Every Woman's to Kegel Exercises

What is a Kegel exercise?

Kegel exercises help to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles. Your pelvic floor muscles are the set of muscles you use to stop the flow of pee. Strengthening these muscles helps you prevent leaking pee or accidentally passing gas or poop. It has benefits for people with a vagina and people with a penis.

Kegel exercises (also called pelvic floor exercises) help strengthen your pelvic floor muscles. Your pelvic floor muscles support organs in your pelvis, like your bladder, bowel and vagina. Your pelvic floor muscles hold your organs in place while also assisting with bodily functions like peeing, pooping and sex. Kegels involve tightening and then releasing the muscles in your pelvic floor to strengthen them.

Doing Kegels can help with issues such as:

• Urinary incontinence (leaking pee).
• Urge incontinence (an urgent need to pee).
• Fecal incontinence (leaking poop).
• Pelvic organ prolapse (pelvic organs sagging or bulging into your vagina).

Kegels can also improve your sexual health and help improve your orgasms. Men or people assigned male at birth (AMAB) and women or people assigned female at birth (AFAB) can benefit from Kegel exercises.

 

What do Kegel exercises actually do?

Kegel exercises help keep your pelvic floor muscles “fit.” Much like you may strengthen other muscles in your body by lifting weights, doing Kegels is a way to keep your pelvic floor muscles strong. Kegel exercises can give you better control over your bladder and bowels and prevent your pelvic muscles from getting weak.

Weak pelvic floor muscles can cause you to leak pee and poop, or accidentally pass gas. Your pelvic floor muscles can weaken with age or due to things like pregnancy, childbirth or surgery.

Who needs to do Kegels?

Anything that puts stress on the muscles of your pelvic floor can cause them to weaken and be less supportive to your pelvic organs. Certain health conditions or life events can make your pelvic floor muscles weak. Some of these conditions and events include:

• Pregnancy.
• Childbirth, including a C-section.
• Having obesity (a body mass index, or BMI, greater than 30) or overweight (a BMI greater than 25).
• Surgery in your pelvic area.
• Aging. The muscles of your pelvic floor, as well as muscles in your rectum and anus, naturally weaken with age.
• Excessive straining while pooping (constipation) or chronic coughing.
• Exercises (especially jumping, running and lifting heavy weights).

However, Kegel exercises aren’t for everyone. Doing too many Kegels, or doing Kegels when you don’t need to, can cause your muscles to become too tense or tight.

Pregnancy and Kegel exercises

People who are pregnant may find that delivery is easier if they do Kegels during pregnancy. This is because it may give you greater control over your pelvic muscles during labor and delivery. It can also help with:

• Bladder control.
• Strengthening the muscles that support the weight of the fetus.
• Urinary incontinence or leaking pee.
• Pushing during vaginal delivery.
• Perineal healing after delivery.How do I find my pelvic floor muscles?

To find your pelvic floor muscles, try stopping the flow of your pee when you’re sitting on the toilet. Only do this until you learn how it feels (otherwise this stopping and starting can lead to infection). You can also imagine you’re trying to prevent yourself from passing gas.

You can also insert a finger into your vagina and squeeze the muscles in your vagina around it. You should feel pressure around your finger. The muscles you feel ‘lifting’ inside of you when you’re trying these activities are the same ones you strengthen during Kegel exercises.

It might be helpful to imagine your pelvic floor as a claw vending machine game you may have played as a child. In a claw machine game, a metal claw extends downward and opens up. Once open, it picks up a toy, ball or pieces of candy, then closes. Once it closes around your prize, the claw stays closed and goes back up to its starting position. The closing and drawing upward motion the claw makes is nearly identical to a Kegel.

How do I perform Kegel exercises?

You perform Kegel exercises by lifting and holding and then relaxing your pelvic floor muscles. Start by doing a few Kegels at a time, then gradually increase both the length of time and the number of Kegels you’re doing in each ‘session’ (or set). You should perform at least two to three sets of these exercises per day.

 

Kegel Exercise Items

Kegel balls / ben wa balls have been used for centuries to maintain pelvic floor muscles. Originally ben wa balls were made from metals and created pretty small so you needed muscles of steel to utilize them properly. Luckily modern kegel balls have progressed a long way and come in a lot of different sizes, styles with lots of features and are not just for exercise but pleasure too. 

Having strong pelvic floor muscles has many health benefits including :- 

• Improved bowel control

• Improved bladder control

• Reducing the risk of prolapses 

• Reducing recovery time after child birth

Not to mention a lot of benefits that aren't strictly health related :- 

• Stronger orgasms

• Better grip with objects inside the vagina (home grown penises and manufactured toys)

• Improved confidence