Thursday, November 5, 2009

Do you Kegel?

Recently I was reminded of something I learned in nursing school, as well as my prepared childbirth classes. What does that have to do with losing weight and exercising, you may ask. Well, a lot! I'm really glad this blog is private, or I would probably never admit to this but . . . after some of my recent workouts I was dismayed to find out that not only was I wet and sweaty, but I was leaking a bit of urine as I exercised. My mind flew back to Kegel exercises. I remember doing them faithfully when I was pregnant, but soon after delivery, I soon quit doing them.

Kegel exercises involve strengthening the muscles on our pelvic floor. These muscles can become weak from pregnancy, childbirth, excess weight, and strenuous exercise. Well, I pretty quickly realized that I fell into all of these categories at one time or another.

Our pelvic muscles are easily strengthened by squeezing and holding the muscles that cut off your stream of urine. I looked up a website that explained it well. It will be easier for you to read their explanation than me trying to explain it all here.

Kegel exercise Page

As our pelvic muscles become weak, the uterus presses and can even fall onto the bladder. This can cause incontinence, pain, and become a reason for needing a hysterectomy. Fortunately, these exercises can be done while you are working on something else. You can be assured I am starting to faithfully do mine!

Tami

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Awesome tip, Tami, I actually was thinking of posting something similar.

I have noticed an improvement in this area due to my workouts. Something has definitely tighted up down there. I don´t leak nearly as much. I hated jumping jacks for this reason. Now I can almost do them without embarassment. (and I do my exercises alone.) lol

Great minds.. jeje!!

Crunchin´for the goal,
Dani Joy

Maribel said...

That's a good tip. I did those after my pregnancies. And I continue to do them when I'm not "doing anything". Better prevent while we can. Very useful.
Maribel