Not Your Mama’s Kegel…

(3 min read)

A Kegel refers to a contraction of your pelvic floor muscles. And (as a huge disservice to the person with a pelvic floor) it is usually taught as only that, a simple contraction, and the owner of said pelvic floor is left to feel like - wait what? That’s it? 

The truth is, there is more to it!

Telling someone they can Kegel their symptoms away is leaving out a lot. This is much like telling someone they can simply prepare for running marathon by sitting in a chair and squeezing their quads.  

What’s that? You’ve been doing Kegel’s and now you’re worried you’ve been wasting your time? No! It’s a great starting point. Technically you could start marathon prep with squeezing your quads. But you would definitely want to incorporate some other things before you get to the starting line. Same thing goes for connecting with your pelvic floor muscles. Now that you’ve got the Kegel down, you need to understand how to incorporate this ability to squeeze your muscles to actually improve your function. 

Side view of the torso including pelvic floor anatomy (for those who have uteruses).

Let’s start by explaining how to do a standard Kegel. Imagine you have to fart… now hold that fart in and don’t let it out. Great you’ve just don’t your first (regular) kegel!

The exciting thing is that to take your kegel up a notch it isn’t too complicated. To level up your kegel, try this 10 minute breathing lesson. 

1. Either sitting or laying in a comfortable position, inhale (through your nose) and relax your pelvic floor aka relax the muscles as though you were letting out a fart.

2. Exhale (through your nose) and contract your pelvic floor aka contract the muscles as though you were holding in a fart.

Repeat for 10 breaths. Wonderful - you have done your first set of (REAL) kegel’s.

Not your mama’s Kegel…

Check out this diagram that show’s what your pelvic floor muscles are doing on every breath.

What makes these ‘not your Mama’s Kegel’s’? Any muscle needs both contraction AND relaxation to function properly. Including the relaxation phase with this contraction exercise doubles the functionality of the exercise! AKA more bang for your buck. Also, your pelvic floor naturally, reflexively, and subtly engages this way with every breath you take. So incorporating breath makes it relevant to daily life (which includes breathing… obvi). Similarly to how your diaphragm also naturally, reflexively, and subtly engages with each breath, and if you want to take a big inhale or a big exhale you can consciously engage these muscles too.

Side note - sometimes this isn’t as ‘easy’ to do as I made it out to be. Some pelvic floor owners engage in this ‘kegel with breath’ for the first time and not only is it completely foreign but it’s just hard! That’s ok! Rome wasn’t built in a day and practice makes perfect.

Now that you’ve leveled up your kegel let’s apply it to exercises… Read part 3 of my pelvic floor blog series here.

If you want to know more about how you can level up your Kegel and your pelvic health, Dr Laura is putting on a 4 part Functional Pelvic Floor Workshop this June. Register here!

Tune in for more pelvic floor content on Instagram (@drlauralatham).

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