A Guide to Kegels: Simple Exercises to Strengthen Your Pelvic Floor
A Simple Kegels Routine to Try at Home
Strengthen your pelvic floor muscles with a simple kegels routine that you can do right at home. These easy exercises strengthen the uterus, bladder, and bowel.
What do you think of when you think of muscles? You probably think of upper body muscles, such as biceps and pectorals, and lower body muscles, such as gluteus maximus and hamstrings.
But there’s one muscle people forget about — the pelvic floor.
The pelvic floor is a muscle that extends from the tailbone to the pubic bone. A strong pelvic floor results in improved bowel control, improved bladder control, and faster recovery from severe events including birth and surgery.
How do you strengthen your pelvic floor? Easy — do kegels.
The movement famous for strengthening the vagina offers full pelvic benefits, helping you physically and sexually. Here’s how to build a powerful kegels routine you can do daily.
Your Kegels Routine: How to Do Kegels
Whether you struggle to achieve an orgasm or are looking to strengthen your vagina after giving birth, creating a kegels routine is important for women. Here’s how to do kegels the correct way.
Find the Muscle
As mentioned previously, the pelvic floor is a large muscle that extends from the front and back side of your pelvis. Finding the exact muscle can be tricky. You also can’t touch the muscle the same way you can your triceps or hamstrings.
The best way to find your pelvic floor muscle is by peeing. Do you know how you instinctually know how to start and stop peeing? That’s all thanks to your pelvic floor muscle.
Next time you pee, stop your flow mid-stream. That squeeze is your pelvic floor muscle working its magic.
Keep in mind, don’t do kegels while peeing. Holding back your pee can cause bladder issues. Instead, find a different time to do kegels. We’ll go over that later.
Squeeze!
Now that you know the general kegel movement, you can get started doing kegels. Fortunately, kegels are discreet and you can do them whenever. You just have to squeeze!
It’s best to do your first kegel at home while you’re alone. Place your finger in your vagina. Start squeezing. You should feel your vaginal walls contracting and your finger lifting upwards. Don’t be afraid to ask your gynecologist to teach you.
Hold!
Here’s the biggest mistake women make — after they squeeze, they immediately let go. They do a pulsing movement instead of a holding movement. This holding movement is what really helps strengthen the pelvic floor.
Start by squeezing upward and holding the squeeze for three seconds. Relax. Start with three until you get used to your kegels and increase your holding time. Women with strong pelvis floors can hold their squeeze for ten seconds!
Create a Routine
As with every other exercise, you now know the basics of a kegel routine. You just have to create a routine that’s right for you and stick with it.
Start with one set of ten reps. Squeeze, hold for three seconds, let go, and squeeze and hold again. To make this easier, do two sets of five reps. Start one rep early in the day and the second set later in the day.
Once you become used to kegels, you can start doing them more intensely. For a strong pelvic floor, aim to do three sets of 10 kegels, resulting in 30 daily kegels.
Do This Routine Daily
Now that you have a routine, make it a point to do kegels every day. This is how you get the best results. You should start noticing a stronger pelvic floor in six months.
Track Your Progress
Like with all other exercises, tracking your progress helps keep you motivated to continue your daily kegel regimen. Once you get the hang of kegels, try increasing your reps.
Instead of doing two reps of three kegels, try doing two reps of four kegels. If you can do this comfortably, write it down.
Do you want to take your kegel routine to the next level? There are products that help you with your kegel gains. First off, try a kegel trainer.
These are devices you insert in the vagina and you hold them in your vagina while doing kegels. But be sure you clean them to prevent infection!
There are also kegel apps that track your kegel progress.
When Is the Best Time to Do Kegels?
Remember how we suggested putting your finger in your vagina to feel the squeeze? Once you become accustomed to kegels, you don’t need to do this step (though you can).
You can do kegels anywhere. They’re discreet and no one can tell you’re doing them. But with our busy lives, it can be difficult to remember your kegel gains. Here are some suggestions for a kegel routine time and place.
While You’re Waiting
Are you on hold? Is your significant other taking forever doing whatever it is they’re doing? Are you waiting to pick the kids up from school? Instead of getting frustrated, take this time to get some kegel gains in.
Stopped at a Red Light
We all get antsy when at a red light. Instead of grabbing your phone, do some kegels. It’s a fun way to pass the time, you get extra kegels in, and you won’t look like that jerk on the phone while driving.
While Running Errands
Running errands can get so mundane. Spice up your errand run by doing kegels. You can squeeze in a few quick kegels while at the dry cleaners, at the ATM, and grocery shopping.
While Cleaning and Doing Chores
Like errands, doing chores is also mundane. If you hate cleaning, kegels help spice up domestic duties. Get some kegel action in while doing laundry, dusting, washing dishes, or your extensive spring cleaning list.
The best part? Since you’re home, you can use one of those fun kegel gadgets to amp up your kegel gains!
See a Gynecologist If Kegels Aren’t Helping
A kegel routine helps everything from urinary accidents to a stronger vagina. But are kegels not helping any of the issues you’re facing?
If you’re in Houston, Texas, contact us. We specialize in conditions such as prolapse, stress incontinence, and vaginal dryness.