**2. Methods**

During the actual measurement, the person was placed on the examination bed in a position with the legs bent and with the feet propped up, and a condomprotected perionometer probe was inserted. Subsequently, a trained therapist gave verbal instructions and checked the performance. In order to ensure all the required conditions and to eventually register an individual proband response, a second specialist therapist was present during the testing, as recommended by Bø [10], to ensure standardisation of the examination. The individual test manoeuvres were based on a commonly performed PERFECT SCALE examination, which is primarily designed for palpation vaginal examination, but allows the same procedure to be performed via a pressure probe and thus objectifying the results [11].

Maximum contraction and endurance at this level were tested for 10 seconds with subsequent relaxation. In addition, the test subject was asked to repeat maximum contraction and release with a duration of five seconds per phase. Subsequently, a similar situation was tested, but with a shorter duration of individual phases - 1 s contraction and 1 s relaxation. Finally, the person was asked to cough, which was repeated three times. See **Figure 1**.

The second observed phenomenon was the effect of respiration, each examination lasted one minute. We compared the activity of pelvic floor muscles with calm and deep breathing without will-induced activation of pelvic floor muscles. During deep breathing, the proband was instructed to take several deeper inhalations (3 s) and exhalations (6 s). Inhale was done through the nose, exhale through the mouth using the "S" spoken throughout the exhalation. Then the proband switched to the KETTLER TRACK 3 treadmill with the probe installed and ran for a minute on this belt with a 0% slope, i.e. flat and at a speed of 5 km/h. Subsequently, we observed changes in pelvic floor muscle pressures during spontaneous breathing after a minute of running on a treadmill.

To this measurement project were involved 10 women. Their average age was 38 years (range 25–47 years), average height 166.8 cm (range 159–178 cm), average weight 66.9 kg (range 50–85 kg), average BMI 23.9 kg/m2 (range 19.0–29.8 kg/m2 ). There were no births in 3 women, one birth was performed by one woman, two and

**Figure 1.**

*Subtraction of parameters from measured data - tonic basis of muscle activity (value B). Increase in pressure by A-value in phasic muscular activity (here at the therapist's instruction to repeat will-induced contraction of 5 s and 1 s of pelvic floor muscles and in coughing - three reps).*

three births each by two women, and only one woman had 4 births. Only probands who excluded respiratory diseases, abdominal or gynaecological operations, except births, lumbar spine pain, were included in the measurement. No proband is an active athlete.

All statistical calculations were performed using the software OriginPro 8.5.1 (http://www.originlab.com/Origin). T-tests were used to test hypotheses to determine if there was a significant difference between the averages of the two groups of measurements under the given test conditions. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients were calculated to evaluate the associations between variables. The significant at an alpha level of 0.025 (at least) or it is specified in the Results chapter for the specific situations.
