Subprotocol for Pelvic-Floor Muscles

[Note: I am republishing this only to include additional mentions and links in the final bracketed paragraphs.—Ken]

By Thomas N. Brogan with Philip Hoehn, RPT

The muscles of the pelvic floor are made up of tight bands of muscles that encircle the anus and the urethra and the abdominal muscles used for forcing out air. These muscles can be weakened by disuse as one ages or by such factors as hormonal changes, childbirth, surgery, or injury.

A weakened pelvic floor can lead to urinary and fecal incontinence. It may also contribute to a diminished capacity for sexual pleasure and can even cause sexual dysfunction.

How does one strengthen his or her pelvic floor muscles? First, you have to locate them. This is fairly easy. The band of muscles that encircles your urethra can be found when a person deliberately stops urinating before having an empty bladder. The band of muscles that encircle the anus and the stomach muscles will tighten at the same time the muscles surrounding the urethra are used to cut off the flow of urine.

It is not recommended that a person practice exercising pelvic floor muscles while urinating or defecating. Doing so may create problems. A primary function of the pelvic floor muscles is to stop unplanned toilet activities. They oppose the muscles that make defecation and urination easier. Training the pelvic floor muscles by themselves increases their ability to function properly.

Another recommendation is that the pelvic floor muscles are trained at a time when it is convenient to have access to a toilet. Immediately after exercise and for up to a few hours afterwards, the muscles of the pelvic floor will not function their best to retard urination and defecation. Their strength will return to normal in a few hours and actually increase over several days, but only after they are temporarily fatigued to low levels of strength by exercise.

Please do not misinterpret the last warning. Exercise is necessary to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor and every other group of muscles. Exercise does this by fatiguing the muscles until a stimulus for strength increase is given to the body. While resting, the body increases the strength of the muscles, so that they may endure more exercise or other strenuous activities. With stronger pelvic floor muscles, controlling one’s bladder and bowels is less strenuous.

The Exercise

Sit or lie on a surface that does not apply pressure directly to the genitals or the anus. Close your eyes and slowly squeeze the muscles you previously used to stop the flow of your urine. A feeling of tightness in the anus and the lower abdomen is both fine and preferable. A feeling of tightness in any other muscles, especially the buttocks or thighs, isn’t desirable. Now slowly squeeze the muscles that surround your urethra. Visualization can greatly improve this process. Allow this process to take as long as fifteen seconds. Then, slowly relax your muscles, which should take about two seconds

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During all of this, do not hold your breath. Force yourself to breathe as many shallow breaths as you need, but do not hold your breath.

Repeat the slow, fifteen-second squeezes and two-second releases by themselves two or three times. At the conclusion of the third or fourth squeeze, hold that squeeze as tightly as you can for five-to-ten seconds before proceeding to slowly relax the muscle for two seconds. Repeat this sequence of taking fifteen seconds to completely squeeze the muscles, holding them squeezed for five-to-ten seconds, and relaxing them into an unsqueezed state in two seconds until the muscles are unable to continue squeezing.

Perform this exercise once every four days, at first, and then only once a week after you are able to perform the exercise for much longer than three minutes.

[Editor’s Note: This was written when Timed Static Contraction (TSC) exercise was not as prominently used as the dynamic SuperSlow protocol. TSC now offers increased potential benefit to pelvic-floor concerns.

To learn TSC, study the whiteboard presentation (Time Codes: 00:26:46-00:42:37) in the YouTube video, Timed Static Contraction Exercise for Hip Rehab with Ken Hutchins.

This article is also featured in Tasty Scraps, my final collection of articles from the now-defunct SuperSlow Exercise Guild that were not placed in the other four volumes of The Exercise Standard. It serves as a sample of the contents in this collection. –KH.]

Books by Ken Hutchins