Just when you thought you have worked on every muscle possible in your body, here comes another muscle to exercise, the pelvic muscle. Exercising the pelvis muscles is called kegel exercises.
There are several reasons to exercise the pelvic muscles. Natural life events such as pregnancy, childbirth, and obesity can weaken these muscles. During pregnancy having weak pelvic muscles can contribute to pain and it can prolong the second stage of childbirth. Whether you have had children already or never plan on having them, you need these muscles to work. The muscles are located at the bottom of your pelvis and stretch in between your legs. These muscles keep urine and stool from leaking from your body as well as keep other organs in place.
Exercising the pelvic muscles does not take as much time or work as you might think. You simply need to exercise these muscles for about 5 minutes, three times a day. The beauty of exercising these muscles is no one ever needs to know and can be done basically anywhere at anytime. You don’t need to change into work out gear and nobody even needs to know that you are exercising them.
The first step to kegel exercises is to locate the pelvic muscles. There are a couple of ways that you can do this. The first way is to stop the flow of urine while you are sitting on the toilet. The same muscles that allow urine to escape are the same ones that prevent it from flowing. Another way to locate them is to imagine that you are trying to keep from passing gas. If you feel a pulling feeling while doing this, then you have located the correct muscles. The third way is to lie on your back and place your finger inside your vagina and pretend you are trying to stop the flow of urine. When you feel a tightening around your finger, then you have located the correct muscles.
After finding the right muscles, what you want to do to exercise them is tighten the muscles for 3 seconds and then relax them for 3 seconds. Repeat these steps for 10 to 15 repetitions to begin with. Increase repetitions as you feel your muscles strengthening over time. Be cautious not to tighten any other muscles while completing your exercises like your legs or stomach. This will put more pressure on your bladder and do more harm than good. Another thing to keep in mind is to not hold your breath while exercising. Holding your breath slows the flow of oxygen to the muscles.
Although kegel exercises can be done anywhere at anytime in any position, there are three positions that will give optimal results; lying down, sitting and standing. By varying these positions and using all three will make the muscles the strongest.
If you are faithful to doing these exercises 3 times a day your bladder control should show signs of improvement within 3-6 weeks. However, noticeable improvement may not be evident until after a few weeks of completing the exercises.