| By :
Joe Maldonado
Copyright (c) 2011 Joe Maldonado Kegel exercises are exercises that you can do to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor. The purpose of these muscles is that they contract and release in order to control the way the bladder opens and closes. The pelvic floor muscles are in a sort of hammock shape, and they support the organs in the pelvis such as the uterus and the bladder. If they are weak, they will lack in support. This causes urine to leak when there is even slight pressure put on the bladder. This sort of pressure can occur from the simplest things, like laughing, coughing or sneezing. If you can strengthen these muscles, the bladder will not descend and leak urine with just minor pressure. In order to be effective, kegel exercises have to be done on a daily basis. If you discontinue the exercises, the muscle weakness can return. It is the same concept as if you were to cease exercising any other muscle in your body. These exercises require patience, as you will not see obvious results for around 3-4 months. Once you have learned the proper way to do these exercises, they are very easy. The best thing is that you can do them no matter where you are, and no one will be able to tell. Try to develop some sort of routine for doing them so that you will remember. It may help if you do them at the same time every day. The exercises will become very natural to you before long. You must first determine the muscles you need to target. The best way to do this is when you are urinating, try to make yourself stop halfway through. The muscles that you have used to do this are your PC muscles, and these are what you will need to exercise. You can also identify the muscles by trying to stop yourself from passing gas. You basically feel the muscles pulling inward. Try not to bear down or hold your breath while doing these exercises. You shouldn't be moving your leg or abdomen muscles, or your buttocks. If you are, you are not exercising the right muscle. You may not be able to hold the contractions very long in the beginning. It can take a significant amount of time to build up resistance and endurance in this area. Let your muscles relax in between contractions for twice the amount of time that you contracted. So if you contracted for 2 seconds, rest for 4 seconds in between. Keep going and doing sets until you can no longer hold your contractions for the proper amount of time. Then, next time you do the exercises add two seconds to your contractions. Remember that it won't help at all if you over-exercise these muscles. Try to exercise them at least 3 times per day if possible. Start with 15 contractions and gradually work your way up to more. Once you have made it a habit to do kegel exercises, you will end up doing them almost subconsciously without a second thought!
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