In 1948, Dr. Arnold Kegel developed the exercises that bear his name in an effort to help women control incontinence after giving birth. Medline Plus says the exercises are designed to strengthen pelvic floor muscles and are still recommended today for women with urinary stress incontinence, some men who experience incontinence after prostate surgery and people who have fecal incontinence. The key to a proper Kegel exercise is to isolate the correct muscles.
Use Correct Muscles
Medline Plus, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, says it's important to contract the correct muscles when you do a Kegel exercise. Tightening abdominal or thigh muscles by mistake may worsen pelvic muscle tone and incontinence. It says one way to find the correct muscles is to sit on the toilet and begin to urinate. If you can stop the flow of urine by tightening your pelvic floor muscles, you've isolated the correct muscles. The Mayo Clinic warns you should not make a habit out of starting and stopping your urine stream because that could actually weaken the muscles and lead to incomplete emptying of the bladder.
May Benefit from Other Techniques
Medline Plus says women having trouble locating their pelvic muscles may try to locate them by inserting a finger into their vagina and trying to tighten the muscles around the finger. The Mayo Clinic says if you're doing this correctly, you should be able to feel your pelvic floor move up and down with the muscle contractions. If that doesn't work, you can try biofeedback or electrical stimulation. With biofeedback, electrodes are placed on the skin by the pelvic area and a monitor provides positive reinforcement when you contract the correct muscles. Some therapists also may place a sensor inside the vagina in women or the anus in men to monitor the contraction. When electric stimulation is used, a low-voltage electric current is used to make the pelvic floor muscles contract so you can locate the correct muscles.
Must Be Done Regularly
Once you know how to properly do a Kegel contraction, you need to exercise often and regularly. The Cleveland Clinic recommends that pregnant women do five sets of Kegel exercises each day. To do a set, contract the muscles for a slow count of five, then relax. Repeat until you've done the exercise 10 times. Mayo Clinic recommends doing 10 Kegel exercises, three times a day. It says you can vary your technique by counting quickly to 10 or 20 and doing a contraction each time you say a number. It suggests another variation that calls for visualizing an elevator. As you do a contraction, picture an elevator going up four floors. At each floor, tighten the muscles a bit more until you reach your maximum contraction at the fourth floor. Hold the contraction and then slowly release the muscle tension as the elevator goes back to the ground floor. Repeat this exercise 10 times.
