Gentlemen, start your kegels - Katherine Hobson

Maybe you’ve never watched a Jane Fonda VHS fitness video. Maybe you’ve never tried to squeeze your body into skin tight Lycra and spandex. Possibly you don’t carry a yoga mat around with you at all times. Still, there’s a very important matter that all males of a certain vintage should remember. Men have pelvic floors too.

 

Where exactly, you might ask, is your pelvic floor? The simplest answer is that it’s somewhere “down there” next to a whole bunch of other stuff that live down there. More technically, it is a series of muscles that run between the pubic bone, the tail bone, and the sit bones (also called the ischial tuberosities which are the bony points at the bottom of the pelvis that support your weight when you sit).

Why do men have to worry at all about their pelvic floors? The answer is as obvious as a quick kick to the groin. Thirty percent of men who visit their doctors have problems with urinary incontinence or bladder leakage, but most refuse to mention it. The problem intensifies with fecal incontinence. We won’t even bother to mention erectile dysfunction.

Strengthening the pelvic floor muscles by squeezing, lifting, and relaxing them through a series of rehab exercises is an excellent way to avoid future risk factors. Among these factors are ageing, prostate issues, pelvic surgery, and constipation.

Although women generally have more urinary issues, one in eight men will report physical problems involving the bladder or the bowel. Although pelvic floor rehab exercises have been around for ages in a variety of ancient cultures, they really reached popularity about a century ago through the work of American gynecologist, Arnold Kegel. He developed the perineometer, an instrument which was able to measure the intensity of a woman’s voluntary pelvic floor contractions. These measurements led to the introduction of a series of exercises, or Kegels as they are now called, as non-surgical alternatives for pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence.

Women have long used Kegels to strengthen their core muscles and thereby improve the childbirth experience. Men, on the other hand, have had considerably less experience with childbirth, and therefore this pelvic floor business is a bit of a mystery.

In order to simulate the Kegel exercise if you are a man, pretend you have a string running straight down from the top of your head with the other end of the string attached to your testicles. Now pull up on that string. Remember to be gentle. You’ll know that you have pulled too hard if your gonads bounce off the roof of your mouth. Don’t forget to breathe. And don’t substitute a bungee cord for the string or you will really be sorry.

Another Kegel simulation requires you to visualize your body as a juicy, ripe peach. Now pull every part of yourself in towards that dry essential pit that lies at your very core. Now hold until you become your core. Don’t forget to breathe.

Exercises that strengthen your pelvic floor muscles have a positive effect on restoring your spine to the roundish “S” shaped curve it should have. Essentially, your back is a tangle of bones, discs, ligaments, tendons, and other soft tissues that are supported by the core muscles of your pelvic floor. If you are like me and have spent most of your sitting life slouching in your Lay-Zee-Boy recliner infront of the tube, then your back probably looks more like an ironing board than a coiled cobra ready to strike.

Visualize your spine getting more S-shaped. Push and pull on it until it resembles a yo-yo going up and down at the same time. Fill your lungs with air and then slowly push the air down to where your hands are cupped over your belly button. Now slowly exhale while pulling your body in towards your spine. Feel your inner strength as you shed your self-­image of a cross between a banana slug and a squid.

Your Kegels are your friends. They are available to you at almost any time. All you have to do is push air around in your body and pull along any parts that want to tag along. It’s that simple. You don’t even need a yoga mat. But for goodness sake, don’t forget to breathe.

Now where in the world did that Jane Fonda video tape go? And did I really trash that VHS video player?