An enlightened approach to Kegel Exercises

We've all heard that a definition of insanity is doing the
same thing over and over again, but expecting a different
result.

Isn't that what we've done for years with Kegel exercises?
Countless hours of practising while wondering if we'd got
the right muscle, or if there was any point in doing the
exercises anyway as we weren't really feeling that our
effort was making any difference.

A little known fact about Kegel exercises which often
surprises people when they first hear it is that they were
never meant to be performed the way in which they are
today. Indeed, they were never meant to be performed the
way they have been for decades!

Dr Kegel was an American surgeon, Associate Professor of
Gynaecology at the University of Southern California and
Health Commissioner of Chicago, who spent more than
thirty-two years in the study of the female pelvis and the
muscles therein.

His studies document his results with thousands of women
that show the incredible benefits to be gained from Kegel
exercises when performed correctly. In 1950 Dr Kegel had
achieved complete relief of urinary stress incontinence in
93% of a group of 300 women in this way.

"On the strength of these favorable results urinary stress
incontinence in women is no longer routinely treated by
surgical intervention at...LA County General Hospital." Dr
Kegel. (A progress in Gynecology, 1950 p.786)

Isn't it amazing to think that the results he was getting
in the last century are even better than the generally
accepted success rates for incontinence surgery carried out
today? How were these results achieved? By ensuring that
the exercise protocol that his patients followed consisted
of two essential elements:

1) Isolating the pelvic floor muscle (using no abdominal,
buttock or thigh muscles) 2) Working the pelvic floor
muscle against resistance

What is commonly known as a Kegel exercise today bears
little relation to authentic Kegel exercises. Dr Kegel
knew that the exercises were pretty useless without either
of these components. If you've been struggling to get
results with Kegel exercises, maybe for years, now you know
why they seem to be exercises in futility.

Think about it like this - Squeezing against nothing is
about as effective as trying to rehabilitate or build
muscle in your arm simply by flexing it up and down, you
could do that forever and see little improvement. However,
put a small weight in your hand and exercise against the
resistance of that, adding slightly heavier weights as the
arm gets stronger and improvement in strength and tone is
inevitable.

Imagine going to the gym and finding all the equipment has
been taken out and you're told you can go through the
motions of doing the exercise and achieve the same result!
This is what women have been told about pelvic floor
exercise over the last half century, and still are. By
merely going through the motions of doing the exercise you
cannot come close to achieving the results that come from
actually doing the proper exercise.

Dr Kegel was quoted in TIME magazine, Dec 3rd, 1956 as
saying, "There is a better way than surgery to correct most
cases of pubococcygeal weakness".

Considering the vast amount of surgery that is carried out
for incontinence and prolapse today, it has to be fairly
obvious at this stage that there is something missing from
pelvic floor exercises as is normally taught.

An enlightened approach to Kegel exercises involves asking
the questions "What is missing here?" Why are women not
getting the results they were promised?" It is clearly
insane to keep teaching women to squeeze against nothing,
when the results of such a misguided approach are so poor.
Performing the exercises as they were meant to be performed
produces real results.

----------------------------------------------------
Abigail O'Donovan is the founder of Kegelmaster Europe. She
aims to raise awareness that powerful pelvic floor
exercises could eliminate stress incontinence and reduce
the need for unnecessary pelvic surgery to near zero. To
find out more please visit http://www.kegelmaster.co.uk