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PELVIC ORGAN PROLAPSE

Pelvic floor exercises strengthen the muscles around your bladder, vagina or penis, and back passage.

Strengthening your pelvic floor muscles can help stop incontinence, treat prolapse, and make sex better, too.

Both men and women can benefit from doing pelvic floor exercises.

Pelvic Floor Exercises, also known as Kegel exercises, are essential to every woman’s exercise routine and they can be done anytime, anywhere, and without anyone noticing. Not only do they increase your control over your bladder, your pelvic floor supports your vagina, uterus and bowel, so keeping your pelvic floor in good working order is beneficial for women of all ages and stages of life.

A strong pelvic floor may also help shorten the second stage of labour and, after childbirth, Pelvic Floor Exercises may also help to heal any damage by increasing blood supply to the area.

Pilates are a great way to strengthen your Pelvic Floor Exercises as these muscles need slow exercises as well as fast exercises.

Find your pelvic floor muscles

You can feel your pelvic floor muscles if you try to stop the flow of urine when you go to the toilet.

It’s not recommended that you regularly stop your flow of urine midstream as it can be harmful to the bladder.

You can identify the muscles located around the bladder opening by starting and stopping your urine stream. If you are able to stop mid stream, you’re using your pelvic floor muscles.

Another way to identify pelvic muscles and complete your pelvic floor exercises is to tighten the muscles around your back passage (as when holding back wind or at the end of a bowel movement).

A proper pelvic floor squeeze also works to lift the engaged muscles upwards. Use a hand mirror to see if you can notice any upward movement when you contract your pelvic floor muscles.

How to get started

Exercising your pelvic floor can be implemented into your everyday life, and can be done anywhere and at any time. It is a gentle exercise, yet very effective in treating bladder leakage.

Like any form of exercise, it’s best to try different methods in order to get all of the pelvic floor muscles working. These can include quick exercises, where the pelvic floor muscles are quickly tightened then relaxed; and slow exercises, where the pelvic floor muscles are tightened for 10 seconds before relaxing. These exercises work best when each squeeze of the pelvic floor muscles is as tight as possible.

• Sit, stand or lie down with your legs slightly apart and relax your thighs, buttocks and abdomen muscles.

• Tighten the ring of muscle around your front and back passages drawing the pelvic floor muscles up inside.

• Try to complete up to 10 slow squeezes and 10 fast squeezing exercises.

• Repeat these exercises 4-5 times every day.

Pelvic floor exercises

To strengthen your pelvic floor muscles, sit comfortably and squeeze the muscles 10-15 times in a row.

Don’t hold your breath or tighten your stomach, buttock or thigh muscles at the same time.

When you get used to doing pelvic floor exercises, you can try holding each squeeze for a few seconds.

Every week, you can add more squeezes, but be careful not to overdo it and always have a rest between sets of squeezes.

After a few months, you should start to notice the results. You should carry on doing the exercises, even when you notice them starting to work.

Pregnancy and pelvic floor exercises

If you’re pregnant or planning to get pregnant, you can start doing pelvic floor exercises straight away.

The exercises will lower your risk of experiencing incontinence after having your baby.

After childbirth, or as you get older, you may notice that your pelvic floor muscles have weakened.

The pelvic muscles support the bladder, bowel, and uterus. When they contract, the organs are lifted and the openings to the vagina, anus, and urethra are tightened. When the muscles are relaxed, urine and faeces can be released from the body.

Pelvic floor muscles also play an important role in sexual function. Strengthening these muscles can reduce pelvic pain during sex and increase the ability of achieving pleasurable sensations. During pregnancy, pelvic floor muscles support the baby and assist in the birthing process.

Pregnancy and childbirth can cause the pelvic floor muscles to weaken, and so can other factors like age, obesity, heavy lifting, and chronic coughing. Weak pelvic floor muscles can cause incontinence, uncontrollable passing of wind, and even painful sex.

Try these five exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles and mitigate these unpleasant side effects.

Pelvic muscle training, or Kegels, is the practice of contracting and relaxing your pelvic floor muscles. You may benefit from Kegels if you experience leakage of urine during sneezing, laughing, jumping, or coughing, or have a strong urge to urinate just before losing a large amount of urine.

Main muscles worked: pelvic floor

Equipment needed: none

• Identify the right muscles. The easiest way to do this is to stop urination midstream. These are your pelvic floor muscles.

• To perform Kegels, contract these muscles and hold for 5 seconds. Release for 5 seconds.

• Repeat this 10 times, 3 times a day.

   

   

• Squats engage the largest muscles in the body and have one of the largest payoffs in terms of strength improvement. When performing this fundamental move, ensure your form is solid before you add any resistance.

Main muscles worked: glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps

Equipment needed: barbell

• Stand in an upright position, feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and toes slightly pointed out. If using a barbell, it should be rested behind your neck on your trapezius muscles.

• Bend your knees and push your hips and butt back as if you’re going to sit in a chair. Keep your chin tucked and neck neutral.

• Drop down until your thighs are parallel to the ground, keeping your weight in your heels and knees bowed slightly outward.

• Straighten your legs and return to an upright position.

• Complete 15 reps.

The bridge is a great exercise for the glutes. But if done correctly, it also activates the pelvic floor muscles in the process. Even without weight, the pause and pulse of this move will have you feeling it.

Muscles worked: glutes, hamstrings, pelvic floor

Equipment needed: none

• Lie on the floor. Your spine should be against the ground, with knees bent at a 90-degree angle, feet flat, and arms straight at your sides with palms facing down.

• Inhale and push through your heels, raising your hips off the ground by squeezing your glutes, hamstrings, and pelvic floor. Your body, resting on your upper back and shoulders, should form a straight line down from the knees.

• Pause 1-2 seconds at the top and return to the starting position.

• Complete 10-15 reps and 2-3 sets, resting 30 to 60 seconds between sets.