Pelvic Floor Exercises

These are sometimes known as Kegel exercises after the doctor who developed them or as "Pelvic floor muscle training" or PFMT.

They are one of the initial treatments for stress incontinence and may have other benefits. There is no evidence that pelvic floor exercises help urge incontinence

Step 1 - Identify your Pelvic Floor Muscles

The first thing to do is to identify correctly the muscles that need to be exercised.

• Sit or lie comfortably with muscles of your thighs, buttocks and abdomen relaxed.
• Tighten the ring of muscle around the back passage as if you are trying to control diarrhoea or wind. Relax it. Practice this movement several times until you are sure you are exercising the correct muscle. Try not to squeeze your buttocks or tighten your thighs or tummy muscles.
• Imagine you are passing urine, trying to stop the flow mid-stream, then restarting it. (You can do this "for real" if you wish, but do so only to learn which muscles are the correct ones to use: do not make a practice of it or it may interfere with normal bladder emptying.)

If you are unable to feel a definite squeeze and lift action of your pelvic floor muscles (or are unable to even slow the stream of urine as above), you should seek professional help to get your pelvic floor muscles working correctly.

Even people with very weak pelvic floor muscles can be taught these exercises by a physiotherapist or continence advisor with expertise in this area.

Step 2 - Performing Pelvic Floor Exercises

Once you have successfully identified your pelvic floor muscles you can move on to performing the exercises.