You're Fit. You're Young. So Why Isn't Your Body Performing?
What do tight hips, lower back pain, erectile dysfunction, urinary problems, and even your big toe have in common? Jana Danielson reveals the overlooked connection that could change how you think about strength, movement, and sexual health.
You're 24 years old. You're a Division I college football player. You're strong, athletic, and in the kind of physical condition most people spend years trying to achieve. But your hips are constantly tight, your lower back hurts, and something even more troubling is happening: your sex life is suffering.
You're having difficulty getting or maintaining an erection. Even wearing jeans can be painful. Your feet ache after work, your sleep is suffering, and your confidence is beginning to disappear.
How can someone who looks so physically fit feel so physically broken?
This isn't a hypothetical situation. It's the story of a young athlete shared by movement specialist and Pilates educator Jana Danielson, our guest on the latest episode of the Crackin' Backs Podcast.
The athlete had been searching for answers when he came across one of Jana's videos discussing a part of the body he had never considered as a possible contributor to his symptoms.
His pelvic floor.
Wait. Isn't pelvic floor dysfunction something women experience after childbirth? Or something men worry about as they get older?
That's exactly the misconception Jana wants to challenge.
Because whether you're 24 or 64, a competitive athlete or someone who sits at a desk all day, your pelvic floor is working every time you breathe, move, lift, cough, or use the bathroom. These muscles also contribute to sexual function and the coordination of your core.
And here's where the conversation gets particularly interesting.
What if the problem isn't that these muscles are too weak? What if they're actually too tight to function properly?
During this episode, Dr. Terry Weyman and Dr. Spencer Baron explore the surprising connections between pelvic floor function, breathing mechanics, hip mobility, foot function, athletic performance, and sexual health.
The conversation challenges a common assumption in fitness:
Looking strong doesn't necessarily mean every part of your body is working well.
The Hidden Muscles Your Workout Probably Ignores
Walk into almost any gym and you'll see people training their chest, shoulders, legs, glutes, and abdominal muscles. Athletes spend hours improving strength, speed, power, and mobility.
But when was the last time you heard someone say they were training their pelvic floor?
Probably never.
Jana describes the pelvic floor as a complex group of 14 muscles arranged in three layers. These muscles contribute to bladder and bowel control, pelvic organ support, sexual function, and the ability to coordinate pressure within the abdomen during movement.
Some muscle fibers help maintain support throughout the day, while others respond rapidly when you sneeze, cough, jump, or lift something heavy.
Think of the pelvic floor as the bottom of your core. The diaphragm forms the top, the abdominal muscles surround the front and sides, and the deeper spinal muscles provide support from behind.
Together, these structures work as a coordinated system.
When you breathe, the diaphragm moves and the pelvic floor responds. When you lift, jump, or brace, these muscles help manage pressure. During sexual activity, pelvic floor muscles contribute to arousal, sensation, and orgasm.
But effective function requires more than strength.
These muscles must also be able to relax.
And that's where Jana believes many people are missing an important piece of the puzzle.
5 Key Insights From This Episode
1. Your Pelvic Floor Might Be Too Tight, Not Too Weak
When people experience urinary leakage, pelvic discomfort, or changes in sexual function, they often assume they need to strengthen their pelvic floor.
That's why Kegel exercises have become so familiar.
But Jana argues that for some people, repeatedly squeezing an already tense pelvic floor may make symptoms worse.
Imagine holding your hand in a tightly clenched fist all day. Eventually, the muscles become fatigued and uncomfortable. When you need to pick up a pen or perform a delicate movement, your hand may struggle—not because it's necessarily weak, but because it can't relax and move normally.
A similar problem can occur in the pelvic floor.
A hypertonic pelvic floor has excessive resting tension or difficulty relaxing. It can contribute to symptoms such as pelvic pain, painful intercourse, constipation, urinary hesitation, and difficulty emptying the bladder.
A weak or underactive pelvic floor, on the other hand, may struggle to generate sufficient contraction or support. Some people experience both weakness and excessive tension.
That's why one exercise program doesn't work for everyone.
Jana uses a memorable elevator analogy. Imagine the pelvic floor as an elevator that should be able to move freely between floors. But what happens when that elevator never returns to the lobby?
Every additional squeeze may simply add tension to a system that's already struggling to release.
The takeaway: Before assuming your pelvic floor needs more strengthening, consider whether it may need better relaxation and coordination. A qualified pelvic floor physical therapist can help distinguish these problems.
The question is no longer simply, “How strong is my pelvic floor?”
It's “Can my pelvic floor contract and relax when it's supposed to?”
2. You Can Have Six-Pack Abs and Still Have Pelvic Floor Dysfunction
This was one of the most revealing parts of our conversation.
We asked Jana how she evaluates athletes who appear physically strong but may have underlying movement or pelvic floor issues.
Her answer wasn't to look at how much weight they could lift or how defined their abdominal muscles were.
She starts by watching them move.
How are they standing? Where is their weight distributed through their feet? What happens when they walk? How much hip rotation do they have? Are they breathing primarily through their diaphragm, or relying heavily on their upper chest and neck?
She also watches how they perform basic movements such as a bridge.
An athlete might squat hundreds of pounds yet struggle to execute a controlled bridge without cramping in the hamstrings, calves, or feet.
That doesn't diagnose pelvic floor dysfunction, but it may reveal movement patterns worth investigating.
Jana's experience with the 24-year-old football player illustrates why this matters.
He described chronic hip tightness, lower back pain, painful sensitivity around the scrotum, aching feet, and erectile difficulties. These problems were affecting far more than his athletic performance. They were influencing his sleep, relationship, and emotional well-being.
Jana worked with him on a program involving breathing, foot mobility, movement, and pelvic floor awareness. Over several months, he reported significant improvements.
His experience is an individual success story, not evidence that pelvic floor treatment will resolve every case of erectile dysfunction or back pain. These symptoms can have several medical causes and deserve appropriate evaluation.
But it highlights an important point.
Being young, athletic, and muscular doesn't make you immune to pelvic floor problems.
And if your body isn't performing the way you expect, simply training harder may not be the answer.
3. The Way You Breathe Could Be Affecting More Than Your Lungs
Most people think breathing is simply about getting oxygen into the body.
But breathing also changes pressure within the abdomen and influences how the diaphragm, abdominal muscles, and pelvic floor coordinate.
During a relaxed inhalation, your diaphragm descends and your pelvic floor generally lengthens and moves downward. As you exhale, the diaphragm rises and the pelvic floor recoils upward.
These movements help manage pressure during everyday activities.
Jana explains that when people rely excessively on their neck and upper-chest muscles to breathe, they may lose some of this natural coordination.
That doesn't mean upper-chest breathing automatically causes pelvic floor dysfunction, but breathing mechanics can be relevant when evaluating pelvic tension and pressure management.
And consider how often our breathing changes throughout the day.
We hold our breath while concentrating. We breathe shallowly when stressed. We brace unnecessarily during exercise. We spend hours sitting in positions that make relaxed movement more difficult.
Over time, these habits may become automatic.
Try Jana's basic breathing awareness exercise:
Place one hand on your upper chest and the other on your abdomen. Inhale slowly through your nose and imagine your lower ribs and waistband gently expanding in every direction. Then exhale comfortably, allowing the abdomen and ribs to return without forcefully squeezing.
Repeat for five to ten slow breaths.
The goal isn't to push your stomach outward or take the biggest breath possible. It's to allow comfortable, coordinated movement.
Jana recommends practicing this before meals or during quiet moments throughout the day.
It's simple, free, and provides an opportunity to become more aware of how your body responds to breathing and stress.
But could something as ordinary as breathing also influence how you move, lift, and manage pelvic pressure?
Jana explains that relationship in much greater detail during the full episode.
4. What Does Your Big Toe Have to Do With Your Pelvic Floor?
This might be the most unexpected connection in the entire conversation.
When Dr. Terry asked Jana to connect the big toe to the pelvic floor, she began describing how the feet, legs, hips, and pelvis work together during movement.
Your feet are your foundation. They provide sensory information about the ground and help control how forces travel through your body.
The big toe is particularly important during walking and running because it contributes to propulsion as you push off the ground.
When big-toe mobility is restricted, your walking mechanics may change. Other joints and muscles can compensate, potentially influencing how forces are distributed through the lower extremities.
Jana takes this concept further by discussing fascial connections throughout the body.
She describes lines of connective tissue linking the feet, inner thighs, pelvis, diaphragm, and even structures around the jaw.
These anatomical relationships are interesting, but it's important to distinguish established biomechanics from broader theories about fascial connections. There isn't strong clinical evidence that releasing tissue between the toes directly treats pelvic floor dysfunction.
Still, Jana's perspective encourages us to think beyond isolated muscles.
If you're constantly experiencing tight hips, restricted movement, or recurring foot discomfort, it may be worth evaluating how your entire body moves.
One of the practical techniques she demonstrates is something Dr. Terry jokingly calls “flossing your feet.”
Using a small wooden dowel, Jana gently works between the toes to encourage movement and sensory awareness. She shares stories of clients who reported improvements in foot comfort and mobility.
She also describes how her own mother practiced the technique consistently and later noticed changes in her hammer toes.
These observations are anecdotal, and established structural toe deformities may not be reversible through self-massage. But gentle toe mobility exercises can be one way to explore foot movement, provided they're comfortable and appropriate for the individual.
The bigger lesson isn't that your big toe controls your pelvic floor. It's that movement is a whole-body activity.
And sometimes the area that hurts isn't the only area worth examining.
5. Your Sex Life, Bathroom Habits, and Athletic Performance May Share an Overlooked Connection
Here's a question that doesn't get asked often enough:
Why do we openly discuss tight hamstrings, shoulder pain, or knee injuries, yet feel embarrassed talking about erectile dysfunction, urinary leakage, constipation, or painful intercourse?
These symptoms can affect people of different ages and fitness levels.
And the pelvic floor can be part of the picture.
For men, pelvic floor dysfunction may contribute to certain types of pelvic pain, urinary symptoms, or sexual difficulties. But erectile dysfunction can also involve cardiovascular health, hormones, medications, neurological conditions, and psychological factors.
For women, pelvic floor problems may contribute to leakage, pain during intercourse, pelvic pressure, or difficulty with bowel movements.
Some conditions involve insufficient muscle support. Others involve excessive tension or difficulty relaxing. And some have causes unrelated to the pelvic floor.
Jana believes we need to move away from the idea that every symptom is an unavoidable consequence of aging.
Common doesn't mean something should automatically be ignored.
If you experience persistent urinary hesitation, leaking, painful intercourse, pelvic discomfort, or erectile difficulties, the first step is understanding what's contributing to the problem.
Sometimes pelvic floor rehabilitation can help. Sometimes other medical treatment is necessary. Often, a comprehensive evaluation is the best approach.
The important thing is to stop treating these symptoms as embarrassing secrets.
Because they can affect much more than physical function.
They can influence confidence, relationships, sleep, emotional well-being, and quality of life.
And nobody should feel that being young or physically fit means they aren't allowed to have these problems—or ask for help.
Practical Tips to Start Improving Pelvic Floor Awareness
You don't need to purchase specialized equipment or completely redesign your workouts to begin paying attention to your pelvic floor.
Here are several practical takeaways from Jana's conversation.
1. Practice diaphragmatic breathing. Spend a few minutes each day breathing slowly and comfortably, allowing your lower ribs and abdomen to expand naturally. Avoid unnecessary clenching or straining.
2. Pay attention to urinary changes. Difficulty starting urination, frequent dribbling, leakage, or a sensation of incomplete emptying can have multiple causes. Persistent symptoms deserve evaluation rather than being dismissed as normal aging.
3. Notice your bowel habits. Frequent straining, painful bowel movements, and ongoing constipation may involve pelvic floor coordination, diet, medications, or gastrointestinal conditions. Don't assume you simply need more fiber or stronger muscles.
4. Evaluate your hip and foot mobility. Notice whether walking, squatting, or performing a gentle bridge feels restricted or uncomfortable. These observations can help guide a movement assessment.
5. Don't automatically add more Kegels. Pelvic floor strengthening is helpful for some conditions, but excessive tension may require a different approach. The appropriate exercise depends on the problem.
6. Make relaxation part of your training. Athletes often focus on generating more force. Learning to release unnecessary muscle tension and coordinate breathing can also be valuable.
7. Seek professional guidance when symptoms persist. A pelvic floor physical therapist can evaluate strength, resting tension, coordination, and relaxation. Medical evaluation is especially important for new erectile dysfunction, significant pelvic pain, urinary retention, blood in the urine, or neurological symptoms.
These strategies are educational starting points, not a diagnosis or individualized treatment plan.
Why This Conversation Matters Now
Fitness culture has changed dramatically.
We track sleep, monitor heart rate variability, measure recovery, analyze movement, and use technology to optimize almost every aspect of performance.
Yet many people still know very little about their pelvic floor.
We spend hours strengthening the muscles we can see in the mirror while overlooking the coordination of muscles that help support essential functions.
And for younger adults, this matters just as much as it does for older people.
A 25-year-old athlete dealing with pelvic pain or erectile difficulties may feel embarrassed because those symptoms don't match the image of someone young and strong.
A 30-year-old woman experiencing urinary leakage during exercise may assume it's something she simply has to tolerate.
A 40-year-old recreational athlete may repeatedly stretch tight hips without considering whether other factors are contributing to the problem.
Not every symptom points to the pelvic floor. But knowing when to consider it can lead to more informed questions and better care.
Jana's own journey began when she was just 21, struggling with severe pain, multiple medications, and daily incontinence. She credits Pilates and movement education with helping her rebuild confidence and redirect her career toward helping others.
That experience also shaped her belief that people shouldn't feel defined by a diagnosis.
And it explains why she's so passionate about making pelvic floor conversations accessible, even when the subject makes people uncomfortable.
What You'll Learn in the Full Episode
Our conversation with Jana Danielson goes far beyond Kegels and bladder control.
We explore the difference between pelvic floor weakness and excessive tension, why breathing mechanics matter, and how the diaphragm and pelvic floor coordinate during movement.
Jana explains the warning signs she watches for in athletes, including changes in posture, stride length, hip rotation, and basic movement patterns.
She also demonstrates her foot-mobility technique and discusses her approach to pelvic floor relaxation, including the Cooch Ball, a device she developed. Its specific benefits haven't been established in high-quality clinical trials, so it's important to distinguish her personal experience and teaching methods from proven treatments.
We also discuss why pelvic floor symptoms can affect people in their twenties, how sexual function and urinary problems can overlap with muscle coordination issues, and why these symptoms deserve more attention than simply blaming age.
And perhaps the most powerful part of the conversation comes when we ask Jana what she would tell her 21-year-old self—the young woman who was frightened, hurting, and uncertain about her future.
Her answer is an emotional reminder that behind every physical symptom is a person trying to regain confidence, control, and hope.
Strong on the Outside Doesn't Always Mean Functioning Well on the Inside
You can have six-pack abs, powerful legs, and impressive fitness numbers.
You can run marathons, lift heavy weights, play competitive sports, and appear to be in outstanding physical condition.
But none of those accomplishments guarantees that every muscle system in your body is functioning optimally.
And that's not a reason to become anxious about every ache or change in performance.
It's a reason to become curious.
If your hips are constantly tight, your lower back hurts, your bathroom habits are changing, or your sexual function isn't what it used to be, don't simply assume you need to train harder—or that you're too young for something to be wrong.
Your body may be giving you information worth investigating.
The pelvic floor isn't the answer to every problem. But for some people, understanding how it works may reveal an important piece of the puzzle.
And perhaps the most surprising lesson from Jana Danielson is that better performance doesn't always begin with learning how to contract another muscle.
Sometimes it begins with learning how to let go.