Beyond Kegels – Functional Strength Training for the Pelvic Floor: Online (with optional In-Person)

Unlock the missing piece in pelvic floor rehabilitation—functional strength training.

As a pelvic health physiotherapist, you understand the complexities of treating conditions like urinary incontinence, pelvic pain, and pelvic organ prolapse. But are you leveraging strength training effectively in your treatment plans?

Too often, rehab is limited to isolated pelvic floor strengthening or cookie cutter treatment plans, leaving patients without the strength they need for full recovery. This course challenges that norm, equipping you with the skills to confidently assess, prescribe, teach, modify, and progress essential strength movements—squats, deadlifts, presses, and their variations to improve your clients most common pelvic health concerns.

This online course blends lecture, case studies, and movement practice to ensure you walk away with skills and strategies you can implement immediately in your practice.  For those who want to take their learning further, an optional in-person session the following weekend offers hands-on coaching practice, more case study applications, and more opportunity for one-on-one time with the instructors.

Move beyond Kegels – transform your approach to pelvic health with functional strength training.

Course Objectives:

• Understand the limitations of traditional pelvic floor rehabilitation – identify the gaps in common treatment approaches and why underloading patients can hinder full symptom resolution.
• Integrate strength training into pelvic health treatment plans – learn how functional movements like squats, deadlifts, and presses can enhance recovery and improve patient outcomes.
• Assess and teach fundamental strength movements with confidence – develop the skills to assess, cue, demonstrate, and coach essential lifts safely and effectively.
• Bridge the gap between pelvic health rehab and strength training – learn how to progress patients from isolated pelvic floor exercises to full-body, functional movement patterns.
• Develop evidence-based exercise prescriptions – use current research to guide programming decisions and ensure patients are receiving appropriate load and volume.
• Apply strength training principles to specific pelvic health conditions – tailor strength training interventions for urinary incontinence, pelvic pain, and pelvic organ prolapse
• Enhance clinical reasoning through case studies and hands-on practice – work through real-world scenarios and refine your ability to make patient-centered exercise modifications.

Please note – having access to dumbbells for the online component will be helpful to practice movements.

Objectives for the optional in-person practical component:

1. Refine coaching and cueing skills – gain valuable hands-on experience providing real-time feedback and expand your ability to improve your client’s form and symptoms with exercise prescription, modifications and better cueing.
2. Perform and receive live movement assessments of both yourself and others – practice assessing your own movement quality, identifying compensations, and implementing different modifications/cues to improve your exercise prescription for both yourself and clients.
3. Experiment with equipment and load variations – an opportunity to get comfortable using different resistance tools (e.g., barbells, kettlebells, bands) to adapt strength training for diverse client needs (including common pelvic floor symptoms and conditions)