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Basic pelvic floor exercises

To exercise your pelvic floor muscles, you should first locate the right muscles. You can find your pelvic floor muscles by trying to stop urinating mid-flow when you’re going to the toilet. You can then exercise your pelvic floor muscles anywhere and at any time. All you need to do for a simple exercise is to sit comfortably and squeeze the muscles 10 to 15 times. Focus on using only those muscles without holding your breath or tensing the muscles of your thighs, stomach, or bottom.

As you start to get used to doing these exercises, you can hold each squeeze for a few seconds at a time and add more squeezes. Take a rest between each set of squeezes, and make sure that you don’t do too much.

Lying down pelvic floor exercises

Lying down on the floor, or on your bed or couch, if you can’t get onto the floor, is another way to do some useful pelvic floor exercises for stress incontinence. Your pelvic floor muscles are only small, so many of the movements that you can do are fairly small too. In fact, they would hardly be noticeable if anyone else watched you. One that you can start with is to lie on your back with your feet flat on the ground. Keeping your legs in place, flatten the small of your back against the floor for a few seconds, as if you’re pulling your belly button in toward the ground.

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Figure-8 Floor Exercises

To add to the exercise above, you can move between flattening your back moving your pelvis forward, so your back is arching off the ground. As you move down, you can also do it at an angle so that your hips go to the left or right before coming back to the middle. As you get used to that, try doing the same as you move up. Remember not to use your legs when you’re doing these exercises. Focus on working the pelvic floor muscles to help them get stronger.

Do pelvic floor exercises help stress incontinence?

Stress incontinence occurs when urine leaks out if extra stress or pressure is put on the bladder. This might be when you cough, sneeze, laugh or exercise. The pelvic floor muscles can weaken, especially for women who have given birth, which leads to this issue. Pelvic floor exercises are designed to strengthen these muscles, which help you to control your bladder. Exercising this set of muscles can help you if you have stress incontinence, as long as you’re exercising the right muscles.

Working with a physiotherapist can help you if you have stress incontinence and want to learn some different pelvic floor exercises. The physiotherapist can show you some exercises that you can use at home, as well as supervise your therapy to ensure you’re doing the exercises correctly.

What exercises can I do for stress incontinence?

There are various pelvic floor exercises for stress incontinence. It’s easy to get started with basic exercises, which involve simply squeezing your pelvic floor muscles as you sit. You can also do basic squeezes of your pelvic floor muscles in different positions. Try doing them sometimes when you’re sitting, sometimes when you’re standing, and sometimes when you’re lying down.

Apart from the basic pelvic floor exercises that you can do to strengthen your muscles, you can try a variety of other exercises that will help you. Using some different movements can help to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles in various ways, and they can be a little more interesting than simply squeezing your muscles a few times. You can find some examples of physiotherapists showing you how to do some top exercises on YouTube. However, getting professional support from a physiotherapist in person can be more useful. They are able to explain exercises in a way you understand and give you the support that you need.

When you’re experiencing stress incontinence, it can be embarrassing and stressful. However, pelvic floor exercises can help you to strengthen your muscles and treat the problem. With support from a physiotherapist, you can work on improving the strength of your pelvic floor muscles both in therapy sessions and at home. Try these pelvic floor exercises for stress incontinence, and you could see results in a few months.