First, a little background: Kegels tone and strengthen the pubococcygeal (PC) muscles — three sets of muscles that run like a hammock from your back to your pubic bone, encircling the openings to the vagina and the rectum. “During orgasm, these muscles contract rhythmically. The stronger they are, the more intense the sensation,” says urogynecologist Hilary Cholhan, M.D., director of the Rochester Regional Continence Center in Rochester, NY. Another sex bonus: A woman with strong PCs can grasp her partner’s penis and heighten his sensations by contracting and releasing her muscles.

Locate the right muscles by stopping your urine stream the next time you’re in the bathroom. (Don’t routinely do Kegels while urinating or with a full bladder, though, because this can actually weaken the muscles.) You can also find your PC muscles by inserting a finger into your vagina and trying to squeeze your finger. Make sure you’re not tensing your thighs, buttocks, or anal muscles. Then try these exercises:

The basic Kegel: Slowly contract your muscles, drawing inward and upward. Hold for a count of three; then slowly relax for three seconds. Repeat as many times as you can, working up to 25 or 30 three-second squeezes.

Flutter Kegels: Squeeze and relax the PC muscle rapidly, in a pulsing motion. In the beginning aim for consistency of pulses, rather than speed; that will come with time and practice. Work up to 25 or 30 pulses.

The Kegel push-out: After releasing the contraction, gently push down and out with your PC muscles (no bearing down!). Create Kegel sequences that combine long and short repetitions with push-outs — for example, 10 short squeezes, 10 long squeezes, and five push-outs (any sequence will do).

Elevator Kegels: Picture your vagina as an elevator shaft, with the elevator car at the opening of your vagina. Slowly tighten your muscles as you imagine raising the elevator, pausing at the top, and then lowering it again. Repeat 10 times.

Finally, to really work the PC muscles, do Kegels in various positions — while sitting, standing, lying down, or kneeling — two or three times a day. If you do them regularly, you’ll feel the difference in eight to 12 weeks.

Kegel exercises or Pelvic floor exercises (getting its name from Dr. Arnold Kegel who researched the pelvic floor) are recommended as the cure for associated pelvic ailments. Has anyone had any real success from kegal exercises? Probably not, because nobody ever tells you, Dr. Arnold Kegel intended the kegel exercise to be done with resistance; this is what the kegelmaster does, like no other product.

Pelvic floor exercises or kegel exercises (named from Dr. Arnold Kegel who did much research on the pelvic floor) are recommended universally as the cure for the above ailments. Has anyone had any real success from this? The answer: – probably not, because nobody ever tells you that Dr. Arnold Kegel intended the kegel exercise to be done with resistance, this is what the kegelmaster does, like no other product.

We go to the gym to increase muscle tone, mass and strength. Some think that aerobic exercises help build mass and strength, WRONG. We need weight or resistance in conjunction with repetition to get real results. Aerobics only improves the look not the strength. This is why you have had little or no success with your pelvic floor; it’s the same as any other muscle in your body only more important.

In childbirth, the pelvic floor can become overstretched, or torn, and the muscular hammock no longer provides support, which could result in urinary incontinence, constipation or incomplete bowel or bladder emptying, irritable bowel symptoms, diminished sexual satisfaction, painful intercourse, inability to use tampons, sagging or prolapse of the uterus, bladder, or rectum, or lower abdominal pain, all of these can be improved by using a kegelmaster.

In childbirth, the pelvic floor can be stretched, or torn, and the muscular hammock can no longer provide support, which may result in urinary incontinence, irritable bowel symptoms, constipation or incomplete bowel or bladder emptying, diminished sexual satisfaction, painful intercourse, sagging or prolapse of the uterus, bladder, or rectum, or lower abdominal pain, inability to use tampons, all of these can be improved by using a kegelmaster.

In the 1940′s, Dr. Kegel discovered that the best way to strengthen the vaginal muscles is by resistance strength training. These squeeze and hold vaginal or pelvic floor exercises are now known as Kegels.

There is every chance of reversing a prolapse when it is in its early stage, with the help of a kegelmaster. Unfortunately some women wait until it is too late to take action and there is a point of no return after which surgery does become necessary.

Dr. Kegel found that through using resistance exercise it was possible to not only eliminate stress incontinence effectively and safely, but that it was possible to reverse a uterine prolapse by as much as 5 to 7cm. Some would say that using a kegelmaster nearly as important to a woman as regular pap smears.

The strengthening and toning of the Kegel muscles may eliminate the need for expensive surgeries and incontinence products. The increased circulation of blood flow to the vaginal muscular area causes greater sensitivity to any stimulation and a tremendous decrease in the vaginal opening. This is extremely helpful for those who suffer from medical conditions like stress incontinence, urge incontinence (overactive bladder-frequency), pelvic pain, bladder prolapse (cystocele), uterine prolapse or rectocele. Although Kegel exercises have been done for years, they are simply not as effective without added resistance. The Kegelmaster™ adds dynamic progressive resistance to kegel exercises to strengthen the vaginal area muscles rapidly and effectively. To discover the many benefits of using the Kegelmaster™, please browse our web site and read any information that may answer your questions regarding our product. Read understanding incontinence. Don’t take that step to diapers, it’s not necessary! This is a way for you to avoid that for the rest of your life!

Kegels are done by women before and after childbirth.

Before childbirth, the Kegelmaster helps prepare and strengthen your muscles, helping you during labor. After childbirth, a woman is concerned about her vagina returning to normal size. Kegel exercises are the first recommendation a doctor makes, to regain vaginal strength and tightness. Click here for more details.

Kegel exercises help strengthen your pelvic muscles, which weaken during childbirth. Why would you want to strengthen these muscles? If they are weak, you could have bladder control problems. You may also find that intercourse is more fulfilling when you have control of your kegel muscles.

Not sure how to do your Kegel’s? Pretend that you are trying to stop the flow of urine the next time you are sitting on the toilet (or anywhere for that matter). Those are the very muscles you need to contract in order to do your Kegels. You can also insert a finger into your vagina and try squeezing just like you are trying to stop the flow of urine. If you feel tightness around your finger, you are performing the exercise correctly.

Be sure when you are doing your Kegel’s that you concentrate on the pelvic floor muscles specifically; try not to do any other exercises. You should squeeze for about 15 seconds several times per day.

It is important that you don’t overdo your Kegel’s particularly in the early weeks after birth, or you may become very sore. Consider working up to doing three sets of ten repetitions over the course of the day.

Of course other exercises are important to get back in shape for new moms, remember to try and enjoy the experience.

Article by Beverley Brooke, author of “Ensure a healthy safe pregnancy for you and your baby”, visit http://www.pregnancywizard.com for more on kegal exercises

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The Kegelmaster™ is a revolutionary progressive resistance exerciser created for women. One frequently asked question is what is the KegelMaster? Perhaps the real question is what does the KegelMaster do? There is a tremendous number of unused muscles in the pelvic floor. Until now women were unable to exercise these muscles. The Kegelmaster™ was specifically designed to cradle all the pelvic floor muscles, adding progressive dynamic resistance. Kegel exercises are much less effective without resistance! Strengthening and toning these muscles may eliminate the need for expensive surgeries and/or incontinence products.

Your PC, or pubococcygeus muscle, is a hammock-shaped muscle in your pelvic area. It runs horizontally from front to back and in daily life you rarely put it to any major use. It does come into play however when you have an orgasm. This is why so many people want to exercise their PC muscle with what is known as Kegel exercises. Stronger ‘orgasm muscles’ can provide you with more intense orgasms….something not too many people would complain about.

Why are they called Kegel exercises?

A leading gynecologist in the early 1900′s named Dr. Arnold Kegel created a set of exercises for women to do after pregnancy. Women have PC muscles, but Dr Kegel figured out that when women exercise their’s after childbirth that they can re-tighten their body and eliminate many of the problems associated with loose muscles post-pregnancy. What women found was that after performing Kegels they were experiencing better orgasms than ever before.

What are the benefits of making my PC muscle stronger?

The benefits span across a few different areas. First, sexually the benefits are obvious. Better orgasms that are stronger and last longer are the most obvious benefits.

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The answer is yes! The enormous strain of having a baby can weaken the pelvic floor muscles. But by doing regular Kegels after delivery, you can easily strengthen these small but important muscles again. Other added benefits include enhanced sexual pleasure both for you and your husband so read on!

Named after Dr. Arnold Kegel, this exercise is designed to strengthen the pubococcygeus muscles, or PC muscles. To find these muscles, try stopping and starting the flow of urine. Bingo! Now simply tighten and relax these muscles over and over again, as if you’re trying to stop the flow of urine. There are many variations of the exercise:

1. Tighten and relax the PC muscles throughout the day (shoot for 200 times)

2. Tighten slowly in increments going in and out, like an elevator stopping on several floors

3. Hold the muscle tightened for five seconds and then release. Gradually work up to holding each Kegel for a count of ten

Make sure you don’t do these when you’re actually going to the bathroom or with a full bladder. This could increase your risk of a urinary tract infection. Otherwise, you can do Kegels sitting at the computer, standing in line, even when you’re lying in bed. It’s a little invisible exercise that can be done anywhere, whether you’re alone, talking to a friend, or in a crowd of people.

By having a strong pelvic floor, you will be better prepared for your next pregnancy, experience more sexual pleasure with your husband, and reduce the risk of incontinence in the future. Now granted, if you have a little one in diapers, you may not be thinking of having another now or incontinence in the future, but wouldn’t you welcome a boost to your sex life? Kegel exercises are great for strengthening a healthy body and a healthy marriage, so don’t forget about them since baby has arrived. Kegels are always in vogue for moms of any age.

Today’s Action Step: What variation of Kegel exercises will you do today?

Arlene Pellicane, mother of a toddler and infant, helps women lose their baby weight and thrive as wives and mothers. Her weekly podcast “Losing Weight After Baby” is full of practical ideas that work for busy moms. Visit Arlene’s website for free articles and exercises at http://www.losingweightafterbaby.com and blog at http://losingweightafterbaby.wordpress.com

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You might not know that seven out of ten women have disorders of the pelvic floor. It’s not surprising, given that the pelvic floor supports the bones in the spine; structures the abdominal cavity — muscles and organs included; controls the passage of urine and stool; facilitates the childbirth process; and contributes to a woman’s sexual pleasure and ability to reach orgasm. What is surprising for many of us, however, is that problems with the above are avoidable.

As a midwife, I have seen what strength and flexibility in the pelvic floor can do for women. Yet many of us think our only option for these muscles is to practice Kegel exercises. Dr. Arnold Kegel discovered in the 1940’s that you can actually strengthen the vaginal muscles by — get this — resistance strength training. These squeeze-and-hold vaginal exercises known as Kegels were specifically designed to target pelvic floor strengthening.

Kegel’s research has certainly helped lots of women over the years, but we’ve learned so much more since then! So whether you’re already having pelvic floor issues or want to avoid problems down the road, there’s a lot you can do to strengthen those elusive vaginal muscles, and many compelling reasons why you should.

Tips for Personal Program Success

Timing is everything. Take your first packet of nutrients with your breakfast, when your body can best metabolize the rich ingredients and benefit from the energizing boost they provide.

Let’s explore the pelvic floor and why it’s so important.

What is the pelvic floor?

It may be helpful to visualize your pelvic floor as a hammock that supports all your lower organs. The flexibility and strength of this hammock come from a set of muscles and ligaments interwoven into the bowl-like pelvic walls, closing in at the base to form the pelvic and urogenital diaphragms. Entirely encasing the pelvic floor is a thin wall of fascia, or connective tissue, that covers, connects, and further supports the muscles and organs of the pelvic region.

Here is a simplified drawing of the pelvic floor. This part of our bodies is amazingly complex, and most anatomy texts devote a dozen or more drawings to its explication — it’s miraculous how all the elements work together to serve their multiple functions. It’s also the case that the pelvic floor varies from woman to woman, so no two are exactly alike!

Written by Carrie Levine, CNM, MSN

Women going through menopause can experience urinary incontinence due to a lack of estrogen. Once a woman stops menstruating, her body ceases to make estrogen. Estrogen is, in part, responsible for keeping the lining of the bladder and urethra plump and healthy. A lack of estrogen can be responsible for a weakening of the bladder control muscles.

Pressure from coughing, sneezing, or lifting can push urine past the grips of a weakened muscle. Leakage of this type is known as stress incontinence. It is one of the most common types of bladder control problems experienced by older women.If you are experiencing urinary incontinence, you should not self-diagnose your problem. It is important to see a doctor first.

Your obstetrician-gynecologist or medical doctor should first perform a physical exam. Your doctor should be certain that your bladder empties properly, that you don’t have a urinary tract infection (UTI) and that you know how to properly contract your pelvic floor or Kegel muscles.

After your doctor has determined that there is no physical deformity, complication or infection, you must next determine which course of action to take. There are three common ways to treat urinary incontinence:

– learning behavioral techniques — how to control the muscles of the bladder and the sphincter to prevent leakage.

– taking medication to replace hormones, stop abnormal bladder muscle contractions or tighten sphincter muscles.

– performing Kegel exercises to work the pelvic muscles.

In most cases, the most effective and beneficial course of action is to work the Kegel muscles back in to shape. But how is one to do that?

Over 50 years ago, Dr. Arnold Kegel discovered that by clenching and relaxing the muscles used to stop the flow of urine, the pelvic floor (or Kegel) muscles could be strengthened and rehabilitated. Because of this discovery, most people have heard of “Kegel exercises,” but what most people do not know is that Dr. Kegel incorporated a device known as the “Kegel Perineometer” that was inserted into the vaginal cavity to measure the contractions and provide feedback to the patient. In this way, the patient was able to monitor the quality of the exercises and be certain that they were being done correctly.

Most women who just “do” kegels have minimal results due to the lack of feedback. There is nothing to tell them if they are doing the exercise properly. The most common problem associated with doing Kegel exercises without feedback is the accidental contraction of the abdominal muscles at the same time as the pelvic floor muscles. When this occurs the abdominal muscles (which are bigger and stronger) push down on the pelvic floor and can actually make the problem worse.

Since it’s not likely that the typical family has a Kegel Perineometer lying around, what’s a woman to do? Fortunately there is a safe, affordable solution that has been used successfully by over 100,000 women to strengthen their Kegel muscles in the privacy of their own homes.

This device is known as The Kegelmaster. The Kegelmaster is a small, hinged device that is gently slipped three inches into the vagina. Once done, a safety knob is loosened allowing the small spring (or springs) inside to open the hinged device a few degrees. The woman will then squeeze her kegel muscles causing the device to close. The Kegelmaster’s two, flat internal surfaces close tightly against one another providing feedback to the user that the exercise has been done correctly and completely.

The Kegelmaster has four positions in which springs can be installed or moved. This allows the user to slowly increase the amount of resistance experienced during each exercise. Exercises can be completed in only a few minutes and results can be seen within a few days and improvement can continue over a few short months. No one should suffer needlessly from this embarrassing problem when a simple, affordable solution is so readily available.

Michael Callen is the author of the Weekly Weightloss Tips Newsletter (ccwebgroup.com/tips) and the Chief Technology Officer for WellnessPartners.com, an online retailer of dozens of health and wellness products such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), r+ alpha lipoic acid (R+ ALA), and Green Tea Extract.

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Isn’t that what we’ve done for years with Kegel exercises? Countless hours of practising while wondering if we’d got the right muscle, or if there was any point in doing the exercises anyway as we weren’t really feeling that our effort was making any difference.

A little known fact about Kegel exercises which often surprises people when they first hear it is that they were never meant to be performed the way in which they are today. Indeed, they were never meant to be performed the way they have been for decades!

Dr Kegel was an American surgeon, Associate Professor of Gynaecology at the University of Southern California and Health Commissioner of Chicago, who spent more than thirty-two years in the study of the female pelvis and the muscles therein.

His studies document his results with thousands of women that show the incredible benefits to be gained from Kegel exercises when performed correctly. In 1950 Dr Kegel had achieved complete relief of urinary stress incontinence in 93% of a group of 300 women in this way.

“On the strength of these favorable results urinary stress incontinence in women is no longer routinely treated by surgical intervention at…LA County General Hospital.” Dr Kegel. (A progress in Gynecology, 1950 p.786)

Isn’t it amazing to think that the results he was getting in the last century are even better than the generally accepted success rates for incontinence surgery carried out today? How were these results achieved? By ensuring that the exercise protocol that his patients followed consisted of two essential elements:

1) Isolating the pelvic floor muscle (using no abdominal, buttock or thigh muscles) 2) Working the pelvic floor muscle against resistance

What is commonly known as a Kegel exercise today bears little relation to authentic Kegel exercises. Dr Kegel knew that the exercises were pretty useless without either of these components. If you’ve been struggling to get results with Kegel exercises, maybe for years, now you know why they seem to be exercises in futility.

Think about it like this – Squeezing against nothing is about as effective as trying to rehabilitate or build muscle in your arm simply by flexing it up and down, you could do that forever and see little improvement. However, put a small weight in your hand and exercise against the resistance of that, adding slightly heavier weights as the arm gets stronger and improvement in strength and tone is inevitable.

Imagine going to the gym and finding all the equipment has been taken out and you’re told you can go through the motions of doing the exercise and achieve the same result! This is what women have been told about pelvic floor exercise over the last half century, and still are. By merely going through the motions of doing the exercise you cannot come close to achieving the results that come from actually doing the proper exercise.

Dr Kegel was quoted in TIME magazine, Dec 3rd, 1956 as saying, “There is a better way than surgery to correct most cases of pubococcygeal weakness”.

Considering the vast amount of surgery that is carried out for incontinence and prolapse today, it has to be fairly obvious at this stage that there is something missing from pelvic floor exercises as is normally taught.

An enlightened approach to Kegel exercises involves asking the questions “What is missing here?” Why are women not getting the results they were promised?” It is clearly insane to keep teaching women to squeeze against nothing, when the results of such a misguided approach are so poor. Performing the exercises as they were meant to be performed produces real results.

Abigail O’Donovan is the founder of Kegelmaster Europe. She aims to raise awareness that powerful pelvic floor exercises could eliminate stress incontinence and reduce the need for unnecessary pelvic surgery to near zero. To find out more please visit http://www.kegelmaster.co.uk

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