Keeping Your Pelvic Floor Healthy: Should You Do Kegels?

Why should I strengthen my pelvic floor?

Your pelvic floor plays an important role in core stabilization, and normalizing function for urination, bowel movements, and sexual intercourse.

Your pelvic floor muscles hold your abdominal organs in place and protects them. Sustaining an injury to your pelvis, undergoing surgery (such as prostate surgery, cesarean, or hysterectomy), vaginal childbirth, and natural aging can weaken your pelvic floor muscles, leading to noticeable symptoms such as pelvic pain, pain during intercourse, or urinary incontinence.

By strengthening your pelvic floor, you can improve your physical well-being and prevent urinary incontinence or urgency. Kegel exercises target the muscles in your pelvic floor. They are relatively easy exercises that can significantly promote your overall pelvic health.

How to do Kegels

If you’re interested in strengthening your pelvic floor, you can perform Kegels in the comfort of your own home. To get the most out of Kegels, you should perform two to three sets per day.

The basic premise of Kegels involves repeatedly lifting, holding, and relaxing your pelvic floor muscles. You can perform Kegels while sitting, standing, or lying down. If you have reason to believe that your pelvic muscles are rather weak, it’d be in your best interest to do Kegels while lying down until you notice an improvement in your pelvic floor strength.

Doing Kegels is comparable to participating in a 5k race—if you’re not a runner or you aren’t in shape, you need to start slow and gradually increase the amount of time you hold each Kegel. Just like training for a race, you need to be patient with yourself and maintain consistency in your routine.

To perform Kegels, squeeze your pelvic floor muscles and hold them for three seconds, relax them for three seconds, and then repeat. When you’re comfortable with three seconds, increase to five. When you’re comfortable with five, increase to seven, and then to ten. Lifting, holding, and relaxing ten times in one sitting is classified as a set. You should strive to do up to three sets of Kegels per day.

Do I need a pelvic floor physical therapist?

If you’re confident you can do Kegels correctly on your own, and your symptoms are improving, you don’t need a pelvic floor physical therapist. If you’re in any doubt, consider the advantages of physical therapy.

If you’re unsure how to perform Kegels, or your symptoms are not improving, a pelvic floor physical therapist can help. A pelvic floor physical therapist provides personalized guidance, ensures that you’re performing Kegels correctly, and provides you with a program beyond Kegels to optimize the function of your pelvic floor.

Doing Kegels shouldn’t cause you any pain during or after exercises. If you’re having pain, you’d likely benefit from working with a pelvic floor physical therapist. This licensed professional can hold you accountable and provide encouragement; your therapist’s support could be instrumental in helping you achieve optimal results, leading to noticeable and lasting benefits in your pelvic health.

How to seek a pelvic floor physical therapist

Talk with your physician about your symptoms to see if you could benefit from pelvic floor physical therapy. A referral is required.

Together with your physical therapist, you can establish a plan of care to best treat your symptoms. For more information about pelvic floor physical therapy, call 419-557-7040.