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Location: Harborne
Monday to Friday: 7.30am - 9.00pm
Saturday: 8.00am - 5.00pm
Sunday: Closed
Make appointments using our
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or phone 0121 270 9480

our expertise:
MEN'S HEALTH PHYSIOTHERAPY

Q:
SO... JUST WHAT IS MEN'S HEALTH PHYSIOTHERAPY?
A:
The Men's Health Physiotherapists at Barefoot provide therapy for uniquely male conditions, often occurring as a consequence of prostate treatment. We are a leading UK pelvic pain physiotherapy clinic seeing patients from all over the UK.
men's health physiotherapy is a very specialised area of physiotherapy:
The key areas of practice within Men’s Health Physiotherapy are:
  • Prostatectomy: Urinary Incontinence, Erectile dysfunction
  • Chronic Pelvic Pain
  • Sexual Dysfunction
  • Athletic Pelvic Dysfunction especially complex lumbar spine, pelvis and hip pain
  • Faecal Incontinence
  • Post colorectal cancer
  • Urinary Incontinence
what do men’s health physios do?
In the Men’s Health Clinic at Barefoot we see a lot of men who have had surgery for prostate cancer and have developed some of the common post op problems such as urinary incontinence. We also treat men post surgery for pelvic pain and some who have developed erectile dysfunction. Some of the treatment for these conditions involves pelvic floor rehab.

isn’t pelvic floor rehab helpful for women with urinary incontinence?
Great news, women with stress incontinence do really well with pelvic floor physiotherapy. Men post-prostate surgery also do well with specialist Men’s Health Pelvic Physiotherapy.

a few key facts about the male pelvic floor...
  • You have one
  • Before progressing read the line above again
  • It has both sprint fibres (Usain Bolt) and endurance fibres (Mo Farah)
  • It needs to be trained with other muscles like your abdominals and hip muscles, co-ordinating with breathing is also key. Breathing helps everything.
  • Your pelvic floor needs to be strong (exercise helps) and a good blood supply (exercise helps).
  • A strong fit pelvic floor is essential for a good erection (is there ever a bad one!).
Dr. RUTH JONES
Dr Ruth Jones demonstrating how to us the EZ Magic wand for pelvic pain
what has this got to do with physiotherapy?
If you had a sports injury like a torn or strained calf muscle you’d probably think physiotherapy or exercise would help and it would. Look at your Pelvic Floor like any other muscle , it makes things more simple.

Like any muscle (think Calf muscles) if they have become weak or damaged from the surgery and this is common they can be strengthened. They also have to work harder after the surgery once the prostate is removed. The prostate helps your urine control and once it has been removed (one type of surgery) the pelvic muscles have to work harder to compensate for this. Think of it like a sports injury; If Leonel Messi tears his cruciate ligament (prostate) then he will have to work very very hard on his quadriceps muscles (pelvic floor) to compensate. Otherwise his knee (erection) won’t work very well. As he trains his quads (pelvic floor) his control will improve as will yours! This will also help your erection but that’s for another day perhaps...
what might specialist men’s health pelvic rehab involve?
  • Pelvic Floor rehabilitation using ultrasound imaging technology. We will look at your pelvic floor muscles on an ultra sound machine. Think pregnancy scans. It’s not just a case of tighten down there but quite a specialised progressive programme involving different types of pelvic floor muscles (Usain Bolt sprint pelvic floor muscles and Mo Farah long distance) pelvic floor muscles
  • Getting you working both types of muscles in positions of sitting, standing (harder than you think).
  • Combining your pelvic muscles with abdominal and hip muscle exercises. This will then progress to more high level abdominal work.
  • Pelvic floor +: this is getting you to work your pelvic floor during normal exercises and activities. This is more fun.
  • Exercise to relax and allow you to switch the volume down a bit in your head, yoga, meditation or what you enjoy doing. Our Men’s Health Physio clinic is based at the Barefoot Yoga studio in Harborne and all our patients and clients comment on how tranquil, relaxing and very non clinical it is.
  • Prostate Progressive Exercise Programme (PEP) “Preparing you to be in a much better place”
what we know will help
We know exercise helps with blood flow, stress and strengthening and you’ll feel better doing something normal. You will get to do general exercise with other people like you who have had prostate surgery. We know that group exercise works really well for other conditions and there is also a big social element. Your partner may also want to attend some of the social events also as they are a big part of this also. We are also happy for your partner to meet us at any time as they will also have many questions for us to answer too.
quick start guides to men's health physiotherapy
click on the links below for more pertinent information