Pelvic floor exercises for women

By exercising the pelvic floor, you can avoid or alleviate incontinence, improve libido, increase sexual sensation or treat consequences of removing the uterus (for example, a sagging abdominal wall). Please stop the exercises if you feel pain during them.

The pelvic lifting

1. Lie down on a comfortable surface in the back of your bed.
2. Stand with legs shoulderwide apart and raise the bottom so that the upper body and thighs form a very straight line. The weight should rest on your shoulder blades.
3. Now lift up the feet alternately to the right and left about three to four centimetres from the ground. Keep the pelvis horizontal.
4. Repeat this procedure four times in three runs each time.

The four-footed exercise

1. Get on your knees.
2. Support yourself on your arms and now stretch your feet backwards.
3. Lift your knees slowly from the floor and breathe out at the same time.
4. Keep your back straight and try to keep the tension for a while, then lower your knees again.
5. Repeat this exercise five times in three passes.

The knee stand

1. Go to the kneeling position and place your hands loosely in the neck.
2. Tense your upper body and lean back. Breathe out slowly. Your buttocks and back should form a line here.
3. Repeat this exercise five times in three passes.

The side lifter

1. Lie on your side with your lower arm under your head.
2. Place the upper arm in front of your chest and place your legs on top of each other.
3. Now spread your upper knee upwards and press your heels firmly together. Hold this position for a while until you put the upper knee down again. When lifting the knee, please inhale each time, and exhale each time when putting it down.
4. Repeat this exercise five times in three passes.

The Stool Dance

1. Sit down on a chair with a straight seat. Spread your legs slightly.
2. Grasp one knee with both hands and pull it slightly up against your body.
3. Hold this position for a while. Then release the knee completely and stretch both arms upwards.
4. Now repeat this with the knee of your other leg, and then four more laps.

Discreet cone exercise

If you are not a friend of the obvious exercises described above, then you should do the very discreet cone exercises up to three times a day. These are named after the gynaecologist Dr. Arnold Henry Kegel and have the purpose of training and thus increasing the duration of tension and relaxation of the pelvic floor muscles. You have several options:

1. Tense your PC muscle (remember to stop the urine stream) for two to three seconds and then relax it again for two to three seconds. Now tense it again, then relax it and do it again from the beginning.
2. Perform the first option much faster and jerkier.
3. Tense your PC muscle only slightly and hold this slight tension for two to three seconds. Now increase this tension a little without relaxing in between. Hold this slightly higher tension again for two to three seconds. Then tighten the tension a little more and hold it again. And now the other way round: release the tension a little bit - hold - release again a little bit - hold - again a little less tension - hold - then relax. 
4. Press the vaginal area together as if you were trying to squeeze out a tampon. Hold this pressing movement for two to three seconds and then relax for the same amount of time. Then push again, relax and start again.