Pelvic Exercises For Women
The muscles of the pelvic floor, particularly in women, are susceptible to wearing down over time. It's mainly attributed to physically taxing conditions such as childbirth, surgery and even illnesses. When the pelvic floor muscles wear down, it can make women experience conditions such as stress urinary incontinence or SUI.
Women suffering from conditions like SUI and other impairments of their pelvic floor muscles can actually seek treatment to strengthen them again. The most common form of treatment is known as pelvic floor muscle training or Kegel exercises.
Pelvic floor or Kegel exercises are one of the first treatment options for stress-related urinary incontinence. During a research study in 1998, they were found to be the most effective treatment option for stress urinary incontinence, apart from other options like vaginal cones and electrical stimulation. The women performing the pelvic floor exercises, in fact, showed the most improvement.
Pelvic floor exercises essentially help women make their pelvic floor stronger. They help women learn how to tighten their pelvic floor muscles better, especially when pressure from simple actions like sneezing rises within the abdomen. Women interested in treating their stress urinary incontinence and other related conditions greatly benefit from pelvic floor exercise.
They can even be regularly used to strengthen and tighten the pelvic floor muscles, without the prerequisite of an existing condition in mind. Women can actually start learning these exercises at home, though they're best taught by a specialist first.
Learning how to do pelvic floor or Kegel exercises starts with identifying the pelvic floor muscles, contracting those muscles in the correct way and using those same muscles to perform the fast/slow contractions that comprise the exercises.
Pelvic exercises for women provide significant advantages for women's health. They're considered cheaper and more effective than other physical therapy options, usually performed in comfortable positions like sitting.
Women using these exercises are also advised to keep track of their exercise sessions, generally through keeping a chart of their daily and/or weekly sessions. As with most exercises, it might take a few weeks before results become noticeable. As an example, it might take up to 15 weeks for most women to see any significant differences caused by their exercises.
In addition, women with stress urinary incontinence or other conditions have to keep performing the exercises for the rest of their lives. This is necessary for them to maintain a sufficient amount of strength within their pelvic floor muscles. Despite the setbacks, pelvic exercises for women help them maintain muscle strength in their pelvic floor muscles.