Want to train your pelvic floor muscles? These are the best Kegel exercises (for women)!

Would you like to ‘tighten’ your vagina? Or experience a more powerful and intense orgasm? You can! By training your pelvic floor muscles. With the added benefit that it will also help with other issues such as incontinence and premature orgasm. Sounds ideal, right?! Read here how you can train these muscles.  

Also read: How to train your PC muscle – pelvic floor exercises for men

Why should you train your pelvic floor muscles?

Your pelvic floor muscles are a layer of muscles attached to the pelvic bone at the base of your stomach. They basically keep your organs in place. These muscles also ensure that the anus and urinary tract close properly. That’s why you can have trouble with incontinence or faecal incontinence when you have weak pelvic muscles. Training them is an excellent way to prevent those issues. But exercising your muscles also helps when you want a tighter vagina or want to delay orgasm. It can even make your orgasms more intense!

Before you get started, you need to know which muscles need training. You can understand where they are by holding in your urine for a couple of seconds while you are in the middle of urinating. You can instantly feel your pelvic floor muscles. Note: This is not an exercise. Deliberately holding in your pee while you’re urinating is not healthy for your body in the long run. The exercises below, on the other hand, are!

Training your pelvic floor muscles – this is how you do it!

This may surprise you, but with a few fitness exercises, you can train your pelvic floor muscles along with other muscles in your body! We have selected three key pelvic floor exercises that are ideal for strengthening these muscles.

The bridge

Lie down on your back with your knees raised and your feet flat on the ground. Keep your arms next to your body with the palms facing down. Slowly bring your hips off the floor and tighten your pelvic muscles. Keep your hips raised for about 10 seconds before lowering them again and relaxing your muscles. Repeat this movement 10 times in sets of 3. If this exercise becomes too easy after a while, you can place something heavy – such as a kettlebell, dumbbell or other weight – on your lower stomach.

Dead bug crunch

Once again, lie down on your back. Pull up your legs so that your legs are bent at a 90-degree angle; your legs should be suspended horizontally in the air. Place your arms flat next to your body. Then stretch your left leg and lower it to the ground while at the same time raising your left arm and extending it above your head with your thumb facing towards the ground. You are effectively stretching out the left side of your body. Hold that position for a couple of seconds. Repeat the same movement for the right side of your body. We recommend doing 10 sets of 3 for this exercise.

Squats

For this exercise, stand in an upright position. Set your legs slightly apart, even with your hips. Shift your body weight to the heel of your foot so you don’t fall over backwards. Then bend your knees, stretching your butt as far back as possible. Make sure that you can lift your toes off the floor during this movement to check if your weight is still resting on the heel of your foot. Once your legs are positioned at a 90-degree angle, slowly stand back up. You can stretch out your arms in front of you to keep your balance.

Also read: The pleasure of vibrating eggs

Training with Kegel exercises

Instead of moving your body, with these tightening exercises you focus specifically on training your pelvic floor muscles. You can’t see from the outside that you’re actually training those muscles, which is why these exercises are highly suitable for doing in public – like when you’re in the office, for example. Once again, we have three exercises for you. These types of exercises are also called Kegel exercises.

The elevator

You can do this exercise standing up, sitting down, or lying on the floor. You can compare this exercise to a lift, or an elevator. First, squeeze your anus, vagina, and urinary tract closed. You’re basically closing the ‘lift doors’. Once you’ve done that, it’s up to you to get the lift up to the first floor. In other words: tighten your muscles, pulling them upward. Hold this position for 5 to 10 seconds and slowly relax your muscles. Repeat this movement 3 times.

Knee squeeze

You can do this exercise standing up, sitting down, or lying on the floor. Place an object such as a tennis ball, a football or another hard object that doesn’t break easily between your knees. Make sure that you place the object just above the kneecaps. Now squeeze as hard as you can and hold this position for 10 seconds. If you’re doing it correctly, you won’t only feel your leg muscles but also your pelvic muscles. Repeat this squeeze 3 times.

Knee pull-ups

Okay, you might not want to do this exercise in public, but it’s certainly effective! For this exercise, lie down on your back on a hard surface. Pull both your knees up to your stomach. Wrap your arms around your knees and press your legs close to your body, curling yourself up into a ball. You can also do this exercise one leg at a time. Tighten your pelvic floor muscles and hold this position for 10 seconds. Do this exercise 3 times.

Also read: Different ways to stimulate the vagina

Training with vaginal balls

Last but not least, women can choose to use vaginal balls (also known as Kegel balls). These are small balls that you hold inside your vagina for up to about 30 minutes per day. We have a few tips for you:

• The smaller the balls, the harder they are to keep in place. Beginners would do well to start off with larger vaginal balls. We recommend starting off with a diameter of about 3 cm.  As you get better at keeping them in place, you can move onto smaller balls.
• Apply a small amount of lubricant to make insertion easier. Note: don’t use too much lube, or they may slip back out again.
• We advise you to lie on your back and relax, especially when you’re inserting the vaginal balls for the first time. Insert them as far as they will go with your hands.

You can do the above exercises with the balls for extra training. Remove the balls by relaxing your muscles or by gently pushing them out with your muscles. If that doesn’t work, try squatting, coughing, or jumping.

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Doing Kegel exercises with an app

Nowadays, you can also download an app on your mobile phone that you can use to do the Kegel exercises. A good app is the Kegel Trainer, which is available on both the App Store and Play Store. This app features 10 different sessions, each lasting no more than 3 minutes. It even sends you a reminder, so you don’t forget to do the exercises!

Also read: How to use Ben Wa balls + Kegel exercises

Do you still have questions about training your pelvic floor muscles? Don’t hesitate to ask them in the comments below! Or have you been doing these exercises for a while? We would love to find out whether they helped. Let us know!