Exercise not only has a positive impact on your body but also your mind, attitude and mood. Men and women suffering from incontinence not only suffer through urine leakage but mentally also feel isolated causing their mood to persistently worsened over time. Perhaps suffering from depression related to incontinence. In such cases, it is advised that they exercise and the best exercise for incontinence is kegel exercise for men & women.
Why Kegel exercise?
Kegel exercise doesn’t make you look any thinner or better but they do something just as important — strengthen the muscles that support the bladder. Strong pelvic floor muscles can go a long way towards prevent sudden urine leakage, etc
- Pelvic exercises for women are often recommended for women whose pelvic floor is too weak because of pregnancy, vaginal childbirth, surgery in your pelvic area – including cesarean section (“C-section”) etc.
- Pelvic floor exercises for men are also recommended because many factors can weaken their pelvic floor muscles, including the surgical removal of the prostate (radical prostatectomy) and conditions such as diabetes and an overactive bladder.
Although pelvic exercises for women & men themselves are simple, finding the right muscles to exercises isn’t.
Find the right pelvic muscles to exercise
When one has to urinate, they should start and then stop. One can feel the muscles in their vagina (for women), bladder, or anus get tight and move up. These are the pelvic floor muscles. If they feel them tighten, they have done the Kegel exercise right. Several techniques can be used to find the right set of muscles to exercise, it can be difficult to find the right muscles at first. But with a daily commitment, it becomes instinctive.
If you still are not sure you are tightening the right pelvic muscles:
Women Kegels:
Pretend trying to avoid passing gas.
Pretend to tighten your vagina around a tampon or a finger inside.
Man Kegels:
Pretend trying to avoid passing gas.
While urinating, try to stop the urine stream.
If you’ve identified the right pelvic muscles, you’ll feel the contraction more in the back of the pelvic area than the front.
How to do Kegel Exercises
One can make kegel exercise for women & men as a part of their daily routine once they know what the movement feels like. They can follow the following steps thrice a day:
- It is important that the bladder is an empty post where one can sit or lie down.
- One should tighten their pelvic floor muscles. Hold tight while counting for 3 to 5 seconds.
- Relax the muscles and count again for 3 to 5 seconds.
- It is ideal it is repeated 10 times, thrice a day (morning, afternoon, and night).
- While performing Kegel exercise for men & women it is important to breathe deeply and relax your body. It is crucial one doesn’t tighten their stomach, thigh, buttock, or chest muscles.
Kegel exercises in an emergency
If one leaks urine when they cough, sneeze, laugh, bend over, or lift something heavy (stress incontinence, common in women), doing one or more men kegels or women kegels before a “trigger” may be enough to prevent any leakage. If one has the urge to urinate and doubt they are going to make it to the toilet, doing Kegels may get them safely to a restroom and avoid any embarrassment. One can also use insert pads from Friends Adult Diapers to avoid such embarrassments.
Kegel exercise tips
If one’s pelvic muscles are weak, one may want to do pelvic floor exercises for men & women while laying down at first. Maybe a few minutes in the morning and again before bedtime are good times to start the exercise program.
When one is starting out, one should only do the number of kegel exercises that are fairly easy for you to do and slowly increase the numbers as they gain strength and endurance.
While some “Kegel muscle strengthening” equipment might help, there’s no need to purchase
Signs of improvement
One shouldn’t be discouraged if they are not able to control their bladder as soon as they would like, but rather look for these signs as proof that their pelvic floor muscle exercises are working and that they are on their way to better bladder health:
- The frequent visits to the bathroom have reduce and now there are longer time duration between bathroom visits
- The sudden leakage causing accident have reduced leading to fewer accidents as compared to before
- They are able to hold the contractions for longer or to do more repetitions
- Less leakage leads to drier underwear. A good feeling of not always being wet
It’s crucial to remember that incontinence and pelvic floor symptoms almost always have solutions and shouldn’t be shrugged off as normal. While you perform pelvic floor exercises for men & women you can also manage it better by using insert pads to avoid finding oneself in any embarrassing situations.
Find time each day to squeeze it into your routine, cause your health matters.