Hypertonic Pelvic Floor - Overactive Muscles or Just Misinformed Hype?
A few weeks back I wrote about muscle tightness. A subjective sensation that individuals often experience as a feeling of tension, stiffness, or restriction in their muscles rather than a clinical measurement.
Many research papers highlight how confusion is caused by using terms interchangeably, even though they mean different things. Not only is that confusing as fuck, it’s also a way in which misinformation can spread quicker than an STI in student halls on fresher’s week.
I’m often sent posts like this, and I even work with clients who have been told they have an ‘overactive’ pelvic floor.
For today’s deep dive, I’m covering the literature on Pelvic Floor Hypertonicity - which is what people mean when they say overactive, even though overactive isn’t the right word to use. Hopefully I can dispel some myths and level out the language for you.
When people say a muscle is overactive, like the pelvic floor, what they mean is increased tone. We covered tone in the muscle tightness deep dive too. Here’s a recap.
A paywall is now in effect, reading these papers takes alot of time and hurts my brain. For the price of an expensive coffee, you can sign up to access this deep dive and all of the others, plus you’ll be able to ask questions and submit content for me to fact check.