How to find time in a normal day to do pelvic floor exercises?
Everyone knows that pregnant and postnatal mums are supposed to do pelvic floor exercises (also often known as Kegels). How do you fit them into a busy day???You need an exercise habit
Muscles develop best from being made to perform regularly to build neural connections and to move their function from something you have to conciously ‘think about’ to something you do spontaneously without needing to apply mental effort. Think of something as simple as wearing your seat belt – you learned to put in on initially but now you automatically reach for it and plug it in before you set off – that’s a learned habit. We need the pelvic floor to learn to automatically get involved as a support system when we sneeze, cough, and more importantly lift and carry. Anyone noticed how much lifting and carrying mums do???!!?!How to build a habit
There are many gurus who write about the power and value of habits and how to form them. Relevant to us with pelvic floor training are:- Find a trigger. A really specific one. Not just ‘today’ or even ‘this morning’ rather ‘when I clearn my teeth’, …… ‘when I am waiting outside pre-school’….. ‘whenever I put pasta on to boil’……’sit down to watch……..’
- Be short & specific. If it takes too long your brain will find a way to sabotage your intentions. So though the pelvic floor booklets traditionally suggest you first do the longer holding type pelvic floor squeezes followed by the quick ones – in practice I actually tend to start beginners off with the shorter ‘quick’ squeezes, done on their own as This only takes about 35 seconds (see My favorite Standing Pelvic Floor exercise ever for the detail). Get this habit going first then later once you have a routine established add the longer task of doing the slow holding ones.
- repetition…repetition…repetition…… you will probably have heard of the 10,000 hours of practice needed to take you from good to outstanding piano player, tennis player, tiddly wink champion. Fortunately, the pelvic floor doesn’t do that many different things (fast contractions, endurance (slow) holds, and relaxation). You just need to DO them.
- Practice Deeply. Researchers into ‘talent’ have identified what makes best practice. One key thing is being mindful and noticing what you are doing. Doing less but with more sincerity and awareness. Try to block out everything (and everyone) when you practice so that you can really tune in and feel what you are doing for better results.
REAL examples: for real busy mums
# 1 Teeth cleaning: Multi-task your morning rituals
Even busy new mothers, who might not have brushed their hair or had a shower, remember to clean their teeth!
First stand still (no actual teeth cleaning yet) and focus on the pelvic floor muscles. These are the soft muscular tissues around the opening of the bladder, bowel and vagina. A pelvic floor squeeze is when you pull up around the back passage (like stopping wind) as well as the vaginal/bladder opening (like stopping a wee). Concentrate on 10 really good strong squeezes of the pelvic floor muscles in a row, focusing on making every squeeze a good one. Remember to RELAX the pelvic floor properly between each contraction. It is possible to overwork the muscles causing tension and tightness in the pelvic floor. Some people experience pain and discomfort during sex because they find it difficult to relax their muscles. Make sure you notice what both a contraction and a relaxation feel like.
Then try to sustain a medium hold of your pelvic floor muscles while you are cleaning your teeth Perfect mum-multitasking! You will find you can only hold the pelvic floor contraction for a few seconds to start but with practice you might manage to clean the whole top row of teeth before you fatigue!
# 2 A private moment (possibly): when you have a wee
Everyone has to wee……eventually. No matter how busy you are. Mostly you are by yourself (even if the door is open). Finish your wee. Clothes up, hands washed etc but just before you are about to return to the fray, STOP, stand still. Do My Favorite Standing Up Pelvic Floor Exercise Ever. 35 secs start to finish. Done. Go. You will forget all about them in between……but then you will have to wee again sometime…..Repeat………see ….roughly every 2-3 hours…..which is 5-6 x a day……..so Getting Them Done. If you work – make this one a priority on work days. There is a satisfaction in getting paid to do your pelvic floor exercises and one less thing to think about when you get home.# 3 Tap into tech on your phone
If you are a gadget kind of girl, you might enjoy working with a reminder app on your phone, or a pelvic floor exerciser or tracker device.
The Squeezy app is a simple reminder device with lovely visuals to help you focus when you practice.
You can set the app to remind you at 3 personalised times of day. Think about when that might work best for you? You want the app to send you the reminder text at a time when you WILL be able to follow through. So when does the morning actually, truly get a bit of a lull in it? As you get home from school/pre-school run? Does the baby have a morning nap routine? Then think through the rest of the day for true windows of opportunity. They don’t have to be evenly spaced. You just need 3 times in a day. Lunch time? Just before your partner gets home (or is that max-chaos??!), roughly just before you have supper?
Or follow the Tweets of the hilarious Elaine Miller of GussetGrippers.
# 4 Little Ones TV time. Follow a video yourself.
If you are better with supervision – join me for an exercise session straight from your computer. I will keep reminding you to focus on your pelvic floor throughout! You can follow the “Pilates for your pelvic floor” sequence through online exercise host pactster.com Use the code PhysioPostnatal to access all their videos free for a month (try HIIT workouts from the team at & Breathe Postnatal too) .
# 5 Anytime they are awake.
Yes AWAKE. Not asleep. Truly. My sister (mother of 4) mantra – never do anything when the baby is asleep that you could have done when they were awake. All a baby needs is entertainment. What is more entertaining than you doing pelvic floor exercises!? You can count out loud – that’s educational (in French if you feel the need to be really educational). They could hold the phone (see Squeezy App above) or join in the video (see above). If they enjoy the whole thing they will also remind you to do it again.# 6 Bath Time: theirs
You have to be there to prevent drowning and flooding but otherwise once they are safe sitting and floating about independently this can be a bit of a dead time for you. There is only so much bathroom cleaning and laundry sorting to be done. Pelvic floor exercises can be done in any position. Standing, sitting on the toilet, kneeling beside them. If you are really tired lying on the bath mat can be nice……..# 6 Bath Time: Yours
Private, quiet, contemplative. Also a good time for pelvic floor massage if you feel that your muscles can get tight or tense through the day. It is important to relax pelvic floor muscles as an exercise too. This helps to empty the bowel and bladder well and makes sex more comfortable.# 6 Kids bedtime:
Story time. Hold your pelvic floor muscles and read one page, relax completely and read the next. Repeat for whole book! The challenge is not to hear your voice change, or forget half way through the story. Very good exercise for not holding your breath. And pelvic floor exercises can be done in the dark…. when you are on ‘corridor watch’ (as we used to call it for our hopper-upper), or up in the night with a teether, or winding after a feed, or kneeling beside their bed patting their back…………….#7 Your bedtime
Rather like your childhood prayers, the rhythm of pelvic floor contractions might lull you to sleep..zzzz Or actually 2-3 minutes of pelvic floor squeezes will bring lots of blood flow to the area and might just put you in the mood for something a little more romantic…… Pelvic floor exercises not working for you?If you feel that you are not making progress with your pelvic floor exercises by yourself, do ask your GP to refer you for a full assessment, examination and guidance with a specialist pelvic floor physiotherapist. She will help you establish whether pelvic floor weakness or tightness is your main concern, as well as explore other factors like pelvic alignment and joint issues which could be making your efforts on your own ineffective. Read more about how to find a specialist physiotherapist on our resources page.
