Ultimately it’s no-one business what any of us do in the shower, so I want to preface this post by saying I am not judging anyone. But, if you do pee in the shower, and you are a woman, you might want to stop.

Why should women not pee in the shower? The truth is, no matter how convenient it is, it’s not good for your pelvic floor.

Ahh the pelvic floor! I’m going to apologise to any men right now, this is a female post about female pelvic floors. Yours is no less important, but it’s not relevant here.

The Pelvic floor is a group of muscles that hang from our pubic bone to our tail bone. They hold the lower half of our body in place, our bowels, womb and bladder.

As soon as it becomes apparent you are a female, you are told to tighten your pelvic floor. I can still remember the giggles I had when I was first told this at aged 18 in a fitness class. “This will be so important to you in the future” I was told with a knowing look. Teehee I thought. At 18 I couldn’t give a hoot about pelvic floors, least of all my own.

Then when I began my Fitness training there it was again, the talk about pelvic floors and how important it was to tighten it. I couldn’t escape it. As women you cannot escape it. When you think about becoming pregnant, you’re told again to start strengthening your pelvic floor. The easiest thing to do to stop the chatter to just do it.

How do you strengthen your pelvic floor?

Despite all the fuss about your pelvic floor it’s a relatively simple exercise. You simply squeeze the muscles that stop your flow of pee, hold, and release. 10- 15 are recommended daily. No one will know you are doing it, I could be doing it now. I’m not, but I could be.

You can even practise this when having a pee. Try to stop the flow. I know I know you didn’t sign up for toilet talk but here’s the thing, it’s important. I wouldn’t harp on about it if it wasn’t.

So why no peeing in the shower?

So, back to why we shouldn’t be peeing in the shower. Well after all those years of training your muscles a certain way, if you pee in the shower, you start to retrain them. You’re teaching your muscles to relax as you pee, rather than having control over them. Let me tell you now, having no control over your pelvic floor muscles is not a good thing.

You want to make sure your muscles have the memory that you pee when you are seated, not standing. You would be undoing all the good work you have done and allowing your muscles to weaken if you pee in the shower. It’s not exactly science. But it’s good practise.