What’s Kegel?
We often hear gym goers use words like ‘leg day’ or ‘arm day’ for exercises related to specific body parts on specific days. Ever hear anyone say vagina day? Yes, the vagina needs exercise and we’re not talking of masturbation or intercourse. There are exercises dedicated to the vagina and they are known as Kegel exercises.
Kegel exercises are named after Dr. Arnold H Kegel, an American gynaecologist who developed them in the 1940s. Kegel exercises are also known as pelvic floor exercises because they strengthen the pelvic muscles on which rest the vagina, uterus, rectum, bladder and the small intestines. That’s a lot of organs for these muscles to manage, isn’t it?
What can Kegels do for me?
Due to the workload of pelvic floor muscles, they might weaken with age. Weakened pelvic muscles might lead to situations like urine leakage, or accidentally passing of gas or stool. In an even more severe weakening of pelvic muscles, it might lead to a condition called pelvic organ prolapse (POP). It means that one or more organs supported by the pelvic muscles move from their normal position and start to push into the vagina or even out of it. As can be imagined, this condition could be discomforting and painful.
POP may be caused by ageing, pregnancy, birthing through vagina, frequent coughing and sneezing. POP might or might not have symptoms. Doing Kegel exercises regularly and properly can prevent POP and help improve it in case you are already suffering from it.
And did we mention how Kegel exercises lead to brilliant orgasms? Oh yes. Kegels improve sexual experience by improving muscle strength, and consequently, orgasmic contractions (in other words terrific orgasms). And great orgasms = great sex. In addition to Kegels, there are also other exercises for better sex.
How to do Kegel exercises
The word exercise feels like a tough commitment but Kegels are so cool that they can be done while you’re lying down, travelling to work, watching videos on the net and just about going on with other things. The only tricky bit is to try to feel our pelvic muscles so we can isolate and exercise them. It’s only tricky at first and comes easy with practice. A few ways to feel pelvic muscles are:
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Stopping the passage of urine mid-flow for a few seconds. Remember the muscles you pulled to make this happen. The muscles that do this are the pelvic muscles we need to find and exercise in Kegel exercises. But do remember not to repeat this urine-stoppage too many times as it can lead to infections and other health issues.
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Pretending to stop passing gas. Come on, we’ve all been in that situation, trying to stop passing gas in an elevator, office meeting room, or a tight-packed bus or train coach. So that. We have already felt our pelvic muscles.
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Imagining that you’re tightening your vagina around a tampon, menstrual cup, sex toy or penis. That feeling is the pelvic muscles contracting.
A good way to begin feeling the pelvic muscles are while lying down. It’s important to note that you’re not moving your abdominal, buttock or inner thigh muscles instead of or along with the pelvic muscles.
Once we know how moving the pelvic muscles feels like, we know what Kegel exercises are; it’s that simple. Just repeat this movement of the muscles as practiced above 10 times while holding each contraction for three to five seconds and also relaxing for that long.
As we grow used to doing Kegels, we can gradually increase the time we hold this contraction for 10 seconds and the number of daily Kegels to 40. There are also other variations we can do to make Kegel exercises even more fun. Onward to more body-stirring orgasms.
To protect the identity, the person in the picture is a model.
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