You have assessed the pelvic floor.
You have treated what you found.
Your patient has engaged with rehabilitation.
But she still has pain. Still has urgency. Still struggles with loading or exercise. Or her symptoms improve for a while and then return.
What are you missing?
For many women with persistent pelvic health symptoms, the pelvic floor may be important — but it may only be one part of the presentation.
The lumbar spine, thoracic spine, hip, pelvic girdle, abdominal wall, peripheral nerves, tendons, movement patterns, loading and persistent pain mechanisms can all form part of the clinical picture.
The challenge for pelvic health physiotherapists is knowing when to look beyond the pelvic floor, what to assess and what your findings actually mean.
That is exactly what this course is designed to teach.
This practical one-day course has been created particularly for physiotherapists working in female pelvic health who want to become more confident assessing the musculoskeletal system alongside their existing pelvic health skills.
It will be particularly relevant if you regularly see women with:
• Persistent pelvic pain
• Bladder dysfunction and urinary urgency
• Urinary incontinence
• Pelvic organ prolapse
• Pelvic girdle pain
• Pregnancy-related low back or pelvic pain
• Postnatal pain and return-to-activity difficulties
• Menopause-related musculoskeletal presentations
• Return-to-running or return-to-sport challenges
• Sports-related pelvic health presentations
You do not need to become an MSK specialist.
You do need a structured way of deciding when an MSK contributor may be important, how to assess it and how to integrate those findings into your pelvic health management.
Sometimes you don’t — at least not from the pelvic floor assessment alone.
This course will help you recognise clinical patterns that suggest you need to broaden your assessment and consider the spine, hip, pelvic girdle, abdominal wall, nerves, muscles, tendons and loading.
The aim isn't to stop thinking about the pelvic floor.
It's to become better at seeing the whole presentation.
No.
In fact, that is precisely why we have developed it.
This isn't an MSK course with a little pelvic health added on.
It is MSK assessment and clinical reasoning taught specifically for clinicians who already work in pelvic health.
We will concentrate on the assessments and reasoning that are most useful in pelvic health practice and, crucially, what you do with the information afterwards.
That is one of our main aims.
The theoretical and evidence-based components will be provided before the course as pre-recorded learning.
That means we can use the face-to-face day for what is much harder to learn from a screen:
assessment, hands-on skills, clinical reasoning, case discussion and treatment application.
We want you to leave with a framework you can actually use in clinic.
Recognise presentations that should make you broaden your assessment and understand common musculoskeletal mechanisms that can coexist with — or sometimes mimic — pelvic floor dysfunction.
Develop a practical lumbar assessment and explore disc, facet and referred-pain presentations.
Most importantly: learn how to interpret what you find in the context of your pelvic health patient.
Explore thoracic mobility, posture and trunk mechanics and consider how these may interact with loading and pelvic floor function.
Build confidence assessing the pelvic girdle and differentiating articular, muscular and movement-related presentations.
Develop a practical hip assessment for pelvic health practice and explore common hip presentations that may overlap with pelvic symptoms.
Explore abdominal wall function, hip and pelvic musculature, tendon-related pain and load management.
This is where everything comes together.
Using complex clinical cases, we will develop a structured approach to integrating:
pelvic floor + spine + hip + pelvic girdle + abdominal wall + muscle/tendon + pain mechanisms + load.
The aim is better differential diagnosis, clearer treatment priorities and greater confidence recognising when onward referral or further investigation may be appropriate.
Konstantinos is an Advanced Practitioner Physiotherapist with an unusual combination of expertise that makes him particularly well placed to teach this course.
His professional background spans advanced musculoskeletal physiotherapy, sports and strength & conditioning alongside specialist pelvic health practice.
He holds postgraduate training in musculoskeletal physiotherapy and has also undertaken master's-level study in Strength & Conditioning.
That combination matters.
Female pelvic health physiotherapists frequently manage women whose symptoms do not sit neatly within a single anatomical or diagnostic box. Pelvic symptoms may coexist with spinal, hip, pelvic girdle, abdominal wall, sporting, loading or persistent pain presentations.
Konstantinos brings the advanced MSK clinical reasoning needed to help pelvic health clinicians make sense of those more complex presentations.
His teaching will focus not simply on how to perform an assessment, but on the much more important questions:
Why are you doing it?
What does the finding mean?
Does it actually relate to this woman's symptoms?
And should it change your management?
This course also comes from a professional relationship that has developed over more than a decade.
Gerard first met Konstantinos when Konstantinos was undertaking his initial master's degree at Coventry University.
What began as mentorship developed into a long-standing clinical partnership.
Over the following 10+ years, Gerard and Konstantinos have worked together across both Birmingham and London, managing complex pelvic health presentations and continually sharing ideas between pelvic health and musculoskeletal physiotherapy.
That cross-over has been particularly valuable.
Gerard's specialist pelvic-health background and Konstantinos's advanced MSK expertise have repeatedly highlighted the same clinical lesson:
sometimes you have to look beyond the pelvic floor.
This course brings that experience into the classroom and has been developed specifically to help pelvic health physiotherapists add another layer to their clinical reasoning.
09:00–09:15 – Welcome & Introduction
From Pelvic Floor to Whole-Person Clinical Reasoning
09:15–10:00 – When Pelvic Symptoms Are Not Just Pelvic Floor
Recognising MSK mechanisms and clinical patterns that warrant a broader assessment.
10:00–11:00 – The Lumbar Spine & Pelvic Health
Practical lumbar assessment, referred pain and interpretation.
11:15–12:00 – The Missing Thoracic Link
Thoracic mobility, posture, trunk mechanics and pelvic loading.
12:00–13:00 – Making Sense of the Pelvic Girdle
Functional assessment and differentiation of articular, muscular and movement-related presentations.
13:00–13:45 – Lunch
13:45–14:30 – Is It Hip, Pelvis or Pelvic Floor?
Hip assessment, differential diagnosis and common overlapping presentations.
14:30–15:15 – Muscles, Tendons & Load
Abdominal wall, hip and pelvic muscles, tendon-related pain and load management.
15:30–16:30 – Putting the Pieces Together
Advanced clinical reasoning, identifying dominant symptom drivers, treatment prioritisation and interactive complex cases.
16:30–17:00 – Questions, Reflection & Take-Home Messages
By the end of the course, our aim is for you to feel more confident answering:
Could there be an MSK component to this woman's pelvic symptoms?
What should I assess?
How do I interpret what I find?
What should I treat?
What remains within my scope?
When should I refer on?
And perhaps most importantly:
What am I missing when a patient isn't progressing as expected?
Delegates will receive pre-recorded evidence-based teaching before the course.
This allows us to minimise traditional lecture time on the day and maximise practical learning, assessment, hands-on skills, clinical reasoning and discussion.
If you work in female pelvic health and sometimes find yourself thinking:
“I've treated the pelvic floor — but something still doesn't quite add up…”
this course has been designed for you.
If you have a question about Beyond the Pelvic Floor: Advanced Musculoskeletal Skills for Female Pelvic Health Physiotherapists, please use the form below. We generally answer all questions within one business day.
