What Are Kegels

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What Are Kegels
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Urinary Incontinence Education & Support
Kegel Exercises - A Step By Step Guide
Kegels or kegel exercises (also known as pelvic floor exercises) are one of the best ways to improve and maintain bowel and bladder functions. Kegels can be done by both men and women to increase the strength of your pelvic floor and may help to improve or even eliminate bladder leakage .
Kegel exercises are a great tool for many people, whether you’re wanting to reduce symptoms of urinary incontinence or you’re just looking to keep your pelvic floor healthy. Increasing the strength and tone of the pelvic floor can help relieve many symptoms, such as a bladder prolapse , bladder leakage , and urinary urgency . Kegels are often recommended for women or men whose pelvic floor requires better support. Pelvic floor exercises, like any other strength training program, can help to tighten up the muscles and restore their natural role in pelvic organ support and pelvic stability.
However, it’s important to note that kegel exercises are not for everyone. In fact, some people may even do more harm than good by doing too many Kegels.
Some pelvic floor disorders are a result of the pelvic floor being too active or tense. When this happens, it makes it hard for the pelvic floor to relax and rest completely. This may lead to the pelvic floor being in a continuous overactive state.
Why is it bad for your pelvic floor to be so active or tense all the time? When your pelvic floor is continuously operating in an overactive state, it makes it harder for it to respond when you actually need it to contract, not only because the muscle is already fatigued, but because there is little range for it to contract further. The muscle is already in a shortened state. Therefore, clenching when you sneeze or trying to keep from having an accident when you really have to go may result in leakage because the muscles are less effective in their reaction to the situation.
In these cases, doing Kegels for strengthening or improving tone is NOT recommended. It’s hard to know if you have a weak pelvic floor, or an overactive pelvic floor without consulting a pelvic floor therapist, which is why it’s always recommended to see one prior to beginning any pelvic floor exercise routine.
A physical therapist will help diagnose your problem and can teach you how to properly do a Kegel, and just as important, how to relax the pelvic floor . ( Read more about the role of a pelvic floor therapist and what to expect at an appointment here. ) Biofeedback tools are often used during these appointments, which let you actually see or feel how well you’re squeezing and can ensure that you’re engaging the correct muscles.
So, how do you know you are doing Kegels properly? Like any exercise, it can be difficult to know at first. But with a daily commitment, it becomes instinctive. Here are a few tips for doing kegel exercises for women:
If you can stop your urination flow mid-stream, you have identified your pelvic floor muscles. That’s the most difficult part of the exercise. (If you’re having problems identifying the correct muscles, stop and make an appointment with a pelvic floor PT.)
Performing with an empty bladder, your first goal should be to tighten your pelvic floor muscles for 5 seconds. Then relax them for 5 seconds. Try to do 5 reps on your first day. As you gain confidence from your new routine, aim for 10 seconds at a time, relaxing for 10 seconds between contractions. (A total of 10 full Kegels per session.)
As you gain strength, you can work up to 3 sessions of 10 full Kegels per day.
To give your pelvic floor a full workout, there are two types of focused kegel exercises you could perform.
Quick or Short Muscle Contractions (Fast Twitch Muscle Exercise) - The first exercise is called a quick or short contraction. It works the fast-twitch muscle fibers that respond quickly to compress the urethra and shut off the flow of urine to prevent leakage.
To perform these contractions, the muscles are quickly tightened, lifted up, held for 1-2 seconds, and then released back down. You should continue to breathe normally as you do these exercises.
Long Hold Muscle Contractions- This exercise works on the supportive strength and endurance of the slow-twitch muscle fibers and is referred to as a long hold contraction.
To perform these contractions, the same muscles you used with the quick contractions are now going to be gradually tightened, lifted up, and held over several seconds.
At first, it may be difficult to hold the contraction for more than 1 or 2 seconds. Ultimately, the goal is to hold the contraction for 10 seconds then rest for 10 seconds between each long contraction to avoid taxing the muscles.
Be careful not to flex the muscles in your abdomen, thighs, or buttocks. Also, avoid holding your breath. Breathe freely during the exercises to keep from stressing the rest of your body. It might be helpful to count the seconds of your hold out loud in order to maintain normal breathing.
Aim for at least 3 sets of 10 repetitions per day. (After you’ve gotten the hang of it.)
Kegel exercises may feel awkward in the beginning. But the longer you stay with this, the better you will feel the muscles work and your bladder health will reap the benefits. As a bonus, Kegels have been reported to increase sexual pleasure as well. Yes!
A solid kegel workout plan would be to perform 1 set of 10 short contractions and 1 set of 10 long contractions 2 or 3 times per day. Remember: Quality is more important than quantity. Doing a smaller number of kegels correctly will be far more effective than doing a whole bunch of them incorrectly. You should see improvements in as little as 4 weeks or longer depending on the severity of your problem.  
As a training aid for kegels, you can use vaginal weights, wands, or other devices that provide resistance against muscle contractions to help challenge the muscle, like increasing the dumbbell weight for your arm curls. Some of these aids are prescribed by a health professional and used under professional supervision, while others are available without a prescription.
There are many different types these days, with some requiring a vaginal insert and others being as easy as slipping on a pair of shorts. Be sure to consult with your physical therapist or physician prior to using these devices.
Click The Image Above To Download Your Own Pelvic Floor Exercise Tracker
Watch how you improve week over week by keeping track of your progress with our pelvic floor exercise tracker . Not only will this sheet keep you motivated, but you’ll also be able to take notes on how your Kegels and pelvic floor strength improve over time.
Additionally, if you find after a few weeks that you need some extra help from a Kegel device, some insurance companies require proof of having tried Kegels on your own first, before covering the cost of a device, so this tracker can help document your efforts.
Improving your pelvic floor strength takes time. Don’t be discouraged if you are not able to control your bladder as soon as you would like, but rather look for these signs as proof that your pelvic floor muscle exercises are working and that you are on your way to better bladder health:
Longer time between bathroom visits
Ability to hold the contractions longer, or to do more repetitions
Drier underwear, without the feeling of always being wet
Women and men who have difficulty performing kegel exercises on their own may find biofeedback therapy helpful. With professional instruction from a nurse specialist or pelvic floor therapist, many people experience significant improvement in pelvic floor muscle strength, tone, and function with a good regime.
It's crucial to remember that incontinence and pelvic floor symptoms almost always have solutions and shouldn’t be shrugged off as normal. You can try these exercises regardless of how long you have had your symptoms. Even if you have been experiencing leakage for as short as 1 month or as long as 10 years, it is never too late to try Kegels.
Find time each day to “ squeeze” it into your routine. Most of the time Kegels will result in improvement of your symptoms. If you are not experiencing the desired effect, you may benefit from a consultation with a specialist. 
National Association for Continence is a national, private, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to improving the quality of life of patients with #incontinence, #bladderleakage, bedwetting, OAB, SUI, nocturia, neurogenic bladder, pelvic organ prolapse, and pelvic floor disorders. NAFC's purpose is to be the leading source for public education and advocacy about the causes, prevention, diagnosis, treatments and management alternatives for incontinence.
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Pelvic floor muscles are located here, inside the pelvis. Kegels involve contracting and releasing these muscles, but because you can’t see or feel them, they are tricky to isolate.
Urinary incontinence, or bladder leakage, is one of the main issues that kegels can prevent or help alleviate.
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Consider this your kegels 101. Plus, how to actually do them the right way.
There are certain things in life you know you should be doing regularly, like drinking eight-plus glasses of water a day and getting outside for fresh air, but you just don’t always find the time or know-how to actually make it happen. Kegel exercises are one of those things for many women.
Also known as pelvic floor exercises, kegels can be done to tighten your pelvic floor—the muscles that surround the openings of your urethra, vagina, and rectum—for sexual benefits . They can also strengthen that area to try to stave off conditions like pelvic organ prolapse (when one or more organs slides down in your pelvis, bulging into the vagina). But one of the biggest benefits of kegels are that they can help with urinary incontinence, or bladder leaks, which, according to a small study , one in three women experience.
And while most women’s health experts agree that kegels are important to do on a regular basis to alleviate low back pain, this isn’t exactly something they teach you how to do in school.
As a result, women are usually left to wing it, thinking they’re doing these exercises correctly, which isn’t always the case. Research has found that more than 30 percent of women who attempt to perform these muscle contractions do them wrong. Ashley Rawlins, PT, DPT, a pelvic floor physical therapist at Origin, in California, says that, based on her experience, only about 60 percent of women are able to do kegels correctly. “If these muscles are unfamiliar to you, or if they are weak or too tight, it’s common to make mistakes when trying to squeeze them,” she explains.
Keep reading to learn all about kegels—why they’re important, the correct way to do them, and how tools like INNOVO , which helps deliver the perfect kegel and eliminates bladder leaks in 12 weeks or less, can help.
Developed in the 1940s by gynecologist Arnold Kegel , the exercises were specifically designed to help target and strengthen the pelvic floor to alleviate urinary incontinence or loss of bladder control. Urinary incontinence can happen for a few reasons, with the most common including pregnancy and childbirth, menopause, and high-impact exercise, which can weaken muscles you need for bladder control, according to the Mayo Clinic . One in three women experiences stress urinary incontinence (SUI) when they laugh, cough, sneeze, or exercise, and a little pee leaks out.
“A kegel consists of a squeeze and release of your pelvic floor muscles,” Rawlins explains. “Think of it like resistance training of said muscles.” Rawlins calls this area the “unsung hero” of your core. But she says that these muscles do so much more than alleviate urinary incontinence, including being “essential to sexual functioning and impacting both arousal and orgasm.”
And that's not all. “They also support your abdominal muscles, your deep back muscles, and your diaphragm by providing strength to your spine, and supporting your posture,” Rawlins adds. When your pelvic floor muscles are healthy, they aren’t just strong; they’re also coordinated and flexible. “They can do things like fully support your organs—your bladder, uterus, and bowels—and quickly close your urethra and anus when you sneeze so you don’t leak,” Rawlins explains. “If your pelvic floor muscles aren’t strong and healthy, then they may not be able to effectively do all of these things.”
The best way to start with kegels is to first identify the muscles, Rawlins says. “If you know where they are, then you can more confidently connect and feel them move,” she explains. Your pelvic floor is located inside the trunk, between your tailbone (coccyx) and your pubic bone.
Rawlins says these cues can also help you get a feel for your pelvic floor muscles:
Once you’ve identified the muscles you want to work on, you can actually target them. Here’s how American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends you do kegel exercises:
While you’re doing your kegels, make sure you’re not squeezing your stomach, thigh, or butt muscles accidentally, ACOG advises. You also want to make sure you breathe normally while you do them.
Once you feel more comfortable doing kegels, increase your holding time by one second each week, ACOG suggests. For example, move up to a four-second hold, then a five-second hold, etc. The goal is to work your way up to 10-second holds.
Rawlins says there are a few ways to assess your kegels technique:
If you’re worried that you won’t be able to ace kegels on your own or just need a little bit of assistance, FDA-cleared INNOVO can help. Slip on the shorts, connect the controller, and sit back while INNOVO gives you 180 perfect kegels per 30 minute session. In 12 weeks or less, your pelvic floor will be its strongest yet and you can finally say goodbye to those bladder leaks.
It depends. “Daily kegels are not necessary for everyone,” Rawlins says. “But for deconditioned, weak pelvic floor muscles, it is often important to make kegels part of your regular routine.”
As for when and where to do your kegels, it’s really up to you—you just want to do them correctly. “There is definitely no one-size-fits-all kegel regimen,” says Rawlins.
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What the Heck Is a Kegel and Should You Do Them?







Blog Post , Postmenopausal , Postpartum , Pre-Conception , Prenatal







kegel , pelvic floor , pelvic health




I'm Interested in Fitness Tips for New Moms, Expecting Moms, or Those Trying to Conceive I'm Interested in Fitness Tips For Leading A Pain-Free Life (Not pre- or postpartum)
Simply put, a kegel is an engagement of the pelvic floor muscles. It has been found through substantial research to be effective at curing or improving urinary incontinence. There is also ongoing research into kegeling as a treatment for pelvic organ prolapse. 
Before we go further, I want to distinguish between engaging the pelvic floor muscles and “squeezing like you’re trying not to pee.” The pelvic health community has started to steer away from prescribing “kegels,” as they’ve largely been over-simplified and too broadly recommended. If all you ever did for your pelvic health was squeeze the urethral sphincter, that could easily do more harm than good. 
Instead, I teach what I call the Kegel 2.0 , which differs from a “kegel” in that it focuses on using the entire pelvic floor, and prioritizes releasing pelvic floor engagement as highly as creating it. In order for that distinction to make sense, we’ll need to jump into some more detail:
Kegels are named for the gynecologist, Dr. Arnold Kegel, who did not actually invent the idea of engaging your pelvic floor (but gets all the credit for it). In fact, the idea has been around for thousands of years in traditional cultures. In modern times, Kegel was actually preceded by over a decade by another researcher. However, Kegel’s research was instrumental in bringing awareness to the idea of using pelvic floor engagement as a non-surgical alternative for treating incontinence, so we’ll still give him a little credit. You can learn more about the fascinating history of the kegel here .
My husband likes to joke that “the pelvic floor has something to do with linoleum vs. tile, right?” In fact, your pelvic floor is the hammock or bowl of muscles inside your pelvis that basically keeps your insides inside. There are 3 layers of pelvic floor muscles, some of which we can consciously control (the outermost layer) and some of which we can’t (the inner layers). Fortunately, when we practice engaging the superficial or outermost pelvic floor muscles (and deep, transverse abs), the deeper layers tend to come along for the ride. 
The superficial pelvic floor muscles connect between the pubic bone at the front of the pelvis, the tailbone at the back, and the sit bones on the right and left. One set of muscles makes a diamond between these points, while another set makes a figure-8 around the vaginal opening and urethra at the front and the anus in the back. To engage these muscles, you can think about drawing the sit bones, pubic bone, and tailbone toward each other.
The most important thing to understand about kegeling is that not everyone should. While most women (especially postpartum) are concerned their vagina and pelvic floor will be too loose, as much as 40% are actually too tight. Learn whether your pelvic floor is too loose or too tight right here.
If you’re too tight, you actually do not want to practice kegels, but rather focus on releasing the pelvic floor , stretching the muscles of the pelvic floor, and neurologically repatterning the way you hold tension in your abs and pelvic floor. If you’re too loose in the pelvic floor, then kegels are a great idea in combination with other pelvic floor and full-body exercises . Check back here in a few weeks for a full list of exercises for hypotonic pelvic floors. 
Kegeling can be a component in a recovery program for many different pelvic issues. Below are just a few examples where they may or may not help. Of course, you should always consult a physician or pelvic floor PT before attempting to heal any of the below with an at-home program.
As you can see, pelvic floor engagement may or may not be recommended dependent on a wide array of factors. If your head is spinning with the potential courses of action, I encourage you to shoot me a message or book a free wellness consult . Let’s get to the ro
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