Keep Your Pelvic Floor Tight And Toned! If you happen to be a women reading this – please read carefully – this is worth your taking time to study so you enjoy excellent health for many years to come.
The pelvic floor forms the foundation of a cylinder like structure of muscle groups that make up what’s termed the ‘core’ (central) muscles of the body. The abdominal muscles, the lower back muscles and diaphragm form the rest of the structure. All these muscle groups need to be strong for our body to function at its best.
Pregnancy, child birth and the hormonal changes that take place during menopause directly affect the pelvic floor so keeping these muscles strong is particularly important for women’s health and well being.
Childbirth is like putting a bowling ball through these muscles!
So a strong pelvic floor helps women recover more easily from child birth.
Incidentally even if you have had a c section, strengthening your pelvic floor using pelvic floor exercises will still be valuable since being pregnant itself puts sufficient pressure on these muscles to weaken them considerably.
You could think of the pelvic floor this way – a grocery bag full of groceries needs to have a strong base to hold the groceries properly. If it gets soggy the bag will lose its contents all over the pavement.
Now imagine a weak pelvic floor, any strain on this sling-like structure of muscles that guards the abdominal organs will cause them to sag.
This is why women who have given birth often experience stress incontinence when coughing, laughing or exercising. Embarrassment aside, a weak pelvic floor can indicate that the internal organs are no longer in their right positions and this can lead to a loss in function, and a whole host of medical problems – uterine prolapse where the uterus sags into the vagina as an extreme example.
Check out ‘Lose Your Mummy Tummy’ by RN and personal trainer Julie Tupler for more information.
How Do We Strengthen These Muscles?
Pelvic floor exercises, often called kegels, have been devised specifically to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. When done correctly they greatly reduce recovery time from child birth.
The advantage of these pelvic floor exercises is that like many isometric exercises they can be done anytime without anyone knowing you are doing them.
To identify and isolate the pelvic floor muscles correctly do the following test: Sit on the toilet and try to stop the flow of urine. If you have managed to do this, congratulations you have successfully engaged your pelvic floor muscles.
Once you have found and isolated the pelvic floor muscles in this way you will no longer need to sit on the toilet to perform the exercises themselves (what a relief).
In fact stopping the flow of urine regularly only interferes with the correct urinary reflex and encourages the development of urinary tract infections, especially during pregnancy. You don’t want to do that.
Kegels:
There are many ways to do kegels.
Some proponents advocate doing hundreds of repetitions of these pelvic floor exercises.
The pelvic floor muscles are small though and fatigue easily. If you go gung ho and try to do these repetitions all at once you will get very uncomfortable, be put off and never want to do another one again.
I believe a more effective approach involves doing brief sets at intervals during the day.
To do the exercises sit or lie comfortably or even walk, now engage the pelvic floor muscles as you did in the ‘test’ above. Then proceed with the exercises.
Here Is A Sample:
Exercise 1:
Hold and squeeze the muscles as tightly as you can for a split second then release. Repeat the contraction and release 5-10 times.
Exercise 2:
In this exercise begin by contracting the muscles as above, but instead of releasing the muscles hold the contraction for a count of 10. Then release them and repeat twice. Build up to 10 repetitions.
Exercise 3:
In this exercise you will hold the contraction for a count of 10 as above. But instead of just holding the muscles in the same position you will attempt to increase the contraction on each count.
Remember playing on an elevator as a kid? Well now you get do it without being told off!
Imagine you are travelling up an elevator and with each floor you travel up you increase the contraction until you reach the tenth floor.
Now do the same in reverse. With each floor you go down release the contraction a little when you reach the bottom floor release the contraction completely. Repeat twice. Build up to 10 repetitions.
These exercises represent a progression from beginner to more advanced. So start off slow and work your way up gradually. There are many reference books that contain kegels but the above exercises will get you started.
Here are a couple of tips to bear in mind when you are doing kegels so that you don’t inadvertently put opposing pressure on the muscles:
Avoid holding your breath, keep it flowing smoothly and engage the transverse abdominus muscle by drawing your naval to your spine.
The Benefits Of Pelvic Floor Exercises:
You now know that pelvic floor exercises can create a strong healthy pelvic floor that prevent and eliminate stress incontinence, and supports your pelvic organs.
Performing these exercises can also help prevent bowel and bladder problems later in life, especially through the hormonal changes of the menstrual cycle and menopause and to top it all off they improve sexual sensation.
I’d say they make a great addition to any wellness program not just for women but for men too, wouldn’t you agree? Go to it and enjoy the benefits!