Kegel Exercises: A how-to Guide for Women

If you are new on your Kegel exercise journey then this guide is the perfect one to fit all for you! Often women are confused about how to do them correctly. Just by hearing these two words, you start doing them involuntarily, but how do you know if you are doing them correctly?

Reading about your pelvic floor activity is important when starting out with the exercises. Usually, pelvic floor muscles contract and relax at the same time. During a Kegel exercise, you are exercising with the whole pelvic region muscles. According to Pamela Levin, an assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology, most women are misinformed about pelvic exercises and need guidance to do them correctly.

Here are some common mistakes to look for.

Common Kegel Exercise Mistakes

You’re NOT Squeezing the Right Muscles!

Most women start with the abdomen region. But it’s your buttocks that need to be worked on. For reference try to locate these muscles. One easy way of doing it can be to put your right hand on your abdomen while doing the exercise and feel if it’s your abdomen muscles squeezing and not your buttock muscles. Do this a couple of times to truly rule out if the exercise you perform is correct or not. Another way to determine is when you squeeze your buttocks and feel your hips not tightening and rising above. This is another indication that you are not doing the Kegel exercise correctly.

You’re Pushing and NOT Contracting your Pelvic Floor Muscles

Don’t push, but squeeze. One of the best ways is to feel how your muscle constrict and unfold as your try to tightly hold in air through your vagina. If you feel a lot of pressure building up then you are probably pushing and not squeezing. Squeezing will put tension on your muscles.

You’re Practicing at the Wrong Time

One of the biggest misconceptions when learning about Kegel exercises is controlling bladder movement. Many women think that they can perform urinary control when they excrete…and that is the biggest mistake you make when doing this exercise!

Practice urine control when you have the constant urge to do it without having to run to the washroom.

The Best Position for Kegel Exercise

There are many exercises that you can perform as Kegel exercises, here is a brief guide for different Kegel exercises to completely heal pelvic floor dysfunction. However, for starters, begin with sitting on an exercise ball and holding your core muscle tight and firm while doing breathing exercises.

Doing Your Kegels, the Right Way

Dr Levin suggests a very interesting way of doing the Kegel exercise the right way. She says to “Envision you have a straw in your vagina, and you’re trying to pull fluid up through the straw,”. Now that’s one way of doing the right exercise.

Another effective way is to insert your two fingers in your vagina and tighten your muscles around it. As you feel the tightness forming around you, this is your cue to locate your pelvic muscles.