How To Do Kegel Exercises?

There are various treatments and solutions to manage your incontinence. One of the most famous is Kegel exercises. Kegel exercises help to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor. When you’re seated on the toilet, you use your pelvic floor muscles to stop the flow of urine in mid-stream. You can avoid urine leaks by strengthening these muscles. Keeping these muscles in good shape prevents your uterus, bladder, and bowel from sinking into the vaginal canal. Pelvic organ prolapse is the term for what happens when this happens. Kegel exercises can be done sitting or lying down at any time. You can practice them while eating, sitting at your desk, driving, resting, or watching television. 

The pelvic floor muscles support the pelvic organs and span the bottom of the pelvis. A set of muscles that go from your pubic bone in the front of your body to your tailbone in the back, forming a little sling or hammock. In order for you to be able to do these exercises, it is important to identify the right muscles. It’s easy to locate your pelvic floor muscles. When you’re on the toilet, try to stop the flow of your urine. Do this only until you get a sense of how it feels (otherwise this stopping and starting of urine flow can lead to other health problems). If you feel them tighten, you have done the exercise right. In starting to do the Kegel exercise, there is no need for equipment! The Kegel exercises can be done while lying down, sitting, or standing. If your pelvic muscles are weak, start by doing them while lying down. Starting the workout routine with a few minutes in the morning and again before bedtime is a good idea. 

• Kegel exercises involve elevating and holding your pelvic floor muscles before relaxing them. Begin by performing a limited number of exercises ( lifts/squeezes, holds, and relaxes) over a short amount of time, then progressively increase the duration of time and the number of exercises performed in each ‘session’ (which is called a set). At least two sets of the exercises should be performed each day.
• At least twice a day, perform this set of exercises :  Lifting and holding for three seconds, then resting for three seconds, is a good place to start. This would be one set if you did it 10 times in a row. If 10 times in a row is too much at first, lower the number. At least twice a day, perform this set of exercises. Increase all of these numbers as your skills develop. To put it another way, increase the amount of time you spend lifting, holding, and resting; the number of movements in a set; and the number of times you do these exercises per day. Instead of holding for three seconds and then relaxing for three seconds, hold and relax for four seconds each, gradually increasing to five seconds each. Increase the number of exercises in a set to ten consecutively. Finally, increase the frequency of these workouts from twice to three times each day.

You will probably see the results of these exercises after 12 weeks. 

Kegel exercises: What are they, how to do, & benefits. Cleveland Clinic. (n.d.). Retrieved September 19, 2021, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/14611-kegel-exercises.
U.S. National Library of Medicine. (n.d.). Kegel exercises – Self-care: Medlineplus medical encyclopedia. MedlinePlus. Retrieved September 19, 2021, from https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000141.htm.