This is a stupid question because I know there’s tons of information online, but I genuinely have no clue how to do pelvic floor exercises. My doctor told me to do them, sent some over, but they don’t explain where to squeeze down on. I’m really confused on if I’m meant to be clenching my vagina, or somewhere else? And even then, I really struggle to do that. Does anyone with experience with these exercises have any advice?
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From what I always thought, it’s like trying to stop yourself from peeing. It’s that kind of clenching.
It’s the same muscles you use to stop your pee. They’re called kegel exercises, and pregnant women are told to do them daily.
It’s more of a pull up than a squeeze down. You could get a pelvic floor physio to walk you through this, they have instruments that measure if you’re doing it correctly.
There’s basically three areas. The muscles the clench up your bum hole, the muscles that clench up your vagina and the muscles that are more on the front, nearer your pee hole.
These all have a lot of overlap and most ‘normal’ pelvic floor strength people couldn’t isolate those individually.
It’s a hard thing to explain, it’s like trying to explain how to wiggle your ears, but once you get it you can’t forget. Imagine something really hot/cold/sharp is heading right for your vagina – the muscles that almost automatically pull you in and up in the vagina are where you wanna be focusing.
Try and pull your clit up to your belly button. For some reason, that helped it click in my head.
Next time you pee, stop mid flow.
Those muscles. That squeezing. It’s also similar to clenching your butthole to stop yourself from shitting your pants during an emergency.
That last one may or may not apply to you, depending on your level of tummy issues. 😂
What helped me was the metaphor of imagining you’re drinking a pina colada through a straw… but there.
When you breath out for longer, at the end the right muscles will automatically tighten. You can try to get to know this feeling and actively engage in it while comparing it with breathing exercises.
Do not mess with your muscles while peeing, it can cause a lot of issues but has no benefits.
If you’re trying to do kegels – I recommend ben wa balls
You’re meant to insert them, and then manipulate them using your internal muscles, it can help isolate spots most of us will be completely unfamiliar with sensing – the goal is to raise and lower them – as your muscles get stronger you can use smaller balls, or even attach weights to lift
It only took a single use to understand the muscles I was meant to be using, after which you can do your exercises even without the equipment, I used to do them on the drive to work and back
It involves clenching a series of rising rings within you, I’d start at the bottom, slowly seize over a count, hold for a count, slowly release over a count, and keep working my way up
There are plenty of health benefits, related to childbirth and incontinence, but I found the biggest benefit was agency over my pleasure in bed
It doesn’t matter how big the guy is, it doesn’t matter how well he’s moving, it doesn’t even matter how aroused or far along in the lovemaking you are (over time lubrication and loosening up can reduce the sensations for me) – it’s always within your power to clamp down and feel that internal pressure as intensely as you like
Sitting here trying to explain it with no frame of reference for you… lean forward slightly with your back straight… try to feel where you’d clench in a broad sense if you were holding back pee…now spread your awareness lower, see if you can feel your entrance and the base of where you’re sitting… try closing yourself up at the tip, the movements will feel clumsy at first, these aren’t muscles you’ve stretched before, but try pressing yourself together internally… you should be able to work that sensation upwards, it may not be intense, but you should be able to apply a light fluttery pressure at first
It gets easier with time and practice, and the balls may help you identify and isolate the muscles initially if you’re struggling
My physio said: tense like you’re trying to hold in a fart. Then tense like you’re trying to stop mid-pee. Then try to tense the area in between. It took ages and concentration but even if you’re lying in bed at night, 3 sets of ten “clenches” will start to make them easier to activate.
The way they explained it to me was that you try to grab and pull up grass with your vaginal muscles. That’s the image, so you clench and try to do that. After a while, you get a better feeling of which parts of your pelvic floor are clenching and unclenching.
The best explanation I ever heard was from the book ‘This is going to hurt’. The author is a doctor and said to imagine you’re in a bath with eels and you want to stop any of them getting in 😅
Do pilates exercises
Everybody focused on kegals – but it’s equally important to try the opposite force. Pushing out! You can even try it by inserting your own finger, and trying to push it out. You’ll be able to feel exactly what you’re doing and it will make it much easier to know. Kegals are important but only doing kegals can actually lead to a lot of muscle tightness. So try both!
Ok, easiest way to do them is in the bathroom while having a wee. Per, clench to stop the flow then concentrate on the muscles just behind where you clench to stop pee. Like roll the clench backwards. My nurse always said imagine you were hiding treasure in your vagina and you don’t want it to fall out. Hold for 3. Relax, do that then times. Then relax for a minute or two and do another 10.
After a bit of practice you can do it without needing to pee. I do mine sat at a desk, in queues, in the shower, in time with music. Make it fun, make it habit. In 30 years time when you aren’t dribbling down your leg, you will be pleased you did it now
Lots of good advice here but I want to add something from my own physical therapy: don’t forget your TVA muscles.
The TVA (Transverse Abdominis) is the deepest layer of abdominal muscle and basically functions like a corset or back brace. It helps you bear down when you go to the bathroom. You can activate/turn on this muscle group by coughing.
For a good beginner exercise for your TVA, lay flat on your back, legs down. Do a Kegel and, at the same time draw in your abs as much as possible. Hold that Kegel and your abs in tension for five seconds, then release, while breathing as normally as possible. Try to do this 6-8 times. When it gets easier, increase each hold to 10 seconds.
This link has a more thorough explanation plus a list of additional exercises to strengthen your TVA: https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness-exercise/transverse-abdominal-exercises#exercises
Okay.
So I went to a pelvic floor therapist and she told me to pretend I had a straw in my vagina and to “suck up a milkshake.”
It sounds incredibly weird but that’s the way you need to clench.
Pretend your vagina is an elevator and u want to bring a blueberry up to the top floor
Ok this is maybe tmi but I had exactly the same problem you do, and I started doing PVEs by clenching my asshole. I couldn’t really feel the muscles of my vagina well enough to focus on squeezing them in isolation until I was really aroused, but if you’re squeezing your asshole you’re working the vaginal muscles you need to strengthen along with it.
It took about a year of doing exercises 3-5x/week, but I can tell a huge difference now in how easily I come and how strong my vaginal muscles are, and I can now sense them and squeeze them in isolation whether I’m aroused or not.
Good luck and have fun!
I got an insert (Elvie Trainer) for Kegels that connects to an app and helps you focus and center where you clench. It also gamifies the different exercises with a series of controlled ‘workouts.’ It helped me after baby #1 and with pushing out #2.
Honestly go see a pelvic floor physio; if you are just clenching and unclenching you’re probably not doing a full kegel. I also learned from mine that I was too tense down there and so most of the exercises were actually learning to relax the muscles.
If you lie on you back, feet on the floor, legs angled, slowly breathe in and out of your belly. Can you feel your bellly raising and sinking? Imagine a balloon in your belly. When you breathe in, your belly expands upwards, and the area of vulva and anus expands towards your feet. When you breathe out both areas come back in and closer together.
Once you get a feeling for this, you can exagerate the movement on the exhale by actively pulling the area between vulva and anus in. Don’t forget to relax it afterwards.
Try r/pompoir
Search for kegel camp on YouTube; great for beginners and really anyone. Her series of exercises is almost exactly what my pelvic floor PT had me do after I gave birth. course, if you can get an appointment with a pelvic floor PT, that’s the best.
Try hissing like a snake. It makes you engage your pelvic floor. I do it to help me get the feeling so I don’t need to hiss
Im laughing at most of the comments, because for me, I have no idea how to control my pelvic floor.
Its like a disconnect. Sure, I can squeeze my butt cheeks, but I can’t stop mid pee. Most times I can’t even stop from peeing once I get the string urge.
I have various things to help, and my reality is nothing has changed. I need a physiotherapist and the time and freedom to see one.
Imagine you’re holding in your pee mid stream and you’re clenching so as not to let a single drop out
If you can spring for it, the Perifit is very good. I never did pelvic floor exercises before and the games make it so much easier to keep up with it.
Put your fingers in your vagina and feel the clench. Don’t be afraid to get up in there! My physical therapist is a woman and specializes in pelvic floor health, she put her gloved fingers in my vagina and gave me feed back on my muscle contractions. Fucking weird as hell but it worked.
As a pelvic floor PT, my advice is to go see a pelvic floor PT 🙃
Something like 40% of people do pelvic floor exercises wrong without further instruction, you’re far from the first person I’ve seen that said they didn’t know where they were supposed to squeeze. We have special ways of helping you learn how to do it, and different people respond to different cues better than others.
My #1 cue for people is honestly just to squeeze the anus like you’re trying to hold in gas. It all activates at the same time so squeezing your anus will likely get the pelvic floor going as well.
Failing that, I have people located the muscles by going pee and trying to stop their pee. Just once, to figure out where the muscles are, then we’re off to the races.
But yes, squeeze and lif the vagina
Just adding my two cents … I have done kegel exercises for years because I was paranoid about urinary leakage. Turns out, I’ve made my muscles too tense, and that CAUSED leakage because I could get any tighter when I sneezed or laughed. I’ve had to start learning to RELAX my muscles to prevent leakage.
I know your doctor told you to do these exercises, but I strongly recommend consulting with a pelvic floor therapist.
Biggest tip I got from my therapist was if you are squeezing your butt you are doing it wrong. Don’t clench everything, try to just isolate the interior muscles
They’re even more effective if you use a pelvic floor training device (even a dildo or vibrator (not turned on) will work) to offer resistance so as to build strength.
Ur butthole and vagina at the same time. U should feel it in ur lower abdomen
My pt told me it’s like blowing out candles and you don’t stop until you’re all out of air
It’s worth seeing a pelvic floor PT. Some people need strength and some people need the opposite- to unclench. It’s hard to tell when it’s happening to you and the retreatment is different / you can make things worse if you do the wrong thing.
Clench your bumhole in, opposite to doing a poo!! And hold it in for a few seconds.
A friend worked at a strip club in Japan where one of the women could cut an apple using monofilament (fishing line) with one end anchored to a chair and the other tied to a small ball she held in her vagina. She basically clenched and moved to manipulate the line to cut the apple.
Another performer there was able to sort a pile of change by size with her vagina/labia.
These have been my mental images.