Kegel Exercises for Women: Everything You Need to Know

Kegel Exercises for Women

• Kegel exercises are activities that make your pelvic floor stronger.
• The simple clench-and-release exercises are a great way to make the muscles holding the uterus, bowels, and bladder in place.
• If these muscles weaken, they can affect the reproductive and urinary organs as well.
• Kegel exercises are needed for both and women. However, the way they do them might be different.
• The pelvic floor is a sheet of muscles holding all these organs, like a sling or a hammock.
• Locating them is difficult because of this, and the exercises can differ between women and men.
• With that in mind, here’s a look at how you can perform Kegel exercises:

How to Locate the Pelvic Floor?

• The first step to performing Kegel exercises is to locate your pelvic floor so you know the muscles you have in the exercise.
• Locating the muscles can be tricky, but there are several ways to do it.
• One popular method is to insert a finger into your vagina and squeeze it using the vaginal muscles.
• The muscles that tense will be the ones you are looking for.
• Another way is to try and control the flow of your urine.
• This activity should only be attempted to locate the pelvic floor and not generally.
• If you’re not succeeding by yourself, you can seek professional help by going to your gynecologist.
• Biofeedback training with a vaginal probe can help locate the pelvic floor quite easily.

How to do Kegel Exercises?

• It is very simple to perform Kegel exercises once you have found your pelvic floor.
• The easiest way to do them is to just clench the muscles for a few seconds and release them afterward.
• Repeat the exercise around 10 to 20 times.
• However, you need to make sure you are not clenching or contracting any other muscles during the exercise.
• The abdomens, thighs, and other associated muscles need to be relaxed.
• Do not hold your breath while performing Kegel exercises.
• Keep breathing during the exercise and repeat them around three times a day.
• You are unlikely to notice immediate effects.
• It will take some time, around 4 to 6 weeks before the Kegel exercises begin to benefit.

Why Do Them?

• A weak pelvic floor can affect your bladder and your reproductive organs.
• You can start to lose control of the bladder, which can result in urine leakage, a condition known as urinary incontinence.
• The pelvic floor can weaken with age or after gynecologist surgery.
• It can also be affected by pregnancy and childbirth or gain weight.
• Kegel exercises are important to strengthen the pelvic floor and protect all the organs that it holds.