My regular readers should know by now that we’re doing a 30-day kegel exercise challenge, and today is day 1! Now, if you want to participate in the group, you should join it on Facebook here.
I thought I’d write a quick post about how to do Kegel exercises to start things off. This way, anyone can benefit from the knowledge, whether you join the group or not. So, here are how to do Kegel exercises, for those who don’t know:
Step 1: Find the right muscles
There are a few different ways to find them.
- Next time you go to the bathroom to pee, stop urination midstream. Those are the muscles.
- Most of us know the muscles you use to stop yourself from farting. Same muscles.
- For guys: You know when you have an erection, and you can sort of make it “bounce”. Those are the ones.
- For women: You can insert a finger into your vaginal canal. Try to squeeze your fingers. If you succeed, those are the right muscles. Feel squeamish about doing that? Ask your husband to help 🙂
Step 2: Perfect your form
Now that you what muscles, try doing it without flexing all the other ones around it. Your glutes should not flex (the large muscles in the meat of your butt), nor your abs or your thighs, and you should be able to talk through the exercise. In fact, you should be able to do these without anyone noticing. I’ve heard people say they do them while driving, or waiting in line at the bank, in meetings, at their desk, on the phone, or sitting in church.
Step 3: Pick a routine
This one sort of depends on your own health and preferences. There is no “standard” kegel exercise plan. A pretty common one is to hold for 5 seconds, relax for 5 seconds, repeat that 10 times. Do this as often as you like. A common suggestion is 3-5 times a day.
If your kegel muscles are fairly healthy, this will be no problem at all. If they’re weak, that might be at your limit for now.
Once you get that under your belt, you may want to add a succession of quick squeezes after your holds. For example, hold for 5 seconds, relax for 5 seconds, then squeeze and release 10 times as fast as you can. Repeat 10 times.
As your muscles get stronger, up the hold time, squeeses and reps. Alternatively, you can use an app to create a routine for you. More on that in the next section.
The nice thing about the exercises is that you can do them anywhere and anytime. The hard thing is remembering to do them.
Step 4: Set reminders
There are a few ways people do this. Sometimes they just do them the same time every day. Maybe their morning commute, evening commute and at lunch. There’s 3 times a day.
Others use apps. I’m personally going to using a free app called Kegel Talent. It’s only for Android (sorry iOS users), but it sets a routine (which can be modified), as well as letting you set up to 5 sessions per day, popping up notifications on your phone, and tracking your exercises in a calendar.
Another one I’ve used is Kegel Trainer, which is available for iOS and Android. It’s free as well, but has premium features you can pay for. I believe the free version only allows 2 reminders to be set per day.
Taking it to the next level
Now, for women, you get much a better option. You can actually buy a physical device, tracked by an app to see how well you are doing.
My wife has one called the Elvie. It’s basically a device you insert, which registers squeezes to an Android or iOS device through Bluetooth. The cool thing about this is that it not only creates a routine for you, but since it’s tracking your actual progress, it will modify the routing based on how you are doing.
It works as a series of games, in which the controller is the insertable device, operated by squeezing your kegel muscles. And, because it gets real feedback, it can actually tell your progress.
Now, it’s not cheap, but you get what you pay for.
To be honest, I’m a little jealous. Guys don’t get these kind of toys…
So, there you go. Now you should know how to find your kegel muscles, how to exercise them, and some apps to help you keep going. Now, if you want to join a community that will help encourage you, answers questions, and generally be a sex-positive place of support filled with like-minded Christians, then check out our 30-day Kegel challenge group.