The Sacrum & Pelvic Floor Health | Hypopressive Scotland
Picture of a sacrum the centre of the pelvic floor
The Sacred Sacrum: Why Movement Here Changes Everything
There’s a quiet intelligence in the base of your spine it is a triangular bone that anchors, absorbs, and transmits every movement you make.
We call it the sacrum which comes from the Latin os sacrum, meaning “sacred bone.”
Ancient healers believed it was the seat of the soul, the final bone to return to dust, holding the essence of life within it.
And perhaps they were right.
Because when the sacrum stops moving, so much of us goes still too.
The Forgotten Foundation
For many women, the pelvis is treated as something to hold still, a bowl to brace, a base to stabilise. But the pelvis isn’t a rigid structure. It’s designed to move like a cradle, rocking gently with each breath, each step, each emotion.
The sacrum sits at the back of this cradle, forming the bridge between your spine and pelvis. It connects your upper and lower body it is a meeting point for bone, fascia, and the nervous system. It’s where stability and fluidity meet.
When life, or the body, becomes too tight, the sacrum can lose its rhythm. Trauma, sitting for long hours, scar tissue, childbirth, or even the habit of clenching can make this small, sacred motion fade. The result? A pelvic floor that feels tense, heavy, or disconnected.
When the sacrum is still, the whole system stiffens around it. When it moves, everything begins to breathe again.
A Living Bridge Between Spine and Pelvic Floor
The sacrum isn’t just a piece of bone it is more like an inbuilt keystone in the arch of your pelvis. Its subtle motion (called nutation and counternutation) creates a kind of internal tide that helps the pelvic floor respond naturally to pressure changes.
When you breathe in, the sacrum tips back and up (counternutation), creating space for the pelvic floor to lengthen and the organs to expand downward.
When you breathe out, the base of the sacrum tilts forward and down (nutation), gently narrowing the pelvic inlet and supporting the pelvic floor’s reflexive lift.
This movement happens at the sacroiliac joints, where the sacrum meets the two hip bones.
You can imagine it like a small rocking motion it is the spine’s breath, happening deep within your core.
It’s subtle, but it matters: this rhythm supports posture, spinal balance, and pelvic health at the most fundamental level.
The Breath Bridge: From Diaphragm to Sacrum
The movement of the sacrum doesn’t just exist in isolation, it’s actually part of a continuous wave that begins with every breath.
As the thoracic diaphragm descends on the inhale, the abdominal organs shift slightly downward, increasing intra-abdominal pressure. The pelvic floor lengthens and the base of the sacrum tips backward into counternutation.
As you exhale, the diaphragm recoils upward, pressure decreases, and the sacrum nutates, gliding forward and slightly down. The pelvic floor naturally lifts and the base of the spine becomes a stable yet dynamic support.
This is how breath and bone communicate with each other through a tide of pressure, fascia, and rhythm. When this relationship flows freely, your spine moves like seaweed in water so very responsive, alive, and supported from within.
Mechanically, the sacrum mirrors the base of the skull (occiput) through the spinal dura this is a craniosacral rhythm that connects head to tail.
Energetically, it mirrors the solar plexus which is seen as our centre of will, safety, and self-expression. When one softens, so does the other.
Through this lens, the spine becomes more than structure; it’s a conduit for flow — a living bridge between grounding and expansion.
Relearning the Rhythm
You can’t force movement in the sacrum, but you can definately invite it.
These gentle pelvic mobility exercises below help restore the conversation between breath, bone, and floor.
1. Sacral Rocking (Semi-Supine)
Lie on your back with knees bent, feet flat.
As you breathe out, let your tailbone tip gently towards the ceiling.
As you breathe in, let it melt towards the floor.
Notice how the movement travels through the pelvis super smooth, slow, and wave-like.
2. Four-Point Flow
Come to all fours.
Let your inhale widen your ribs and open your back body.
As you exhale, sense the tailbone glide slightly under, not as a tuck, but as a subtle release.
Feel the sacrum floating between your hips, connected yet free.
3. Seated Circles
A towel to use for your plevic floor
Sit tall on a folded towel under your sit bones.
Begin to make slow, spiralling circles with your pelvis try exploring all directions.
Imagine your sacrum tracing soft arcs through water, awakening fluidity in your lower spine.
4. Franklin Pelvic Dance (a little of it)
Stand with your feet under your hips.
Imagine your sacrum as the centre of a pendulum, swinging with your breath.
Let your knees soften. Let your breath move your bones.
This is your body remembering rhythm.
5. Hypopressive Integration
In a gentle pose like Venus or Hestia, soften your breath and feel your sacrum expand with the inhale, and draw in with the exhale.
When you explore your apnoea (breath pause with rib expansion), notice how the expansion through your ribs allows the base of your spine to lengthen and the pelvic floor to respond — not by squeezing, but by reflexively lifting..
The Soul of Support
The sacrum was once considered sacred because it held the mystery of life and death.
Today, we understand it as the root of pelvic floor health, breath, and nervous system balance.
When you begin to move from here from your sacrum, not forcing, but feeling then your whole system finds a new kind of strength.
This is what pelvic healing really means:
Not control, not holding, but connection.
Movement that begins from the base and ripples upward, reminding every part of you that you are built to flow.
Ready to reconnect?
Join my next Pelvic Power Workshop or explore the 12-Week Fully Supported Programme to rediscover movement, breath, and strength from the inside out.
Because when the sacrum moves, the body remembers how to.
