Dr. Ramzi Aboujaoude of the Urogynecology Center at Virginia Physicians for Women addresses common questions about pelvic floor exercises for women, from their benefits at various stages of life to how to perform them.
You might not think about your pelvic floor muscles often. Still, they are the unsung heroes supporting your uterus, bowels, and bladder. Their primary task is keeping these crucial organs in place so you can go through daily life comfortably.
Ideally, you won’t have to think about these hard-working muscles at all. However, injuries, aging, pregnancy, and menopause can weaken them.
By performing pelvic floor exercises for women, you can help ensure the ongoing health of the powerhouse muscle team. You’ve probably heard of “Kegels,” which are a straightforward exercise that can keep your pelvic floor in shape.
Why are Kegels and other exercises so important for boosting and maintaining pelvic floor health? As a urogynecologist at the Urogynecology Center at Virginia Physicians for Women, I’d like to answer this and more common questions about pelvic floor fitness.
What is a Pelvic Floor?
Your pelvic floor is not a single organ. It’s actually a series of muscles and connective tissue that work together to provide structure and support. There are two primary pelvic floor muscles: the levator ani and coccygeus.
The pelvic floor muscles primarily hold crucial organs in place, including your:
- Uterus
- Bladder
- Large intestine
- Urethra
- Vagina
- Rectum
- Anus
The muscles also play a role in performing many important functions. These are the muscles that help you urinate, defecate, and pass gas. They also contribute to the experience of pleasure during sexual intercourse. They help control blood flow when you experience an orgasm.
Furthermore, your pelvic floor muscles work with other muscle groups in your torso and abdomen. They provide additional support while coughing, lifting heavy objects, and absorbing outside impact.
Needless to say, strong pelvic floor muscles can help ensure a higher quality of life for women. They are an excellent tool for progressing through life stages such as pregnancy and menopause.
How Do You Know if Your Pelvic Floor Muscles Are Healthy?
If your pelvic floor muscles are fit and healthy, you should be able to expand and contract them just like any other muscle. Also like any other muscle, regular exercise will help them function better.
Your bathroom habits can provide insight into your pelvic floor health as well. You should have control over your bladder and bowels with few or no accidents, including when you laugh, cough, or exercise. A healthy pelvic floor also means you don’t feel a frequent or sudden urge to use the bathroom.
Additionally, women with healthy pelvic floor muscles shouldn’t have a feeling of bulging or heaviness in the vagina (signs of pelvic organ prolapse).
The Benefits of Pelvic Floor Exercises for Women
Pelvic floor exercises for women ensure you maintain control over crucial bodily functions. We’ll explore a few of the most important benefits of a healthy pelvic floor below.
Improved bladder and bowel control
It’s easy to take bladder and bowel control for granted. Losing control, known as incontinence, can have a major impact on your quality of life. It’s common for pelvic floor muscles to loosen after pregnancy, during menopause, or as you age, which can cause incontinence.
Incontinence can look like:
Leaking, dripping, or dribbling after laughter, sneezing, or exertion (stress incontinence)
A frequent need to urinate and the inability to hold it (urgency incontinence)
The inability to hold your bowel movements or control when you pass gas (fecal and anal incontinence)
Pelvic floor exercises for women can help improve bladder and bowel control to prevent or improve incontinence.
Enhanced sexual health
According to recent research, strong pelvic floor muscles give you more control over your internal sexual organs. They also help direct blood flow toward these organs during sexual intercourse. When you can easily relax your pelvic floor during sex, the experience may be more pleasurable.
Prevention of pelvic organ prolapse
As discussed, your pelvic floor muscles support many critical organs. During pelvic organ prolapse, weak muscles cannot fully support these organs, so they often drop from their position. This can lead to one organ bulging into another. For example, the bladder or uterus might bulge into the vagina.
If you have experienced prolapse, you will often notice a bulge or protrusion at the opening of your vagina. You may experience pressure, bowel or urinary changes, or pain during intercourse.
Strong pelvic floor muscles can help prevent prolapse or make it less severe. If prolapse occurs, pelvic floor exercises can often improve symptoms in just a few weeks. Always see your physician if you suspect you’re experiencing pelvic organ prolapse.
The Importance of Pelvic Floor Exercises for Pregnant Women
Pregnancies, even healthy pregnancies, put a great deal of stress on the body. Your pelvic muscles will be carrying considerably more weight than usual. While the body is remarkable and can adapt, your pelvic floor muscles are still under a lot of stress.
While muscles don’t weaken during pregnancy, they may stretch. If your muscles were already weak when you became pregnant, they might need additional support to weather these changes. It’s a good idea to incorporate pelvic floor exercises into your routine. They are helpful whether you are having a vaginal or cesarian birth.
Incorporating pelvic floor exercises early in your pregnancy can help prevent:
- Urinary stress incontinence
- Bowel incontinence
- Constipation
- Pelvic pain after giving birth
The Importance of Pelvic Floor Exercises for Postpartum Women
Likewise, for postpartum moms, consistent pelvic floor exercise can help improve symptoms like incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and reduced sexual function that may have arisen during pregnancy and childbirth. A pelvic floor therapist can help assess your pelvic floor needs, create a pelvic floor exercise routine that targets those areas, and ensure you are engaging the correct muscles.
The Importance of Pelvic Floor Exercises for Perimenopausal, Menopausal, and Post-menopausal Women
Pelvic floor exercises also have many benefits leading up to and after menopause. The loss of estrogen that occurs with menopause can result in a thinning of the pelvic floor muscles and tissue as well as a loss of natural lubrication. This weakening of your pelvic floor can lead to urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and pain during intercourse.
If you’ve already experienced perimenopause or menopause, you can perform pelvic floor exercises to help strengthen pelvic floor muscles that have weakened, make them more flexible if they are tight and painful, and improve blood flow to increase arousal and lubrication during sex. However, if you begin performing pelvic floor exercises routinely prior to perimenopause, your pelvic floor will be in better shape to withstand the symptoms that arise due to loss of estrogen during this phase of life. You can even reduce your risk of experiencing them.
How to Perform Pelvic Floor Exercises
The easiest, most effective pelvic floor exercises to incorporate into your routine are Kegels. You can perform Kegels almost anywhere. (I recommend practicing them any time you’re waiting for a stoplight to turn green.) Many women incorporate them into a shower routine, while others prefer to do them while seated or lying down.
Essentially, when performing a Kegel, you practice squeezing and relaxing your pelvic floor muscles. Always start with an empty bladder.
To begin, tighten your pelvic floor muscles as if stopping the flow of urine. Hold for as long as possible, aiming for a full count of ten. Release the muscles and relax for another count of ten. Repeat until you have done this approximately ten times.
Aim to repeat this routine approximately three times each day: morning, afternoon, and evening. You can try aligning the exercises with mealtimes or set a discreet alarm in your phone to remember to do them. Resist the urge to overexercise, which can cause fatigue and do more harm than good.
More Options for Treating Pelvic Floor Problems
While pelvic floor exercises are an excellent tool for maintaining pelvic floor health, they may not help some pelvic floor problems. In these cases, other forms of treatment may be necessary for relief. If you’re interested in learning more about pelvic floor exercises and other options for treating incontinence and pelvic floor issues, check out our urogynecology services at the Urogynecology Center at VPFW.
