WHY EXERCISE THE PELVIC FLOOR MUSCLES?

The pelvic floor muscles

The pelvic floor muscles form a broad hammock stretching from your pubic bone to your coccyx (tail bone) and are the muscles you use to stop yourself peeing in mid-flow.  They are a sling-like cradle to hold the bladder, bomb and bowel in place and to control the muscles that close the anus, vagina and urethra.  The pelvic floor is a complex, integrated, multilayer system that provides support.

**- also see below for Pelvic Floor Exercises for Men **

Why exercise the pelvic floor muscles?

Pelvic floor muscles need regular exercise to retain good muscle tone (like other muscles of the body).  If they are not exercised enough, they may become slackened, stretched and weak and will no longer work effectively.  This may cause a leakage of urine on laughing, sneezing, exercising or even on getting out of a chair!

Strong pelvic muscles prevent bladder weakness, prolapse (bowel, uterus and bladder), help prevent unwanted wind escaping and faecal incontinence, supports extra weight during pregnancy, helps in 2^nd stage labour, improves sex life and helps in reducing male impotence.

With the rise in obesity and pelvic surgery (eg hysterectomies), this also has the same weakening effect on pelvic floor muscles so pelvic floor exercises benefit both men and women.  Constipation, straining and general wear and tear also weaken these muscles.  As there are no health risks associated with pelvic floor exercises, everyone should do them. 

How to do pelvic floor exercises

You can do these exercises standing up, sitting and lying down or while carrying out daily activities.

• Hold in the muscles of your back passage and those around vagina as if trying not to go to the toilet or holding in wind
• Tighten these muscles to the count of 8 and hold, release and repeat 3 times
• When you hold tension in your pelvic floor muscles, it is important to KEEP ON BREATHING all the time
• Release and relax – repeat
• Imagine that the muscles are in an elevator/a lift inside and pull up to the 5^th floor then slowly take it down to the 4^th, 3^rd floor and so on.
• Try to alternate between slow pull ups and short and fast pull ups:
• FAST PULL UPS – stand or sit with your knees slightly apart, pull up muscles and immediately relax, repeat.
• SLOW PULL UPS – slowly tighten and pull up pelvic muscles as hard as you can, hold for as long as possible, then relax slowly
• Repeat both of these exercises 5 times or until tired.

How often should I exercise my pelvic floor muscles?

As your muscles get stronger, the contractions can be held for longer and more pull ups achieved.  After a few weeks, improvements should be noticeable and you will need to exercise these muscles regularly.  Depending on how weak your muscle is to begin with, it is recommended to aim for 50 a day and increase this over a few weeks to 120 a day.  To check how strong your pelvic floor muscles are becoming, try halting the flow of urine in mid stream (but not 1^st thing in the morning).  Don’t do this too often though as it may interfere with the parasympathetic nervous control.

To sustain what you achieved, you would have to do these exercises 2 – 3 times a day for the rest of your life.

Use the ‘lift’ analogy to make sure you’re doing the exercises properly (ground floor to top floor).  If your buttocks or stomach muscles tighten, then you are exercising the wrong muscles. 

Pelvic floor exercises for men

Men have the same hammock-like sling of pelvic floor muscles as women and if they have ‘weak bladders’ (particularly after treatment for an enlarged prostate), they too can benefit from the exercises described above – with of course, the necessary allowances for difference in anatomy!

Visualise your testicles being pulled together.  Pull upwards on your penis.  Keep flexing and holding until you can move your penis back and forward from your body.  Increase the time and repetitions.

Most of the above condensed article was written by Olga Allen  - if you would like to see the full article, ask me and I’ll copy it for you.

For more info, read: “Understanding incontinence” by G Fairweather

Try the following websites:

www.universityobgyn.com/pelvic.htm

Men’s Health Forum: www.menshealthforum.org.uk,

or search on the web: The Impotence Association