Area physical therapist helps women around the world strengthen their pelvic floors

Williamstown, M.A. (NEWS10) - A Berkshire county business is helping women around the world strengthen their pelvic floor muscles. Issues with the pelvic floor can cause bladder leakage, pelvic pain, and other concerns that women tend to ignore or hide because they’re taboo.

“I think for a lot of women it’s just accepted,” said Brittney Cappiello, CEO and co-founder of My Core Floor.

“The number of women that say, ‘well, my grandmother has incontinence or my mom told me this is what happens after you have a baby or after you go through menopause’— I think it’s amazing, as women, what we are willing to accept and live with. With my clients, it’s mostly because they didn’t know or realize that there was another solution and it goes so far beyond Kegels,” she said.

My Core Floor is a virtual program providing education and exercises for women of all ages. Capiello says studies show that by age 60, 1 in 3 women will experience some type of pelvic floor dysfunction. The causes are wide ranging; from injuries and fractures, to child birth and sexual trauma. In most cases, muscle training can help.

 “It’s squats, lunges, its arms, it’s core engagement because it’s really just teaching your body the way to move the way it needs to move in lots of different ways,” she said.

Cappiello says she has clients from all over the country and from as far away as Pakistan and Australia who log on to her live classes that she describes as a “safe space” for women. She says clients can expect to see improvements after 4 to 6 weeks of the program, but in some cases, medication or surgery is needed.