3 Pelvic Exercises You Can Do In Bed To Effectively Relieve Joint and Bladder Problems

According to Pheonix Physical Therapy, there are over 25 million adults in the United States that suffer from urinary incontinence. The International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders reports that 6% of women under the age of 40 and 15% over the age of 40 experiences bowel incontinence. They also report that approximately 6% to 10% of men suffer from bowel incontinence, while 10% of men within the United States suffer from both fecal incontinence and urinary incontinence. These problems can occur when the pelvic floor muscle is weak, which is supposed to provide support for various parts located in the pelvic area of a patient.

What Are Kegel Exercises?

Kegel exercises are a series of strengthening exercises that can be performed by both men and women. These exercises have been designed to improve the strength of the pelvic floor muscle in the patient. Through contracting and relaxing the pelvic floor muscles, the patient provides a level of exercise to the specific muscles, which assists with strengthening and increasing protection for the pelvic area. The pelvic floor muscles are a series of muscles and tissue at the bottom of your pelvis. They are formed in such a way to hold a patient’s organs in place.

Benefits Of Kegel Exercises

You will want to know everything that happened to your pelvic floor during pregnancy week by week. The fact that your pelvic floor muscles can be weakened by several elements puts everyone at risk of suffering from conditions caused by a weak set of pelvic floor muscles. There are numerous elements that can weaken these muscles, including excess weight, surgery, chronic coughing, constipation, and pregnancy. Week by week these elements weaken the set of muscles in the patient’s pelvic area, which can eventually lead to problems with controlling bladder and bowel movements. By performing a series of Kegel exercises, you are providing a strengthening technique for your pelvic floor, which will decrease the risk of suffering from the conditions that are associated with weak muscles in this area.

Men and women have different parts in their pelvic area, which also means that kegel exercises affect men and women differently. The method of finding the muscles that need to be also exercised vary depending on the patient’s gender. For this reason, we will be taking a look at the benefits these exercises have to offer for both male and female patients separately.

Kegel Exercise Benefits For Men

All-in-all, Kegel exercises are known to provide a better quality of life in men. While these exercises were originally introduced to women to prevent their pelvic floor muscles from weakening during pregnancy, studies have found that they also provide numerous benefits for men. Health Line suggests that these exercises are especially useful for men who have had prostate surgery in the past. The benefits they offer male patients include:

A stronger set of pelvic floor muscles, thus better protection for organs and vital parts of the pelvic area.
They assist in preventing urine leakage.
They assist with decreasing the urge to void.

They provide assistance with sexual performance in male patients. Some men experience a longer-lasting erection when doing kegel exercises.

Kegel Exercise Benefits for Women

Women are at a higher risk of suffering from problems due to a weakened set of muscles in their pelvis’s floor. Keeping these muscles strong is important to avoid these problems from occurring. Kegel exercises can provide an array of benefits for women. From better control over their bladder to joint pain relief and much more. These exercises also provide a better quality of life in women. In women, the following organs and parts are supported by the affected muscles:

Bladder
Rectum
Small intestine

Uterus

Getting Started With Kegel Exercises

Many patients think this series of exercises are hard to do. The truth is, they are not. The key is to find the right muscles and then to perfect your technique. This will help you do them at anytime and anywhere, as reported by Mayo Clinic. Patients are advised to realize beforehand that it will take some time to get this technique right, but once mastered, the will be able to start benefiting from the advantages within a couple of weeks.

The first step is to find the muscles that you need to exercise. Mayo Clinic recommends urinating and stopping the urination process midstream. The muscles used to accomplish this are the muscles you need to exercise. Once you find the right muscles, you need to perfect the technique to reap the benefits. It is advised to start by tightening the muscles and holding them for five seconds, then relax for five seconds. You can do this a couple of times. As you do these tightening and relaxing techniques, you should work up the time until you can hold the muscles for 10 seconds and then relax for 10 seconds.

These exercises should be repeated at least three times a day at 10 repetitions per session. This will provide faster and more effective results. It is also important to focus on tightening and relaxing the pelvic floor muscles alone. Try not to affect other muscles of your buttocks, abdomen and thighs. You can also breathe freely while doing these exercises.

Conclusion

Many people have problems with controlling their bladder and bowel movements. These problems are often caused by a weak pelvic floor muscle. Kegel exercises have been introduced as an effective treatment technique that allows patients to improve the strength of these muscles, thus resulting in a reduction of symptoms and avoidance of future incidents.