Weightlifting Belts Are Bad For Your Pelvic Floor.

Ditch the belt!

Probably a pretty big call to make and may bring out a few haters, but I don’t see much advantage to it when resolving pelvic health issues. I recommend all my clients ditch their belt until they have great control and strength of their pelvic floor and abdominal muscles. Even then, I still recommend they don’t use one.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into why!

1. Wearing a belt will increase intra-abdominal pressure. 

If you aren’t already aware, your core canister regulates pressure and when pressure is high your pelvic floor has a lot of work to do to withstand all that pressure pushing down onto it. When you are lifting and having to create stability, pressure in your abdomen increases and the more weight you lift the more likely pressure is to increase. Adding a weight belt around your abdomen increases that pressure even more! The only place the pressure can go is down onto your lower abdominals (hello little pouch under the belt) and onto your pelvic floor. This is a terrible amount of load onto your pelvic floor and if exposed to this amount of load regularly can cause weakness of the tissue and even damage, not to mention if there is already weakness there! You are also more likely to be leaking urine as a result of that pressure down.

2. A weight belt increases your risk of prolapse.

How many times have you been cued ‘push out against the belt’ when using the weight belt? I’ve tried so many times to push out against a belt whilst drawing up through my pelvic floor and not once have I felt successful (especially with heavy loads). If you were to use your core properly to create stability you would contract your pelvic floor up and your deeper core muscles inward to narrow your waistline. This is the complete opposite to ‘push out against the belt’ cue most people use when lifting with a belt. So using a lifting belt increases the likelihood of you ‘bearing down’ (pushing down) onto your pelvic floor and not actually contracting the pelvic floor correctly. This is constant exposure to incorrect pelvic floor activation and bearing down. Both  factors increase the risk of pelvic floor weakness and prolapse.

3. Lifting Belts can give you a false sense of security. 

Most ladies will say they can lift heavier with a belt. But why is that? Probably because they don't have the core strength to support the load they are trying to lift. If you can’t lift the weight without the belt, or you have to strain a lot to lift the weight and you have pelvic floor weakness or existing prolapse, my recommendation is don’t lift it. The risk is high for further damage.

4. Belts should not be used for high volume sets and reps.

Conventionally weight lifting belts have been used for powerlifters when they approach their maximal effort lift where they need extra trunk support. It now seems to be part of the ‘fitness outfit’ and is being used incorrectly. Not only do I see this all over social media posts from fitness influencers, but also in gyms. I have seen women (and men) use a lifting belt when performing sets of 10+ reps on exercises that do not need external support. Or if they do need the support (maybe in the case of back pain) then I'd imagine they really should be working on their core strength to support, stabilise and regulate pressure better, rather than relying on a belt. If you are using a belt for higher volume training then you are constantly increasing downward pressures onto your pelvic floor, down training the activation pattern of your core muscles and increasing the risk of you bearing down. 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the weight belt is not your friend when it comes to pelvic floor health. Start reducing your reliance on this and work on really increasing the strength of your pelvic floor and abdominal muscles to support the lifts. Not only is this safer for your pelvic floor (as long as you are correctly bracing) but can naturally strengthen your pelvic floor muscles.

I help so many women up train their core and pelvic floor to support their lifting. We look at core bracing techniques,core and pelvic floor progressive overload strengthening, breathing and pressure management strategies and lifting techniques. There is so much you can address to help improve your symptoms of urinary leaking, heaviness or feelings of downward pressure as well as being able to continue training. 

If you are at a stage where you need some more guidance on improving your core and pelvic floor function with your lifting and training, My 12 week 1:1 program is exactly what you need. A fully individualized program to go alongside your current training regime that teaches you all the strategies to strengthen your core, ditch the belt, improve your lifts and reduce your symptoms. 

Apply to join my 1:1 program below.