High Performance Pelvic Health: Athletes Need More than Kegels
US Olympic and Paralympic Women’s Health Taskforce: Webinar Series
November 12, 2025
When pelvic health is mentioned in sport, the conversation is often limited to Kegels and urine leaks- but that’s not the whole story. Many high performance athletes also experience urinary urgency and frequency, constipation, pelvic pain, painful sex, or tampon insertion discomfort. Issues that may be irritated by Kegels. Discussion about these needs and the impact they have on an athlete’s training, performance, and quality of life is rare.
In addition, we tend to focus on isolated pelvic floor activities as a universal solution to pelvic health needs. But a one-muscle, one exercise-fits-all (Kegels) approach doesn’t match the complexity of elite athletic demands or the sport-specific ways athletes train and compete.
This session will expand the conversation and offer a sport-specific pelvic health model that is integrated with (not isolated from) movement and performance systems.
We’ll explore:
- Pelvic health needs beyond leaks—painful sex, pressure, urgency, and more.
- How pelvic health issues show up indirectly—as hip, low back, or pelvic pain, or performance changes driven by fear of leaking or discomfort.
- How the pelvic floor uses teamwork—coordination with breath, pressure systems, glutes (BFFs), and movement patterns.
- How to train those ‘teams’ in sport-specific ways—mimicking athletic movement patterns that trigger symptoms on the court, pitch, or track.
- Modifiable factors that influence pelvic health—fueling, sleep, stress, hydration, recovery, and gut health.
Bring your questions. Walk away with insight into your body, tools to recognize symptom patterns, and informed adjustments you can make to help keep you moving and performing with confidence.
This is a closed event, but you can find similar content (for pros) here:
Persistent Pelvic Pain in Athletes: A Biopsychosocial Approach
Treating and Training the Female Runner (or Any Female Athlete)