An Overview of Pelvic Floor Exercises

You may have heard people singing the praises of pelvic floor exercises and wondered what they were talking about. Pelvic exercises are more informally known as kegel exercises. The tern “pelvic floor” does not refer to the surface that you do the exercises on. Instead, it refers to the muscle group that you are exercising. The muscles in this area of the body are often overlooked, but they are vitally important to normal, healthy function. Specifically, such exercises can help fight both urinary and fecal incontinence. This is because the muscles of the pelvic floor are located under the bladder and large intestine.

How do I find the right muscles to exercise?

When doing pelvic floor exercises, it is vital that you exercise the right muscles. Believe it or not, it is very easy to exercise the wrong muscles when attempting this sort of workout. Thankfully, there is an easy way to find the correct muscles for pelvic floor workouts. This method may seem a little strange to some people, but it works.

Start to urinate, then force yourself to stop. The muscles that you feel flexing to stop the flow of urination are the pelvic floor muscles. These are exactly the muscles you need to develop through your pelvic floor exercises. If you think about it, it makes sense that these muscles can be found through halting urination, because the development of the pelvic floor muscles fights incontinence.

What if I still can’t find the correct muscle group?

Some people struggle to find the correct muscle group, even after trying the urination exercise. There is nothing to be worried about if this happens to you. There is one more way to find the correct muscle group. Flex all of the muscles in the area, one by one. When you feel multiple muscles in your groin flexing at the same time (despite your attempt to flex muscles one by one), then you know that you’ve found the right muscle group.

Tips for pelvic floor exercises

Once you have located the right muscles, pelvic exercises are fairly easy to perform. However, there is one very important tip that you need to keep in mind when doing this type of workout. Actually, this tip is true for all muscular workouts. You need to focus on exercising only your pelvic muscles. It is easy to flex other muscles in this area when doing pelvic muscular exercises. Try to limit this as much as possible for the most efficient workout.

Why should I do these exercises?

Many people, especially people over 50, struggle with incontinence. This incontinence can be urinary incontinence, which is the most common, or fecal incontinence. Some people, unfortunately, struggle with both. Thankfully, pelvic exercises can help greatly with both types of incontinence. These exercises have greatly improved the quality of life of many people.