Ask Aly Anything: Kegels
Question: I’m having trouble practicing my Kegels. I’m not sure if I’m finding/using the right muscles. How do I know if I’m doing them right?
Answer: First off, yay to you for identifying not only the importance of Kegels but the importance of activating the correct muscle group. Let’s start with a breakdown of the basics.
Kegels = name of the exercise that strengthens your pelvic floor muscles.
Pelvic floor muscles support your bladder, rectum, and uterus. These muscles stretch from the front of your pelvis all the way down and around to the back of your pelvis. In the image below, note the red structure. Look at all the organ systems that thread through this muscle!
Pregnancy, childbirth, and age are all factors that really put extra wear and tear on our pelvic floor muscles. It’s important to train and strengthen this muscle group, especially for women, to ensure ideal sexual function, reduce pain associated with activity and/or to maintain regular bladder and bowel function.
When Nicole and Chelsea are queuing you to “close and lift your pelvic floor” or to “contract your pelvic floor,” they’re telling you to do a kegel.
Ok, now that we have the visual and the basics down, let’s talk about how to correctly do Kegel exercises.
You can do them sitting, lying down, or standing.
Imagine you just had a little too much fresh cauliflower for lunch, and you are in an important meeting when a large gas bubble is trying to escape you. Tense your body to stop the hypothetical cauliflower fart. If you feel the pull, you are in the right spot!
Next time you are sitting down on the toilet to pee, practice stopping mid-stream. This is a challenging one and often uncomfortable, but it will really highlight the muscle group you need to activate. After you identify it, try and activate the stream stoppage without actually peeing. You got this!!!
If you are still having trouble, take one of your fingers and insert it in your vagina like you’re out to dinner and your period sneaks up on you and all you have is a non-applicator tampon….once you get to where you want the tampon to be, SQUEEZE, like your vagina is giving your finger a big hug.
Finally, if you want to really nail down your Kegel exercises and you want to make this a team effort, get your partner involved. Have your partner insert their penis or fingers into your vagina and give your Kegel exercises a shot. How strong do they feel to them? Are they getting a good squeeze?
What does the literature say?
Kegel’s improve sexual function (Huang & Chang, 2021)
Kegel’s prevent leakage of all the things (Mazue-Bialy et al., 2020)
I hope this helps clarify what Kegel exercises are and why they are so important!!!
xoxo
Dr. Aly Wrisley, PhD RN
References
Huang, Y.C. & Change, K.V. (2021). Kegel exercises. StatPearls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK555898/
Mazur-Bialy, A.I., Kolomanska-Bogucka, D., & Oplawski, T.S. (2020). Physiotherapy for prevention and treatment of fecal incontinence in women: Systematic review of methods. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 9 (10), 325.
