“Do your Kegals!” …. or NOT.

“Do your Kegels!” - the phrase every mom hears when she becomes a mom!

✨Let’s go ahead and make this very clear: Kegels are not the answer for everyone’s pelvic floor dysfunctions.

We often hear that kegals are the best exercise you can do as a pregnant mom or freshly postpartum. Its claim to fame is that it strengthens the pelvic floor and prevents moms from peeing their pants when they sneeze (aka “peezing”) or from jumping on the trampoline with their kids.

There are a lot of problems with all these assumptions. Let’s see if we can break that down a bit.

First off - kegals can be an effective piece of strengthening a weakened pelvic floor, but doing isolated kegals over and over again can actually make your symptoms worse! 😫

➡️ Another problem is many moms are actually doing kegals wrong... but that topic is for another time.

We need to remember the pelvic floor is a group of muscles that integrate within your core system. 🔗

Like any muscle group, to have the best function, we need to strengthen (contract)💪 and lengthen (relax)😮‍💨 these muscles, while maintaining connection with the muscles of the deep core and upper thighs/glutes.

The current status (tightness or weakness) of the pelvic floor is what really dictates if someone should be focusing on strengthening (contract aka kegals) or lengthening (relax aka NOT kegals).

(Key component: addressing core system issues (including the pelvic floor) wouldn’t be complete without also addressing your breath 🫁and pressure management strategy.)

Once we understand what our body actually needs, we can start to understand how to prevent those pesky leaking problems! 👏👏 (Not sure what you need? Contact us!)

So, if you are someone who needs strengthening, what could be better than kegals?

In a study done in 2014 done by AJOG, 100 participants in pelvic floor rehab were instructed to do 10 different exercises. Using EMG sensors, researchers compared traditional Kegel exercises to common exercise movements (that typically incorporate voluntary pelvic floor contraction when being done).

💥The conclusion was that these top 5 exercises were PROVEN more effective than just doing isolated kegals! 💥🤲

What are the top 5?

1) Bridges - 56%

2) Bear hove - 49%

3) Lunges - 42%

4) Cat/Cow - 41%

5) Squats - 30 %

Does that mean just knocking out a bunch of squats will fix your leaking? 🤔 Probably not. Is this an exhaustive list and there isn’t more you can do that is better than kegals? Nope!

👉Remember, your pelvic floor is part of your core system.

HOW you perform the exercise (your body alignment, core connection, and pelvic floor coordination doing whatever exercise that is) and how you utilize your breath (your pressure management) is what makes it most effective.

This is the kind of stuff we always talk about in our MVMT programs💪, and dive MUCH deeper in our Prepared 4 Postpartum class🤰!

✨To really get a great baseline of understanding how core connection, breath, and even how glutes work into all this (and get some simple, yet very effective exercises) - check out our FREE Guide: 5 Essentials of a Strong Postpartum Core✨

Do you like a visual? Drea posted this reel on Instagram - check it out!

Not sure what to do next? Send us a message or get on a call with us to talk about your next steps.

Reference: https://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(16)00035-1/fulltext