Why are Kegels never the answer?

Finding Pelvic Sanity

Have you heard or been told you 'just need to Kegel'? Here's why that's never the answer to pelvic health issues.
Kegels (or the voluntary squeezing of the pelvic floor muscles) are often one of the only areas of pelvic health we’ve heard about. It’s often surprising to people to learn Kegels are often ineffective, antiquated and can cause flares or actually exacerbate symptoms. Here’s why they are rarely used at all at PelvicSanity.

1) The majority of people with pelvic floor symptoms already have overactive pelvic floor muscles.
This means we want to be working to calm down the pelvic floor. Help it to relax and stretch out. Not adding a bunch more work for it to do!
Not only are Kegels ineffective, but can often flare symptoms for those with an overactive pelvic floor. This is why Kegels are never recommended for those dealing with pelvic pain.
2) Even if you are weak, Kegels aren’t the best way to strengthen the pelvic floor.

Even for the small subset of people who truly do have pelvic floor weakness, Kegels are only one small part of the pelvic floor.

If your goal is to run without leaking, how is laying on your back and staring at the ceiling the best way to train for that? We need to get you up off the table and get your pelvic floor working in a functional manner again.

3) Kegels don’t find or resolve the underlying ‘why’

At PelvicSanity we’re always about trying to find and address the root cause of your issue so it doesn’t return.

The underlying why is usually outside the pelvic floor - in how you’re moving, in your back, or glutes, or hips, or ankles. Unless we find and resolve the underlying why, symptoms will either return or crop up in a different way in the future.

So if your pelvic PT was only doing Kegels or biofeedback, make sure you find a great pelvic PT for a second opinion. And if you haven’t been to pelvic PT yet, let this be your call to action!
Local to Southern California?
Our expert team in Orange County would love to help resolve your pelvic floor issues for good - without a bunch of Kegels or biofeedback! Give us a call or send us a message and we'll be happy to answer any questions and get you started!

About Us
Dr. Nicole and Jesse Cozean are the founders of PelvicSanity Physical Therapy (www.pelvicsanity.com) in Southern California. The clinic has helped thousands of patients in the Orange County, CA area and hundreds from around the world with a remote consultation and Out of Town Program.
They co-authored The IC Solution and Nicole created The IC Roadmap online course to provide the most accurate, up-to-date information for those with interstitial cystitis. They run the Finding Pelvic Sanity Facebook group for a supportive online community for anyone dealing with pelvic health issues.
Nicole has also created courses and trained thousands of pelvic PTs to provide better care through her work with Pelvic PT Rising (www.pelvicptrising.com).

• Subscribe to the podcast
• Follow @pelvicsanity for great info!
• Join the Finding PelvicSanity support group
• Check out www.pelvicsanity.com for additional help!

And as always, we hope this has helped you find just a bit of pelvic sanity!