Kegels are overrated
Did you know that 1 in 3 women & 1 in 5 men will experience pelvic floor symptoms (bowel/bladder challenges, sexual challenges, hip/back/pelvic pain, etc.) at some point in their lifetime? [1] Yes, it's that common!
To address this, Kegels are promoted by social media influencers and prescribed by medical professionals to fix any issue down there. "Just do some Kegels!" But if it was that easy, I’d be out of a job. So keep reading if you want to know why Kegels are not a magic bullet and what you can do instead to prevent and solve pelvic floor challenges.
First off, what is the pelvic floor?
It's a group of muscles located in the base of the pelvis. Every human has one (see male & female below) and it serves many critical functions (learn more). Despite being called the pelvic floor, it's not meant to be rigid. It's better to think of it as a trampoline: responsive, flexible, and spanning in multiple directions to provide support for your organs and core.
👯👯 The pelvic floor works on a team with our hip muscles (and diaphragm, but that’s for a future newsletter). When we’re in motion, the pelvic floor is constantly shock absorbing, rebounding, and responding to the hip muscles to help us maintain balance and propulsion over each leg, in addition to maintaining bowel/bladder control the entire time!
What is a Kegel?
A Kegel is an exercise where you consciously/manually contract and then relax (lengthen) your pelvic floor muscles, usually while seated or lying down. The problem is that almost 50% of people do them incorrectly [2] (see the most common mistakes) or do them when they shouldn't, like while on the toilet. And even if you know what you're doing, Kegels alone likely won't give you the results you're looking for.
Why aren’t Kegels enough?
🙅 The pelvic floor doesn't like to be micromanaged. It's designed torespond to what’s happening at the bigger muscles around the pelvis, and thank goodness! Imagine how exhausting it would be to have to consciously tell the pelvic floor what to do every time while we wanted to move?! So manually contracting and lengthening your pelvic floor in a chair doesn’t teach the brain and body how to respond in real life.
💃 Real life is in motion. Practicing kegels while stationary is helpful when someone’s first getting in touch with their pelvic floor muscles, BUT training needs to progress into movement because that’s where most people struggle with pelvic floor symptoms. For example, if you’re leaking with squats, then your pelvic floor strengthening needs to eventually involve squatting movements so that the brain, hips, and pelvic floor can re-learn how to coordinate together again in this specific way.
⛹️♀️ Kegels don't train the whole team. Imagine your pelvic floor is the captain of a soccer team. She shows up for all the practices, executes all her drills (Kegels), but the rest of the players (hips, core, etc.) chill on the sidelines during practice. How well do we expect this team to play come game time? Not that well, right?! We need everyone participating in practice so that the whole TEAM learns how to work well together.
🙌 To be clear, I’m not hating on Kegels. I’m hating on them being falsely advertised as the end-all-be-all for your pelvic floor problems and misleading people to think they need to hulk out with 100 kegels a day to build a "strong" pelvic floor. This can even make symptoms worse if your pelvic floor becomes too tight. In summary, Kegels are helpful for building body awareness and coordination, but in isolation they don't teach the brain and body how to respond in real life.
Ready to level up your pelvic floor!
🏋️♀️ The best way to prevent and overcome pelvic floor symptoms includes strengthening your hips and core with weights [3]. This is what I do with ALL my patients - we get the whole TEAM involved. Check out the content below if you want to explore how to do this too.
▶️ Better than Kegels - Train the team with targeted exercises for your hip flexors, inner thighs, hamstrings and glutes.
▶️ Kegels in Motion - Move through this 3 part series covering breath work, Kegels, and how to progress these concepts into motion and eventually with weights.
▶️ Pelvic Floor Desk Workout - If you sit a lot, mix this 3 minute routine into your work day.
💻 Cleared to Confident - Motherhood is an athletic event. Whether your 6 weeks or 6+ years postpartum, get the whole team back working together with my online course.
Why are Kegels still recommended by medical pros?
👩⚕️ Medical schools aren't (yet) teaching about the pelvic floor. This is a BIG problem within our medical system since physicians are the directors of care. I can’t tell you how many physicians (including OBGYN, urology, and GI specialists) I have helped educate on pelvic health, many of which have been my patients. And since medical providers aren’t being given the necessary education in school to identify pelvic floor problems, then it’s no surprise that many continue to tell people to "just do Kegels" rather than referring them to a pelvic floor specialist.
Thank you for reading this far! In doing so you are truly in the 1% of people who understand that pelvic floor strength goes far beyond Kegels, and why it requires a TEAM approach. Please forward this newsletter to a friend and help spread the word on pelvic health! Questions, comments, requests for future newsletters? Simply send an email to info@pelvicsavvy.com.
Your pelvic health matters,
Dr. Chris
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