Kegel exercises for men are simple contractions to be performed during the day to tone the perineum in women and the pelvic floor for men! If you are a boy, this will be a revelation for you! You also have pelvic muscles, so you need to learn how to train them to keep them toned! In this article, we will give you a complete guide about kegel exercises for men. To stay healthy, it is important to play sports. For this reason, you agree to work the abdominals, the muscles of the legs, the back, which with age tend to lose tone muscle if they are not trained.
Pelvic floor muscles: what they are
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But you never work your pelvic floor muscles, perhaps because you don’t know them and very few sports teachers talk about them! As long as they perform their function correctly, no one cares, but it is essential to tone them up to prevent problems that can ruin your daily life. What to do? First of all, you must be aware of these muscles, locate them, and perform specific exercises every day to train them. Kegel exercises for men, named after the doctor who invented them.
The perineum and the pelvic floor: where are they and what are they for?
The perineum is a set of muscles located between the vagina and the anus for women and between the pubis and anus for men. So the perineum allows you to control your urinary and fecal flows, support the baby during pregnancy, and experience more pleasure during sexual intercourse. The pelvic floor, or pubococcygeal muscles, is the set of muscles that runs from the pubic bone to the coccyx and serves to support the anus, bladder, and uterus. Precisely for this reason, it takes the name of “floor.” If you have any doubts and are unsure if you have identified them, ask for advice from a specialist.
Why are they weakening?
First observation: the upright position weighs on the entire pelvic floor! Standing means that the muscles have to support all our organs’ weight and that the pelvic floor muscles also weaken, even more so if you are overweight.
Furthermore, sitting for many hours, often in the wrong position with the legs crossed and with the back bent forward, causes the perineal area to atrophy. Similarly, bad habits such as carrying a lot of weight or not exercising, ailments such as constipation, or particular conditions that lead you to take antidepressants can weaken the pelvic floor.
Causes and consequences of loss of firmness for humans
The loss of firmness in humans can be either of a pathological origin (prostatic surgery) or of a mechanical origin. The weakening can cause urinary system dysfunction, incontinence, and sexual problems, such as impotence and premature ejaculation. Unfortunately, these are dysfunctions that affect an ever-increasing number of males, both young and adult – from the data recently released by the Italian Society of Andrology and Sexual Medicine. It appears that at least 1 in 20 young people between 18 and 20 has suffered at least once last six months of erectile dysfunction. On the other hand, 1 out of 4 Italians suffers from premature ejaculation.
Causes and consequences of loss of firmness for women
It is wrong to think about the perineum’s re-education only after childbirth as this muscle is very stressed in a woman’s life.
With pregnancies, childbirth, advancing age, the consequences can be disastrous:
- unsatisfactory sex life
- urinary and anal incontinence
- descent of organs.
Unfortunately, this pathology is not linked only to age. Since, in Italy, many women do not even do the re-education of the perineum after childbirth, problems can arise very soon.
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Kegel exercises for women
Basic exercise
You can start by working out in the bathroom with the famous “stop-pee.” It consists of blocking the flow of pee for a few seconds while you urinate. This simple exercise helps you become aware of your Kegel muscle!
Once you know this, in a sitting position, with your back straight, try to contract the pelvic floor muscle for at least 5 seconds. Repeat the contractions by performing 3 sets of 15. It is a simple and practical exercise to be performed anywhere while you work or while watching television. Every woman should practice a healthy daily habit.
Exercise 2
Lying on the ground on your back, with your arms along your body, bend your legs by raising your knees. Pushing onto your feet, lift your pelvis off the ground with your knees together, and hold the position by contracting the perineum for 5 seconds. Then, exhaling, return to the starting position.
Exercise 3
Standing, legs hip-width apart, bend your knees slightly. Place a ball between your legs, mid-thighs, and try to bring your knees together by contracting the perineum. Hold the contraction for 5 seconds. Do 3 sets.
Exercise 4
Standing, legs straight, rotate your ankles outward and place a ball between them. Keeping your legs tight, try to squeeze the ball between your ankles as much as you can. Hold the position for 5 seconds. Do 10 sets.
Sports and pelvic floor
The pelvic floor muscles can also be strengthened with physical activities. Avoid intense sports and go for activities like yoga or pilates, which improve blood circulation in the pelvic region by toning your muscles.
- Warning: when performing the exercises, you must not contract your abs or your thighs or back.
Kegel exercises for men
Perhaps the first time you perform this exercise, you will be amazed that you cannot hold the contraction for more than 3 seconds. But don’t worry: once you have toned your perineum, your muscle will respond much more easily to your stress! Do the pee-stop exercise yourself to become aware of the pelvic floor muscles. Then with an empty bladder, try to contract the muscle for 5 seconds. Release for 5 seconds and resume the contraction. As with all muscle work, it may be painful at first, so start slow and work gradually. The first week, do 3 sets of 5 seconds every day and gradually integrate the exercise into your daily routine by increasing the contraction duration and the number of sets.
The Kegel exercises l for men have been designed by the gynecologist Arnold Kegel. And voluntary contractions of the pelvic floor muscles, useful in urinary incontinence cases. The pelvic area is located between the pelvis bones and includes the muscles and ligaments that support the urinary and reproductive systems’ organs. The pubococcygeus muscle is one of the most important because it controls urine and the contractions caused by orgasm.
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Gymnastics for male urinary incontinence
The kegel exercises for men are useful for solving urinary incontinence problems and reducing those related to ‘ premature ejaculation.
There are several causes for which the weakening of the pelvic floor occurs:
- prostate surgery
- constipation
- heavy lifting
- chronic cough
- obesity
- sedentary lifestyle
The main symptoms are:
- urinary incontinence
- fecal incontinence
- premature ejaculation
- erectile dysfunction
- All these symptoms, after careful medical evaluation, can be resolved thanks to Kegel exercises.
Kegel exercises for men, how to do them
However, the basic technique must be suggested by the doctor and requires complete emptying of the bladder.
The first thing to do is to identify the right area to contract, namely the pubococcygeus muscle:
- sit down, or lie down to relax the thigh muscles completely. At this point, try to contract the muscular ring, which is located around the anal orifice; to do this, you have to imagine holding the stool, then release the muscle.
- While urinating, try to stop the flow and then start it again.
- This technique is only for identifying the right muscles. The actual Kegel exercises consist of:
- squeeze the floor muscles for 5 seconds
- relax the muscles for 10 seconds (the time of muscle release must always be double that of contraction)
- repeat 10 times, morning, afternoon, evening
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Do Kegel Exercises For Men Work?
If the technique is performed correctly, the first improvements can be seen after about 6 weeks. Sometimes, however, the times are longer. It can take up to 3 months.
There are no contraindications for Kegel exercises for men, as long as they are performed without exaggerating. In fact, it is not necessary to exceed 30 contractions per day. If you exaggerate with gymnastics, there is the risk of worsening the disorders related to urinary incontinence, canceling the progress achieved.
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What is the pelvic floor?: Kegel Exercises For Men
The pelvic floor is a set of muscles located in the abdomen, supporting the belly’s internal organs. The pelvic muscles are located between the pubic bone and the coccyx and close the lower part of the abdominal cavity. In women, kegel exercises support the bladder, urethra, uterus, and rectum in the correct position. It is essential to stimulate the pelvic floor during pregnancy and keep it toned as the fetus’s weight puts pressure on the underlying organs, pushing them down.
In humans, the pelvic floor muscles are in a similar position and support the genitals and urinary tract, from the bladder to the urethra. Although obviously, problems related to pregnancy and childbirth do not occur in men, this does not mean that there may be situations of loss of muscle tone, which should be prevented.
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Loss of firmness of the pelvic floor: causes and consequences
The loss of tone in the pelvic floor is a physiological condition in both men and women advancing age. However, if it is quite normal that after a certain age. The muscles are not as toned as at a young age. It is also true that trying to stimulate muscle activity can be achieved.
In addition to the decrease in physiological tone, other causes cause the pelvic floor muscles to relax.
- Posture errors: those who sit for many hours, especially if they do not maintain a correct posture with a straight back, experience a sort of atrophy of the pelvic muscles. In these cases, it is especially harmful to keep the legs crossed for many hours as well as to bend the back forward;
- Activities that involve lifting weights: if you engage in work activities. That requires excessive and repeated muscular effort. The tissues can be damaged and suffer a kind of muscle prolapse. All the more reason, those who do a job in which they have to lift many weights. During the day, should keep the muscles trained to cope with the efforts effectively.
- Overweight: Overweight can also negatively affect the relaxation of the pelvic muscles. If then, you carry out an activity that forces you to stand for many hours. This can have an even more damaging effect: the body’s weight. In fact, it pushes the muscles and causes them to decrease in tone.
- A sedentary lifestyle and lack of physical exercise: a sedentary lifestyle, often forced by work, needs to be compensated for with adequate physical activity to prevent the muscles from relaxing too much.
- Disorders of pathological origin: there are also pathological situations that lead to the pelvic floor’s loss of tone. In particular, constipation, taking antidepressants, and prostate interventions.
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Kegel exercises: what they are and what they are for
Kegel exercises are exercises that serve to strengthen the pelvic floor. They take their name from the famous American gynecologist Arnold Kegel, who, around the middle of the last century. Theorized the importance of tonicity of the pelvic floor muscles and proposed, in fact, the series of exercises that take his name.
Even today, scientific research on the subject demonstrates the validity of this therapeutic approach on disorders such as urinary incontinence. The most frequent consequences of the loss of muscle tone of the pelvic floor concern a series of urinary system disorders. Such as stress incontinence, frequent and urgent urination, and post-urination drip. In men, some disorders affect the sexual sphere, such as erective tone loss.
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Man pelvic floor exercises: Kegel Exercises For Men
The first step in performing pelvic floor exercises correctly is to become aware of the muscles themselves. It is easier to find the right muscles by sitting up and relaxing. The muscles in the legs, buttocks, and abdomen. By progressively contracting and releasing the ring of muscles. After that, some simple and short exercises can be performed. The greatest effectiveness of kegel exercises for men is repeatedly repeating the session every day, at least 2-3 times a day.
- The best-known kegel exercise is the one that involves interrupting the flow of urine during urination. It is a highly recommended exercise because it allows you to become aware of the muscles and learn to contract them.
- Pelvic muscle contraction exercises: Focusing on the area between the perineum and urethra, contract for 5 seconds, and release. Repeat the exercise at least ten times. Then contract and release the muscles eight to ten times at a faster pace.
