Muscles
Pelvic Floor Trigger Points
Symptom Area: Lower Torso
Pelvic Floor Trigger Points are explored here through their location and referred pain pattern. Muscle knots is an everyday term used for tender muscular spots; myofascial pain describes pain involving muscle and its surrounding connective tissue. Group term for the muscular floor of the pelvis; trigger points produce deep pelvic, perineal and tailbone pain.
Where you feel it
When the Pelvic Floor holds active trigger points, you usually notice it as painful intercourse and stress incontinence or anal/genital/perineal pain. Where the pain spreads: Deep pelvic ache, perineal and rectal pain, coccyx pain, and referral to the low back, groin or inner thigh; frequently aggravated by sitting, intercourse or bowel movements. What often sets it off: Chronic pelvic bracing and stress, childbirth, pelvic or abdominal surgery, straining and constipation, trauma or falls onto the tailbone, persistent urogenital irritation.
Overview
The pelvic floor combines levator ani, coccygeus and the perineal muscles into a supportive sling for the pelvic organs, contributing to continence, sexual function and intra-abdominal pressure control with the diaphragm and deep abdominals. It is treated as a functional unit because its trigger points rarely occur in isolation.
Trigger point locations
Points throughout the levator plate, the obturator internus wall and the superficial perineal muscles, located on internal examination.
Referred pain pattern
Deep pelvic ache, perineal and rectal pain, coccyx pain, and referral to the low back, groin or inner thigh; frequently aggravated by sitting, intercourse or bowel movements.
Palpation & testing
Internal vaginal or rectal assessment by a trained pelvic health clinician, mapping tender bands quadrant by quadrant and correlating them with the patient's familiar symptoms.
Common causes
Chronic pelvic bracing and stress, childbirth, pelvic or abdominal surgery, straining and constipation, trauma or falls onto the tailbone, persistent urogenital irritation.
Self-care & clinical treatment
Down-training with diaphragmatic breathing, sitting and bowel habit modification, hip and adductor mobility work, graded return to activity. Clinically: internal manual therapy by a pelvic health physiotherapist, with medical screening for urogenital, colorectal and gynaecological causes.
Treatment protocol
For Pelvic Floor, the general protocol applies: sustained pressure release on the taut band, then stretch and active movement in the newly gained range.
Position and palpation: Internal vaginal or rectal assessment by a trained pelvic health clinician, mapping tender bands quadrant by quadrant and correlating them with the patient's familiar symptoms.
Regional precaution for clinicians: In the flank and abdominal wall the kidney (behind the twelfth rib and the quadratus lumborum), the abdominal viscera and the lower lung fields are the structures at risk.
Primary Symptoms
Often confused with
These muscles cause the same primary symptoms, so they are checked together:
Related muscles in this region
Related articles
References
- • triggerpoints.net — reference
Medically reviewed by: Marco Aruffo — physiotherapist since 2006, specialised in myofascial pain · Last reviewed:
