Are you doing your pelvic floor muscle exercises correctly?

By Dianne Edmonds, Physiotherapist and Director of The Pregnancy Centre

You might know about pelvic floor muscle exercises; you have learnt how to do them and why they are important but how sure are you that you are doing them correctly?

Pelvic floor muscle exercises, when done correctly, will help to maintain and improve bladder and bowel control and sexual enjoyment.

If you are doing your pelvic floor muscle exercises correctly you should feel a ‘lift and squeeze’ inside the pelvis, below the belt. Women should feel a ‘lift and squeeze’ sensation in their urethra, back passage and vagina. Men should feel a ‘lift and squeeze’ sensation in their urethra, back passage and the area located above their scrotum.

How to correctly tighten your pelvic floor muscles:

• Sit tall and lean slightly forwards.
• Focus on the pelvic floor muscles.
• Relax the thigh, bottom and tummy muscles.
• Breathe out and gently tighten around your front passage/s.
• Breathe normally.
• Identify the muscles and relax.
• Breathe out and gently tighten around your back passage.
• Breathe normally.
• Identify the muscles and relax.
• Next, gently tighten around your front and back passages and feel the muscles working. Breathe normally and hold the lift for longer. Start with three seconds and build up to 10 seconds as it gets easier.
•  If you can do these exercises; repeat up to 10 times, keeping your technique accurate.
• Everything above your belly button should stay relaxed; however the lower abdominal muscles may gently draw in. Focus down low in your pelvic floor muscles if you find that your upper abdominal muscles are tightening.

This exercise can be done three times a day.

To help you to identify the pelvic floor muscles you can stop or slow the flow of urine midway through emptying the bladder. This is not recommended as a regular exercise.

If you are holding your breath when you do the exercises you may be trying too hard. Relax before you start to draw the muscles up and then focus on the muscles on the inside first. As the exercises get easier, you will get better at being able to breathe while doing them. It may take from several weeks to over a month for you to master this.

Another common mistake is tightening your bottom or leg muscles instead of your pelvic floor muscles. This is incorrect and it may happen because the pelvic floor muscles are weak or getting tired. Focus on accuracy rather than on trying too hard and practice in some different positions such as lying down, sitting with knees apart and standing to see if one position is better than another.

These are general guidelines and if you have a specific problem with your bladder or bowel control it is important to seek professional help so that your pelvic floor muscle exercise program can be tailored to your own individual needs.

Seek help if you cannot:

• feel your muscles hold or relax
• feel a definite ‘lift and squeeze’
• feel the squeeze and breathe at the same time
• make any progress and are lacking in confidence.

Helpful links

Poise - Pelvic floor exercise