Kegels

March 16, 2009

Oh, please not this topic. We all know we’re supposed to be doing this in grocery store lineups, everywhere, all the time, every chance we get, but it’s uncomfortable and irritating.

I know it’s odd but you need to know this. It is not often talked about, at least not at any exercise class or video I’ve ever seen. Maybe that’s because it’s awkward to say “Squeeze your pubococcygeus now, ladies”. You only hear about it to help reduce urinary incontinence or to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles during and after pregnancy.

Where?

What’s a pelvic floor? Those are muscles that act like a sling to support and contain all the organs in your pelvis (bladder and its sphincter, uterus, the end of the intestinal tract or rectum, and its sphincter). Nobody wants to talk about it but NOBODY wants any of this stuff to go wrong either. It needs to be tuned and tight just like everything else to work really well for a long time.

Your deepest core pelvic muscle is the pubococcygeus, the one you work with Kegels. It’s called “deepest” because it’s nearest the center of your body, organized like an elastic around a pole that goes through the middle of you in an up-down direction, like an internal pogo stick. That pole has another name – it’s called “gastrointestinal tract”, which curves around a lot, but is still a tube running right through the middle of your body.

Why?

MUST we really talk about this, you ask? Yes, yes, it’s cool how much stronger it makes your torso and how much deeper your abdominal control will become. Core muscles doesn’t just mean firm lower abs. It doesn’t get any deeper than this.

Pilates Pro has a technical but truly precise definition of what core stability really means. There are descriptions of the lumbar and core stabilizers, including the pelvic floor and the one we hear so much about, the transversus abdominus.

Having strength in these muscles is an integral part of having a strong trunk, the top and bottom of which can act in a coordinated way. If the top half is solid but the bottom half is slush, then the whole thing is weak and especially prone to injury in the weaker part.

How?

Stand in a horse squat or open plie ; now tighten those muscles you do for a Kegel. Basically, that means pretend to stop the flow of urine or tighten around a tampon. Did you notice how your whole trunk just stabilized?

Or try this. Sit on a stability ball, arms at your sides and feet on the floor in front of you. Lift one leg about a foot off the floor. Now pull the ball towards and away from the foot on the floor. Once you feel the ball unsteady from side to side, tighten the Kegel muscle. Notice how the ball is suddenly much more under your control and that side-to-side wobble disappeared?

Try the one where you lie on your back and do leg circles with an extended leg either out at 45 or straight up at 90. Try to keep your pelvis from rocking around. Even if you tighten the glute of the leg on the floor, it’s still hard. Now do the Kegel- see how the other muscles now don’t have to work as hard and yet you’re much more stable with less effort? The exercise gets easier and the entire pelvic region is suddenly more solid. Weird but it works.

When?

Every time you breathe out.

The diaphragm is a sheet of muscle that goes through your body cross-wise, like a plate under your lungs. It cups upwards, like a jellyfish, when you breathe out, like lifting a sheet off the ground by holding on to the center. It flattens out again as you inhale to make space for the lungs and to suck them open by pulling downwards.

Think of moving the diaphragm and the “Kegel” muscles together. Raise the pelvic floor by doing the Kegel exercise as the diaphragm lifts up to exhale. You can visualize the 2 muscle sheets (diaphragm under lungs, pelvic floor under abdomen) moving rhythmically, up and down, in synchrony. Now you’ve got control of your core.

The best everyday application of this is your ab workout. When you do a crunch, or any exercise that requires your abs to be tight (like a plank, bicycle in the air, whatever), tightening the Kegel muscle is like a handle you can pull against to help lift your shoulders off the floor. Just try it. It’s amazingly effective. The stomach muscles don’t have to work nearly as hard when you pull yourself up using the Kegel move, so they’re still capable of a little more exertion to get deeper into the exercise and more result from the movement.

To improve balance, this works like a charm. Stand on one leg and close your eyes; you’ll feel wobbly. Tighten with the Kegel exercise – notice how the top and bottom of the trunk suddenly start to work together to keep you balanced and neither part has to work as hard as when it was doing all the work alone? Gives a whole new meaning to the word “tight”.

Fun facts and funner anatomy

I know you need some comic relief right about now. Does it help to know that it is by contracting this same muscle that animals wag their tails ? How fun is it to know that? Why, you’re ready for Jeopardy!

If you really feel you have no need to know any more of this anatomic detail, do not follow the link. It will take you to Arnold Kegel’s view of the pelvic floor muscles. The pubococcygeus is colored red. Can’t get any more core than that. If you like visualizing and understanding the biomechanics of bodies, have a look.

So, this is a diagram of a woman sitting on a clear glass table, drawn from below. I’m sure this has been done many times on sites of a different type than this one, for different reasons than ours. Do you see the orientation? The hole in the center is the end of the digestive tract. At 12 oclock from that are the vaginal opening and the urethral opening right above it. The red muscle is the hammock under the organs under the pelvis. Slack and floppy is clearly not where we want to go here.

Posted by Christine Scaman | Filed Under Move Thy Body

Comments

5 Responses to “Kegels”

Holly Grasse on March 17th, 2009 1:58 pm

Hi Christine,
Why the ballet dancer?
It is funny, I always think of your mother and her amazing body strength and her stories of child birth and doing leg lifts the day after delivery. She used to laugh about how the ObGyn nurses encouraged her to move slowly the day after delivery and your mom would be lifting her leg (straight and with a pointed toe) clear up to her head. She was so proud & she was so strong.
Christine Scaman on March 17th, 2009 4:35 pm

Hey, Holly,

The dancer because of that seemingly effortless, ultimate balance. To achieve that position, and then sustain it, must require incredible stability in the trunk to allow the limbs to move with independence and weightless grace. Like Mum, these people are phenomenally strong. There is no muscle they do not control.
But even a kickboxer can deliver a stronger hit if it’s coming from a powerful center. There’s more power left for the kick when it’s coming from a solid rooting. Way more.
And for all of us, as we age, balance leave us. This is such a good way of hanging on to it.
Thanks for commenting.
Taji on March 18th, 2009 2:57 am

Also—it keeps us from pee—leaking when we cough or sneeze—and I haven’t even had kids!!!!! Also good for your sex life. And very important in yoga class
Christine Scaman on March 21st, 2009 3:17 pm

Very true, Taji. Like Pilates in general, this specific type of strength has many applications. Anytime one foot leaves the ground. Anytime you lift a weight. Anytime the tennis racket makes contact with the ball. It’s an amazing thing once you understand it.
Suzy Lynn on April 1st, 2009 1:22 am

I wrote about this last year with this article, that may be helpful to some folks!

http://www.fitafterthirty.com/men-relationships/kegelexercisesbetterorgasms