Kegel exercise benefits for men again by pelvic floor strengthening.
So how can you maximize your Kegel exercises to get the best possible benefits?
Hi, I'm Michelle, and today I'm sharing with you some of my top tips to help you get the most
benefit from your Kegel exercises. Now, when we talking benefits, we're talking about
lasting longer, overcoming impotence, and also to overcoming problems like bladder control after
prostate surgery. Now, we really need to use the scientific principles into muscle strengthening,
and apply those to how we train the pelvic floor muscles. So I'm not going to go through how to
do your Kegel exercises, you can refer to my video above on the actual technique, if you're
not sure about that, this is all about getting the best possible gains. So let's dive right in.
Now, my first tip is to do your exercises early in the day when your muscles are well rested.
So I think if you think about the pelvic floor muscles,
and we know and you'll already know if you've seen my previous videos, that they're between
the sit bones here, tailbone and front bone, and they sling under
there at that at the base of the pelvis, which is why they called the pelvic floor muscles.
Now, during the course of the day, they're constantly under load. So if you go to do
your training, at the end of the day, these guys have been working all day, and they're fatigued.
So think about when the muscles are best rested, probably when you first wake up and towards the
morning, particularly if you're in a manual labor job. If a job that or work that actually
involves standing all day, it might be different if you're in a sedentary job where you're sitting,
and you can actually do your exercises during the course of the day. But that first tip about doing
your exercises when the muscles are well rested, is really important for maximizing that the muscle
hypertrophy, the thickening and your training gains. Now the second tip is a little bit along
those lines. It's about it's called doing your exercises in standing. So the research clearly
shows that when you do all your Kegel exercises lying down, you don't make the most strength
gains, we don't make as good a strength gains as you do when you do the exercises in upright
positions like sitting and standing, because the muscles then have to lift against gravity. So
you've got that added load and we're talking about loading to actually strengthen those muscles.
So I think if you look at the muscles here, and you see them in that context there, that's where
they are. So you want to do some exercises, maybe lying down maybe your first set in
the morning when you when you first wake up, but make sure you try and get a set in, in standing.
Now if you're a beginner, this is something you might need to work towards, just take your time
it will come with practice, you might work from lying down sitting and standing by those standing
exercises are really very important. Now my next tip is one of the most important tips.
I think if you're used to strength training in the gym, you'll know that you have to lift with.
So if you're used to strength training in the gym, you'll know that you need to use a maximum power
for muscle bulking. And the same principles apply for your pelvic floor strengthening. Now this
means you need to load maximally. Now we can't and I've got some weights here, we can't actually
load the pelvic floor muscles with our Kegel exercises with weights that's difficult. So what
you need to then do is think about using maximum power. So if you're using lifting a separate out
analogy is a bicep curl a lighter weight, you can see that I'm not I'm not using as muscle
much muscle intensity and much contract or as much contractile strength as if I'm if I try
to attempt a bicep curl with this big way. So the same thing applies for your Kegel strengthening,
you need to use that maximal effort with each exercise that you do. Now, following on from that,
you can't do maximal effort after maximal effort. Just as you wouldn't be able to in the gym,
you need to rest between exercises. Now, the amount of risks that you take is really up to
you. If you're a beginner, you'll need more rest between each exercise. But if as you become more
proficient with your exercises, you might find that you don't need quite as much rest. But make
sure you do those two things contract, do Kegel exercises with maximal intensity, and then take
the time to rest and recover before your next exercise so that every exercise really counts.
Now, finally, I want to talk about the way you strengthen. So if you think about again,
muscle strengthening, and then this is the principle of muscle strengthening,
when you lift you strengthen, but you actually make most of your strength gains
as you lower the weight down. So in the gym, you might do a one to two second lift,
and then you lower down a centrically two to four seconds for the muscle was
still contracting but it's lengthening and that is a secret to making strength gains.
So try to use the same principles with your pelvic floor exercises or with your Kegel exercises.
Lift and maintain that lifting your endurance. But then if you can lower the muscles down slowly,
rather than just letting it go, because you're missing a really great strength gain opportunity
by just letting them go. Once again, when you first start out, you might find it really hard to
let the muscles go, there might have just been the contraction might have gone already, that's fine,
this will take time to get a hang of. So just practicing lifting, and then lowering down slowly.
Now, the very final tip, again, is a scientific principle from the American College of Sports
Medicine. And that that is involves doing your strength exercises at least three times a week. So
for muscle hypertrophy, muscle, think thickening, same thing for the pelvic floor muscles, their
skeletal muscles, they need that three times a week stimulus to really strengthen. You might then
maintain your gains by twice a week. But when you strengthen try to do your exercises for at least
three days of the week. And I often suggest for men to try and do their exercises on five days a
week too. So I think you can see that you really need to train like an athlete and use scientific
principles and apply them to your Kegel exercises to get the most maximal possible benefits.
So I really hope this information helps you get the most benefits from your pelvic floor
exercises. If the videos helped you, I'd really appreciate it if you can give it a like below
because then YouTube will share the video and the information with other men too.
Thanks so much for watching today. Look forward to seeing you next time. Goodbye for now.