To Kegel or Not to Kegel

The earliest memory of a kegel was my mom telling me when I was young to Stop my pee mid stream so I didn’t pee my pants later in life.

Confused on what she was talking about, I tried it.  

Check, Ok I’m good, I thought.

After learning how the pelvic floor worked as a Doctor of Physical Therapy, I learned that the Kegel was not totally the answer.

Not to mention, I treated far too many older women with chronic Urinary Tract Infections as a result of “stopping the pee.”

Yeah, fun fact the Doc forgot to tell you, doing that stop the pee trick leaves that pee in the tract and sets you up for a UTI.  So please, at the very least, stop doing that trick.

But essentially, that move is a kegel.  A SQUEEZE of the pelvic floor.

But the technique is flawed:

• The pelvic floor needs to squeeze AND lift

• How the heck do I even know if I’m squeezing or lifting?!  Shoot, I can’t see those muscles!

• Can you RELAX the muscles after the squeeze?  Another fun fact:  if you over squeeze & clench, that pelvic floor also becomes weak and can lead to more pelvic floor dysfunction.

Understanding all this, and knowing what women are taught, I knew there needed to be more education on this “Kegel” that your Doctor has probably mentioned to you if you’ve ever brought up urinary leaking.

It took understanding of how the pelvic floor actually works:  

• First off, it doesn’t work alone.  There’s a lot of muscles and movements affecting how it works so addressing the pelvic floor alone will not get you the results you want.

• Second, it needs to work like a trampoline:  you have to get the load to explode.  Total relaxation (drop of the trampoline) won’t cut it.  Squeeze and lift (the spring of the trampoline) alone won’t cut it either.  The fun comes from the relax to the explode.  So your pelvic floor works well and you CAN jump on the trampoline.

• It needs to work automatically.  In other words, we want the pelvic floor and all those muscles connecting with the pelvis and core region doing their job without thinking about it!  Because sometimes you just don’t have the chance to squeeze your knees together and clench that pelvic floor to control that little leak.  So an effectively working pelvic floor works when you need it to, without having to think about it.  

Tune in Here to see how your pelvic floor works and how you can make it start working with you and for you, no matter what you do.  

And if you’re ready to take the challenge on by 2 expert Doctors of Movement, Masters of Mindset, join our FITT™ Core Challenge today to get started on getting your firmer, fitter, flatter core with the Pelvic Floor Core support you need!

Questions on how to work with us directly?  Email Tracy Hill & Jessical Midkiff at [email protected].