If you are considering starting a pelvic floor exercise program, we congratulate you! Your pelvic floor muscles, like any other muscles in your body, need exercise on a regular basis. Doing correct exercises for your pelvic floor can help with pelvic conditions like women’s urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and decreased sexual sensation.
But did you know that not just any pelvic floor exercise program will do? You actually need a program that is customized to your pelvic floor muscle… more specifically, the level of fitness of your pelvic floor muscles. Here’s why…
Why You Need a Custom Program for Your Pelvic Floor
Not having a customized exercise program is like going to the gym and starting a weight-lifting program… with whatever weights happen to be on the bench press bar. Not having a customized program may mean that you are doing pelvic floor exercises that are either too easy or too difficult for your current level of pelvic floor fitness.
What happens when you do pelvic floor exercises not suitable to your current level of pelvic floor fitness?
1. Too Easy
When you use an exercise program that is too easy for your level of pelvic floor fitness, you will not get much benefit from doing these exercises. Exercise fitness studies indicate that you need to exercise your pelvic floor muscles at maximum intensity for your current level of fitness for a short period of time to gain maximum results. Doing many repetitions at a lower intensity will not yield beneficial results.
2. Too Difficult
On the other hand, if you attempt to do exercises that are too difficult or too intense for your current level of pelvic fitness, you may end up engaging the wrong muscles. Studies show that when women attempt to do pelvic floor contractions too intense for their level of pelvic floor muscle fitness, these women tend to engage their buttock or inner thigh muscles instead of their pelvic floor muscles.
Designing a Program “Just Right for You
Like Goldilocks, having a pelvic floor exercise program that is “just right” for your level of fitness is the key to success. When you exercise your pelvic floor muscles at your current maximum level of intensity, for just 15 minutes per day or less, you will gain the maximum benefit.
How do you know what level of exercise is just right for you? You need to use a program based on these factors:
- strength of your current pelvic floor muscles contraction
- length of time you can hold a correct pelvic floor muscle contraction
- number of repetitions you can do correct pelvic floor muscle contractions
A correct pelvic floor muscle contraction is one that engages only your pelvic floor muscles, not overflow muscles such as your inner thigh or buttock muscles.
To design the perfect at-home pelvic floor exercise program for your current level of fitness, first test your level of fitness, then design a program based on that level of fitness. For complete instructions on how to test yourself and design your custom program, check out our book. We give you complete step-by-step instructions for testing and designing, plus advanced directions on how to integrate these exercises into your daily life easily and with maximum results!
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