Tag: kegel muscles


Aug
2015

Pelvic floor exercise progression: How to strengthen your Kegels

categories: Health, Pregnancy

First, make sure you know how to take care of you Kegel muscles daily!! If you feel ready to strengthen your Kegels at home, read below!

kegels, kegel muscles, pelvic floor muscles, physical therapy, postpartum, pregnancy

Kegel muscles, or pelvic floor muscles, are just like any other muscle in your body in a sense that contracting them against gravity is a greater chore than using gravity to your advantage. This is important to remember when you decide how to go about strengthening your kegels.

SIDELYING

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The position that is most helpful in contracting your Kegels is the sidelying position. Lie on your side with your top leg supported on pillows so that your hip is in a neutral position. Tighten your Kegel muscles as though you are stopping the flow of urine. I often cue people to imagine the pelvic floor is an elevator. Imagine ropes attached to your ribs. As you contract, the ropes are pulling the elevator (pelvic floor) toward your rib cage. Exhale as you are contracting.

If you are holding your breath, the opposite will happen–your pelvic floor will expand toward your feet (eek!) just like a parachute expands when it meets air resistance. This stretches the pelvic floor, making it hard to contract and can weaken it over time. Hold each contraction 5-10 seconds. Repeat 10-20 times.

(side note: If you feel like you can’t contract your pelvic floor in this position, please see a physical therapist! To see one, ask your doctor–possibly your obgyn–for an order to see a physical therapist who specializes in women’s health….even if you are male! They are the gurus of the pelvic floor. You can also see a PT through direct access.)

QUADRUPED

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Another position that is “gravity-lessened” for the Kegel muscles is the quadruped position. On your hands and knees with your knees directly below your hips and your hands below your shoulders, contract your pelvic floor as described above while exhaling. Make sure your back is flat.

In this position, I also encourage you to contract your abdominal muscles as you contract your kegels. Do this by pulling your belly button toward your spine. Again, if you are holding your breath and/or bearing down, your stomach expands, and the increased volume actually stretches your pelvic floor and abdominals like a parachute stretches when it meets air resistance (aka don’t do that). Hold 5-10 seconds and repeat 10-20 times.

SITTING

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It may take a few weeks, but once you are able to complete the above positions correctly, you can move to a sitting position for your Kegel work out. 😉 In this position, you are lifting your Kegels against gravity, so it is much more challenging. Contract your pelvic floor muscles by thinking of lifting them up toward your rib cage as described above. Hold 5-10 seconds and repeat 10-20 times.

STANDING

IMG_5971

Next, try to contract your Kegels in standing. Think of raising your pelvic floor up toward your ribs with the elevator ropes as described above as you exhale.

The most challenging way to contract and exercise your Kegels is to perform contractions during your normal movements, such as arising from a chair. Start by contracting the muscles in sitting and keeping them contracted as you move to stand.

If you are active in fitness and exercise, keep these tips in mind as you lift weights and move through your exercise routine. Remember, if you hold your breath, you are expanding your pelvic floor (like when a parachute meets air resistance) and stretching them out which can weaken the muscles over time.

(Feel free to leave a comment below (you can leave one anonymously!) or send an email to kayleemayblog at gmail dot com with any questions. If I get enough questions throughout this series, I will post a Q&A post to conclude it)

***The content of http://www.kayleemay.com is for informational purposes only. The information presented is not to be taken as professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are having pain, or seeking medical advice, talk to your health care provider. Do not delay in seeking treatment because of information you have read on http://www.kayleemay.com. Taking recommendations presented on http://www.kayleemay.com is solely at your own risk***


Jul
2015

How to take care of your Kegels daily

categories: Health, Pregnancy

Kegel muscles are functionally and medically important for everyone (men and women!), so if you’re wondering if you should take care of your Kegels, the answer is YES.

Kegel muscles are associated with incontinence, back pain, pelvic organ prolapse, hip pain, and even your sexual performance.

When I am treating a patient in the clinic, I make sure to talk about daily positions and movements that affect their condition before educating them on exercises. The reason is that the positions and movements we perform repetitively each day will affect our bodies more than spending 15-30 minutes a day exercising. It’s incredibly important to treat our bodies well by first integrating good posture and movements into our daily habits.

kegels, kegel muscles, pelvic floor muscles, physical therapy, postpartum, pregnancy, women's health

First, I will address sleeping position because it’s one of the most important positions our bodies assumes that determines which muscles are stiff and which ones are too flexible. A sleeping position is like holding a stretch for hours at a time. It might seem like Kegels wouldn’t be impacted by our sleeping position, but if our hips are internally rotated and/or adducted (knee rolled inward and past midline), the pelvic floor muscles are stretched out because they actually attach to the hip bone itself (by way of the fascia of the obturator internus). So when the hip moves “inward” it pulls on the pelvic floor muscles. This happens when we lay on our side without the top leg supported. If you are a side sleeper, I recommend putting one to two pillows between your knees and feet to support your top leg in neutral.

kegels, kegel exercises, sleeping position, women's health, pelvic floor, pregnancy, postpartum

(I promise I don’t sleep on tile floors)

Second, I will address our sitting position. I don’t care who you are–you sit a lot. If you sit in bad positions like this

kegels, kegel exercises, pelvic floor, women's health, pregnancy, postpartum

or this

kegels, kegel exercises, pelvic floor, women's health, pregnancy, postpartum

or this

kegels, kegel exercises, pelvic floor, women's health, pregnancy, postpartum

..let me just go ahead and buy you some of these.

Okay, bad joke.

Again, if our legs assume an “inward” position, our Kegel muscles are pulled taut, therefore stretched. You know how little kids look when they have to pee? They pull their knees in. That’s because that pulls the muscles taut. Over time, that position stretches the muscles, making them harder to contract. It is best to sit in a neutral position. I encourage you to modify your desk set up to make sure you are treating your Kegels well when at work!

kegels, kegel muscles, pelvic floor muscles, physical therapy, postpartum, pregnancy

Lastly, our standing position can impact our Kegel muscles. Standing with your hip hiked and legs crossed puts your muscles in an asymmetrical position (ahem MOMS who let a kid sit on one hip all the time). Not only will it lead to back pain, hip and back muscle asymmetries, but can weaken the pelvic floor over time.

Another bad position for your pelvic floor muscles in standing your “tail” curled under too much. Yoga and pilates classes stress tucking your tail bone (which can be a good cue to get those abs and gluts to contract) BUT this places the pelvic floor directly under the torso nice and flat so that ALL the pressure from your internal organs rests on it, weakening it over time when it’s a habit. (yes, I know you don’t FEEL heavy pressure just standing there…but there is a such thing as gravity, folks)

So don’t stand like this

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or this

kegels, kegel muscles, pelvic floor muscles, physical therapy, postpartum, pregnancy

or this

kegels, kegel muscles, pelvic floor muscles, physical therapy, postpartum, pregnancy

or this

kegels, kegel muscles, pelvic floor muscles, physical therapy, postpartum, pregnancy

Stand in a neutral position like this:

IMG_5971

This may seem like nit-picky advice and may even seem unreasonable to do (especially ALL THE TIME), but try to start incorporating good posture and movements into your daily routine to take care of your body.

(Feel free to leave a comment below (you can leave one anonymously!) or send an email to kayleemayblog at gmail dot com with any questions. If I get enough questions throughout this series, I will post a Q&A post to conclude it)

***The content of http://www.kayleemay.com is for informational purposes only. The information presented is not to be taken as professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are having pain, or seeking medical advice, talk to your health care provider. Do not delay in seeking treatment because of information you have read on http://www.kayleemay.com. Taking recommendations presented on http://www.kayleemay.com is solely at your own risk***


Jul
2015

The lowdown on Kegel muscles

categories: Health, Pregnancy

I first heard about Kegel muscles in college. My roommate with a deep southern accented read us an article about Kegel muscles out loud from a magazine. Due to her strong accent, we all thought she was saying “giggle” muscles. Based on what she was reading, that seemed like an appropriate name for those particular muscles. 😉

kegels, kegel muscles, pelvic floor, pregnancy, postpartum, women's health

Fast forward about four years to physical therapy school, and I ended up learning a lot more about Kegel muscles than what could be read in a magazine. For example, did you know…

Kegel muscles are the pelvic floor muscles, or the base/foundation of our torsos that support our uterus, rectum, small intestine, and bladder.

Kegel muscles are relaxed when we urinate or defecate and are contracted when we are not urinating or defecating.

Kegel muscles can be stressed if we are obese, pregnant, coughing, sneezing, or move in faulty patterns that overstretch the muscles.

Kegel muscles are associated with incontinence, or leaking urine or fecal matter.

Kegel muscles are muscles that EVERY PERSON has, men and women. (i.e. men can leak urine as well! They just don’t talk about it as much)

Kegel muscles can be strengthened to prevent problems with incontinence…or even help achieve orgasm.

Kegel muscles work with synergistically with abdominal muscles.

Since these small muscles hold up our organs, function as the base and foundation of our bodies, and are so closely associated with frustrating medical conditions like incontinence, I thought it would be a good idea to do a series on the Kegel muscles.

Stay tuned to learn if you need to strengthen your Kegel muscles and how to go about doing that!

(Feel free to leave a comment below (you can leave one anonymously if you want!) or send an email to kayleemayblog at gmail dot com with any questions. If I get enough questions throughout this series, I will post a Q&A post to conclude it)

***The content of http://www.kayleemay.com is for informational purposes only. The information presented is not to be taken as professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are having pain, or seeking medical advice, talk to your health care provider. Do not delay in seeking treatment because of information you have read on http://www.kayleemay.com. Taking recommendations presented on http://www.kayleemay.com is solely at your own risk***