Kegel Exercise – Tips To Improving Your Pelvic Floor Muscles

Do you want to control or prevent urinary incontinence and other pelvic floor complications? Try Kegel exercises with the following step-by-step guide to get going. Doing Kegel exercises will strengthen the pelvic floor muscles that will later support the rectum, small intestines, bladder, and uterus. You can do so by proper training at any time by correct means. The pelvic floor has a series of tissues and muscles that form a hammock or sling at the pelvis’s bottom. Begin by understanding what benefits Kegel exercises have to your body. After that, follow the instructions for relaxing and contracting your pelvic floor muscles to get going. The hammock is what holds the internal orgasms firm and in place. Having a weak pelvic floor may lead to complications such as the inability to control the bowel and bladder.  

Locate The Pelvic Muscles

Many techniques may pinpoint the pelvic muscles’ location for exercise in a human body.

For ladies

Pretend that you are trying to avoid passing gases.

Pretend you are tightening your vagina at the tampon area.

For Men

Try to avoid the passing of gasses.

Try to stop the urine in the stream when urinating.

If you identify the correct muscles, you will feel contractions at the back of the pelvic area more than in the front area.

Practice Contractions

Choose your perfect position. Begin by lying on your back to the point where you feel the pelvic muscles contracting. Practice standing and sitting in that posture when you have gotten hold of it.

Relax And Contract the Muscles

For about three to five seconds, hold onto the contraction of the muscles.

Relax them for about three to five seconds too.

Repeat the procedure of relaxation and contraction with ten cycles in each set.

While doing this, make sure you keep all the other muscles relaxed. Avoid contracting the abdomen, buttocks, legs, or lifting the pelvis. Place your hand gently on your lower belly to detect any unintentional abdominal actions.

Extend the contraction and relaxation time. You can do so by increasing the time gradually by seconds or minutes. You may climb your way up to contractions of about ten seconds for both.

Aim high. To at least forty to fifty kegel exercises a day. You can even go higher until you reach your limit. Do so by spreading the exercise all over the day. That way, it is better than compressing the exercise at one point in time. Since the exercise is unnotably by the outside world, you can go a few sets when waiting for something or even when at work.

Some Kegel Exercises Done Unknowingly or Appear in Emergency

Doing a Kegel exercise before triggering something may be good in preventing leakage. If you need to urinate but doubt making it to the toilet, doing Kegels will get you safely to the restroom.

Why Do Kegel Exercises Matter?

Many factors can weaken your pelvic floor muscles, such as childbirth, pregnancy, excessive straining, chronic coughing, surgery, overweight, and aging. You will experience the benefits of Kegel exercises if you:

Leak a small amount of urine when sneezing, coughing, or laughing for stress incontinence.

Have a solid and instant urge for urination before losing a generous amount of urine. That is urinary Urge incontinence.

Leak fecal matter accidentally.

You can perform the Kegel exercise even if you are pregnant or after delivery and improve the symptoms. If you are a lady with severe urine leakage when sneezing, Kegel exercise will not help you. These exercises are not ideal for ladies who leak a small amount of urine when the bladder is full. Note that you should not apply Kegel exercise to start or stop urine. Doing so will expose you to the risk of tragic urinary tract infections. That is because there will always be incomplete emptying of the gall bladder.

At What Time Are You Supposed to Do Kegel Exercises?

Make Kegel exercises part of your daily routine. You can do it discreetly at any time, whether standing, sitting, or relaxing on the couch.

Trouble When Doing Kegel Exercises?

If you are in trouble when doing the Kegel exercises, do not feel embarrassed asking for help. You can contact your health care personnel or the doctor to give you a way forward. You will eventually learn how to differentiate between wrong and correct Kegel exercises. In some circumstances, weighted vaginal cones and biofeedback might be used for training the pelvic muscles quickly. To use the vaginal cone, insert it into the vagina after lubrication and let your pelvic contraction muscles hold the device in place. When having the biofeedback session, the doctor or the health personnel will insert a pressure sensor into the rectum or vagina. During relaxation and contraction of the pelvic muscles, the device monitors, measures, and then display the muscles' overall activity. If you do Kegel exercises daily, you will expect results such as – less urine leakage - over a few weeks or months. For more benefits, make Kegel exercises your daily routine task.

The Bottom Line

Kegel exercises are easy to train. However, if you constantly feel pain in your back or lower abdomen, it means you are not taking the right path. Always keep in mind that – when contracting the pelvic muscles – abdomen, back, and buttocks muscles should remain as loose as possible. Do not overdo these exercises. If you overstrain your muscles, they will tire and fail to perform normal functions. Following the above tips will bring you to the safe side. You will realize your results over the estimated time. When pelvic floor muscles are engaged, they perform a lifting motion towards your head, making you feel like you are trying to hinder the release of urine.