How To Do Kegel Exercises

What Does Exercising The Kegels Do?

Kegel exercises help tone, tighten, and strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. Everyone should do Kegel exercises as they help with sexual functioning and overall health. These muscles are essential for maintaining the bladder's proper tone for supporting the urethra, vagina, uterus, and rectum in women, especially after delivering a baby.

Kegel exercise is also a treatment for urinary incontinence and pelvic relaxation that occurs with the aging process. It improves sexual relations by strengthening pelvic floor control, which increases sexual control as well as intensifying orgasms. It can be done with Kegel Exercisers (Kegel Weights) or without.

Reasons For Having Strong Kegel Muscles

Kegel Muscles Support The Bladder

Kegel muscles support the bladder, which is essential because, in some circumstances, especially after childbirth or a hysterectomy, a woman can find that loose muscles may lead to a dropping down of the bladder. 

Urinary incontinence can cause embarrassing leaks, especially when laughing, sneezing, coughing. This can be exacerbated by childbirth recovery, weak pelvic floor muscles, and pelvic organ prolapse. Thus tightening the vaginal muscles using Kegel weights for just 10-15 minutes a day can make a big difference.

Strong Kegel Muscles Help Support Vaginal Health

Exercising the Kegel muscles helps do various things, such as reducing the chance of vaginal infections by increasing the vaginal lining's blood supply. Making them strong helps hold a diaphragm in place.

Toned Kegel Muscles Make The Vagina Tighter

Strengthening the Kegel muscles can mean increased interest in sex and more satisfaction as it allows for better control in tightening the vaginal walls as well as have better control during an orgasm. In addition to making sex feel better for a woman, it can also make it feel better for a male partner as her vagina will feel snugger, and she can squeeze his penis more intensely during sex by contracting around him.

It can also help achieve female ejaculation (although it is essential to note that a woman can female ejaculate without having an orgasm and can do both without doing such exercises). Learn more about Female Ejaculation in our guide: How To Female Ejaculate.

How To Use Kegel Weights

See our helpful guide if you want to learn How To Use Kegel Weights.

Kegel Exercise & Sexual Satisfaction

Kegel exercises push more blood into a woman's vaginal walls, so she's biologically more aroused, which may increase the intensity of orgasm. In addition, stronger pelvic muscles may make the contractions stronger, impacting the intensity of feeling during an orgasm.

There are some critics out there; that indicate that encouraging women to do Kegel exercises to have better orgasms is hype or a sales tactic to sell Kegel weights, but there are studies to back this up. Furthermore, as we indicate on our site, you do not need Kegel weights to do Kegel exercises as explained in this article.

In a 2015 study released by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), conducted by the Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research, it was determined that pelvic floor muscles do play an essential role in the stimulation and orgasm in women.

While another small study done by São Paulo University, with only 34 women, did not find any correlation. It indicated that Kegel exercises alone weren't able to improve women's sex lives. Of course, it is fair to say that Kegel exercises alone will not cause a woman to orgasm and may not make it more intense as there are other factors to consider. However, there is mixed research and most points to it helping.

For more information, please see our guide on Women's Orgasms.

How To Do Kegel Exercises

• To do Kegel exercise, you will want to squeeze your pelvic muscles much like you would do when trying to stop urine flow in midstream and starting again. (If the stomach or buttocks muscles tighten, the muscles are not being exercised correctly.)
  
  
• Typically, you should tighten the Kegel muscles for 3 seconds and then relax for 3 seconds. Repeat these contractions 10 to 15 times per session. A woman should do these at least three sessions per day for it to be effective.
  
  
• You might find that doing your Kegels while masturbating increases the level of your arousal and might even trigger an orgasm.
  
  
• Kegel exercises can be performed while traveling, at work, or random moments during the day. No one will be aware that you are doing the exercises.
  
  
• As with any muscle, the more you exercise that muscle, the less effort is required to tighten it, and the longer you will be able to keep them tight.
  
  
• We also recommend pelvic muscle stretching to help support your organs and prevent pelvic muscle related prolapses. 

As you can see in the diagram below, a uterine prolapse occurs when pelvic floor muscles are weak and do not provide enough support for the uterus. Thus, the uterus slips down into or protrudes out of the vagina. This can occur in women of all ages but is more common in women who have had one or more vaginal deliveries and are post-menopausal. It can also affect overweight women, or those who have low estrogen levels, are chronically constipated, life heavy weights, or have a chronic cough. Strengthening your pelvic muscles may help prevent this from occurring.

If a uterine prolapse occurs, it can lead to further complications such as a prolapsed bladder or a prolapsed rectum. Thus, pelvic exercise is helpful as prevention as well as for addressing these issues.

Kegel Weights & Electro Stimulation

Kegel exercises can be significantly enhanced with Kegel weights. Think of doing any exercise without weights... you can tone, but adding weights can make them even stronger. In addition, there are electrostimulation (estim) sex toys that allow for doing the exercises without any effort.

The estim sex toys provide a form of Bio-Electric Stimulation Therapy (BEST), also known as microcurrent electrotherapy (MET), which delivers small amounts of current to the body. They are used to enhance the Kegel muscles' strength while intensifying sexual pleasure and reducing pain. They are commonly referred to as erotic electrostimulation or estim for short.

Tightening Vaginal Creams & Gels

We often get asked if these work, and the answer is yes, they do, but the level of tightness is no more than using a face mask on your face, and it is temporary. Often, women use them thinking there will be a dramatic difference, but they do not. Having realistic expectations of these is key to your level of satisfaction.

Bottom line, toning and strengthening your Kegel muscles is what will make you tighter long-term, not creams, and this is not just good for sexual pleasure; it's good for your health.

Pelvic Stretches

Stretching your pelvis can help strengthen your pelvic floor muscles and reduce tension in your muscles. This can address such issues as painful sex and pain from the insertion of tampons, fingers, and sex toys such as dildos. As found in yoga, adding stretching can help eliminate or reduce pelvic pain, is an excellent addition to your Kegel exercises. Pictured below are some examples of stretches.

Additional Pelvic Stretches

Knee to Chest

Begin by lying on your back with both of your legs straight and relax. Bring one knee to your chest, holding it with your hands. Hold for 30 seconds, and breathe deeply as you do it. Repeat the stretch with the other leg.

Foot & Knee Up

Lie on the floor with your knees bent and bring your left foot to the front of your right knee. Then lift your right knee toward your chest. Hold for 30 seconds while breathing deeply. Then bring your right foot to the front of your left knee and lift your left knee toward your chest. Hold for 30 seconds.

Knee to Opposite Shoulder

Lying flat, bring your right knee toward your chest at a diagonal angle toward your left (opposite) shoulder. This is also great for stretching your piriformis muscle and ideal for sciatica. Hold for 30 seconds while breathing deeply. Repeat the stretch with the left leg.

Knee Over Hand

Lying on your back, bring your right knee over your body to the floor toward your left hand, and hold the knee down. Hold for 30 seconds and then do the opposite leg.

Childs Pose

Get on your hands and knees. Relax your bottom toward your heels with your knees wide apart, and your feet close together. Bring your arms down to the floor as though you are bowing. Bring your arms as close to the floor as you can and rest your head on the floor. Hold for 30 seconds.

Frog

Squat down as though you were picking something off the floor and put your hands flat on the floor with your bottom almost touching it as well.

Happy Baby

Lie on your back and hold each foot with hands while your arms are inside your knees. Pull your knees outside of your ribcage. Hold for 30 seconds, breathing deeply.

Kegel Exercise For Men

Let's not forget that men also benefit from doing Kegel exercises. While they cannot use Kegel weights, they can do both general Kegel exercises as well as pelvic stretching to help improve sexual performance, sexual pleasure and prevent prolapses and urinary incontinence.

Male Kegel Exercises

• To do Kegel exercise in men, you will want to squeeze your pelvic muscles much like you would do when trying to stop urine flow in midstream and starting again just like for women. (If the stomach or buttocks muscles tighten, the muscles are not being exercised correctly.)
  
  
• Do your Kegel exercises for 3 seconds and then relax for 3 seconds. Repeat these contractions 10 to 15 times per session. Do these at least three sessions per day.
  
  
• Kegel exercises can be performed while traveling, at work, or random moments during the day. Pelvic stretching can also be done as yoga and no one will be aware that you are doing the exercises.

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