Tone and Strengthen with Pelvic Floor Exercises

The pelvic floor is an important group of muscles and tissues. This stretches between the base of your spine and your pubic bone and provides a supportive structure for your internal organs. Pelvic floor exercises can help you tone and strengthen this area.

Why do you need to do Pelvic Floor Exercises?

Over time our pelvic floor muscles can get overstretched and weakened. This is particularly true if they are put under the strain of additional weight during pregnancy. You need to do pelvic floor exercises to prevent these muscles from weakening.

When this happens you can experience a number of problems with the digestive and reproductive systems in this area. This can include:

• Incontinence – weak pelvic floor muscles cause urinary incontinence. This makes it more difficult for you to control when you go to the toilet. You may also find you have stress incontinence when you sneeze or cough.

• Sexual Satisfaction - you may also find sex less satisfying as the muscles are weak and less responsive.

• Vaginal Prolapse – this is a common problem after the menopause. It occurs when the vaginal muscles weaken causing the uterus to sag down.

The good news is that pelvic floor exercises can strengthen your pelvic floor muscles and help to avoid these sorts of problems.

Getting Started

The first thing you need to do before starting pelvic floor exercises is to locate the right muscles. This is easy if you imagine you are trying to stop the flow of urine and also prevent yourself from passing wind at the same time. This will feel like a squeezing and lifting sensation in both your front and back passages.

You can practice squeezing and holding these muscles anywhere as no-one will be able to see what you are doing. Don’t practice though when you should be concentrating on something else such as when you are driving.

Easy Pelvic Floor Exercises

Now you know what muscles you need to be concentrating on you can try one of the easy pelvic floor exercises. All you need to do is lie back on the floor and bring up your legs. They should be bent at the knee with your feet remaining firmly on the floor. Now squeeze and hold your pelvic muscles for 10 seconds and then release. Relax for five seconds and then repeat the squeeze and hold again. Do this at least 15 times and repeat twice a day if possible.

To the most of your pelvic floor exercises make sure you don’t:

• Pull in your stomach muscles

• Squeeze your thighs or buttocks together

• Hold your breath

This can take the focus off your pelvic floor muscles and reduce the impact of the pelvic floor exercises.