The pelvic floor muscles are responsible for controlling the flow of urine and for holding the pelvic organs in place. It is important that these muscles stay strong. Kegel exercises help do that. Kegels are prescribed for stress incontinence, where a person leaks urine when coughing, sneezing or when lifting heavy stuff, for urge incontinence where there is a sudden strong urge to urinate before the urine comes out uncontrollably and for weak pelvic floor muscles following childbirth.
Kegel exercises involve the following steps:
- First, find the muscles that control the process of urinating.
- Squeeze and then relax these muscles for 3 seconds each. Ensure that your stomach and thigh muscles don’t tighten when doing this.
- Add a second each week to the three till you can squeeze and hold for ten seconds at a time.
- Repeat this at least three times a day, and on each session, repeat the process for at least ten to fifteen times.
- Do not do this while urinating because Kegel exercises can hurt your bladder if you do them while urinating.
- Ensure you do them regularly and on schedule, or they will not be effective. If you do not see any improvement after four months of regular Kegel exercises, consult your doctor.
When doing Kegel exercises, see if you can get some form of biofeedback to ensure that you are doing your exercises as required. There are a few Kegel exercises that give you biofeedback where to can either hear, feel or see how well you are doing.
One of the more interesting, and maybe entertaining, ones is Skea which is short for Smart Kegel Exercise Aid. To motivate women to go for Kegel exercises, this app combines the exercise with gaming. A game called Alice in Continent is installed in the device, and the idea is to get Alice through the game by flexing your pelvic muscles to get her to move.
When the exercise is done correctly the device gives biofeedback regarding a soothing pulse and, of course, Alice moves. This Kegel exerciser is in the final stages of development and should be out soon.