Once you know you know that your technique is correct, time and strengthening should do the rest
IF HOWEVER you have been assessed, have completed 12 weeks of consistent home exercise strengthening and are still experiencing stress urinary incontinence then there are afew more things to consider;
Are you doing the movement that is provoking your stress urinary incontinence with the right technique? i.e. if you are leaking when you are skipping, is your rope the right length? Have you got good forefoot rebound? Is your core engaged correctly?
All these questions are not just relevant to skipping – if you don’t know, a Pelvic Health Physio can assess this as these can all be the reason that you continue to leak, despite a strong pelvic floor.
This is not by any means a full list of causes for stress urinary incontinence, but I hope you have found this useful and if you still have questions – please get in touch.
I would love to hear from you.
Zoe
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