What is a Kegel Exercise? Tighter Vagina?
Kegel exercises (also called pelvic floor exercises) help strengthen your pelvic floor muscles. Your pelvic floor muscles support organs in your pelvis, such as your bladder, bowels, and vagina. Your pelvic floor muscles hold your organs in place and also help with bodily functions such as urination, defecation, and sex. Kegels involve tightening and then relaxing the muscles in your pelvic floor to strengthen them.
Doing Kegels can help with problems such as:
- Urinary incontinence (leaking urine).
- Urge incontinence (an urgent need to urinate).
- Fecal incontinence (leaking stool).
- Pelvic organ prolapse (pelvic organs hanging or bulging into your vagina).
- Kegels can also improve your sexual health and help improve your orgasms. The vagina becomes tighter from these exercises.
- Men or people assigned male at birth (AMAB) and women or people assigned female at birth (AFAB) may benefit from Kegel exercises.
What Do Kegel Exercises Actually Do?
Kegel exercises help keep your pelvic floor muscles fit. Just as you can strengthen other muscles in your body by lifting weights, doing Kegels is a way to keep your pelvic floor muscles strong. Kegel exercises can give you more control over your bladder and bowels and prevent your pelvic floor muscles from becoming weak.
Weak pelvic floor muscles can cause you to leak urine and stool or accidentally pass gas. Your pelvic floor muscles can weaken with age or from things like pregnancy, childbirth, or surgery.
Who should do Kegels?
Anything that puts pressure on your pelvic floor muscles can cause them to weaken and become less supportive of your pelvic organs. Certain health conditions or life events can weaken your pelvic floor muscles. Some of these conditions and events include:
- Pregnancy. Childbirth, including caesarean section.
- Obesity (a body mass index, or BMI, greater than 30) or overweight (a BMI greater than 25).
- Surgery in your pelvic area.
- Aging. The muscles of your pelvic floor, as well as the muscles in your rectum and anus, naturally weaken with age.
- Excessive straining during bowel movements (constipation) or chronic coughing.
- Exercises (especially jumping, running and lifting heavy weights).
However, Kegel exercises are not for everyone. Doing too many Kegels, or doing Kegels when you don't need to, can cause your muscles to become too tense or tight.
Pregnancy and Kegel Exercises
Pregnant women may find that doing Kegels during pregnancy makes labor easier. This is because it can give you more control over your pelvic muscles during labor. It can also help with:
Bladder control.
Strengthening the muscles that support the weight of the fetus.
Urinary incontinence or urine leakage.
Pushing during vaginal delivery.
Healing of the perineum after childbirth.
How do I find my pelvic floor muscles?
To find your pelvic floor muscles, you can try to stop yourself from peeing while sitting on the toilet. Only do this until you get the hang of it (otherwise this stopping and starting can lead to an infection). You can also imagine that you are trying to stop yourself from passing gas.
You can also insert a finger into your vagina and squeeze the muscles in your vagina around it. You should feel pressure around your finger. The muscles you feel "lifting" inside you when you try these activities are the same muscles you strengthen during Kegel exercises.
It may be helpful to imagine your pelvic floor as a claw machine game that you may have played as a child. In a claw machine game, a metal claw extends downward and opens. Once open, it grabs a toy, ball, or candy and then closes. Once it has closed around your prize, the claw stays closed and returns to its starting position. The closing and upward motion that the claw makes is almost identical to a Kegel.
How do I perform Kegel exercises?
You perform Kegel exercises by lifting, holding, and then relaxing your pelvic floor muscles. Start with a few Kegels at a time and gradually increase both the duration and the number of Kegels you do in each "session" (or set). You should do at least two to three sets of these exercises per day.