What Are Kegel Exercises And How Are They Done?
If you’re a woman and you’ve ever felt like your pelvic floor muscles were weak, then this article is for you.
In recent years, there’s been an increased awareness of Kegel exercises as a way to strengthen these muscles.
If done correctly, they can help with incontinence issues, childbirth recovery time, and sex life.
These three benefits alone make it worth trying out Kegels if you haven’t already!
But what are they? And more importantly, how do you do them correctly to get the best results?
Kegel exercises work by building up the pelvic floor muscles that act as your body’s “foundation”.
These muscles are usually weak after having a baby, and some women may even experience issues like incontinence (peeing yourself) when laughing, sneezing, coughing, etc. that is due to weak pelvic floor muscles.
Not to mention that your sex life can benefit from a stronger pelvic floor too!
Before we cover the steps on how to do Kegels, it’s important to know where these muscles are in order to find them and activate them properly.
The pelvic floor muscles are made up of layers of muscle tissue on the bottom of your pelvis, between your legs. See here:
To do Kegels correctly, you must first find these muscles. To be able to “feel” them working while doing the exercise is important for knowing if you’re doing them right.
Here’s a tip – try stopping your pee mid-stream when going to the washroom. Do you feel that? You just activated your pelvic floor muscles!
To do Kegels, you must first find these muscles before doing them correctly. It’s important to find them in order to have proper control during the exercises.
To begin, sit down and try to stop your pee midstream.
That’s an easy way of finding these muscles.
How Long Does It Take To Strengthen The Pelvic Floor?
How Kegel Exercises Are Done?
1. Firstly, relax the pelvic floor muscle group that you just found by sitting down and trying to stop the flow of urine as mentioned above. If you’re having trouble stopping it, press your finger on top of them and see how it affects your ability to stop or slow down the flow.
2. Once you’re able to relax them, start to exercise them by contracting and holding the muscles for 5 seconds before releasing and repeating 10 times, 3 sets a day.
Another tip – try breathing in when contracting (squeezing) these muscles and breathing out when releasing them.
3. If you’ve discovered your pelvic floor muscles properly, then you should be able to control them better while doing Kegels correctly. Try this next step standing up (easier) or lying down on the edge of a bed (harder). Contract and hold these muscles for 5 seconds before releasing and repeating 10 times, 3 sets a day.
Finally, once you’ve mastered these exercises and have reached your goal Kegel strength, try adding a resistance band (the kind used for physical therapy) to your workout. This will make the muscles stronger faster by having them do more work than normal against the resistance provided by the band. Some women even use jade eggs to help with their Kegel exercises.
Now you know how to do Kegels properly to get the best results!
