Easy Wasbto Identify Male Pelvic Floor Muscles
Performing regular pelvic floor exercises can be beneficial for men, particularly dealing with issues of erectile dysfunction and urinary continence . Although, the first big hurdle is learning what it is and how to use it properly. These first steps are quite tricky for most men as it's easy to go through life without having to think about this group of muscles. The pelvic floor could be likened to a mythical creature as it's never seen or heard and only ever felt when you're really attuned to it. Also for the attention it gets for doing wondrous things to regain normal pelvic functioning, which probably leaves you curious. However, in this case we can separate fact from fiction. Learning to perform a pelvic floor contraction is very important to get right as it can help you treat or prevent many problems.
Before Starting A Pelvic Floor Exercise Program
For many men, learning to perform a pelvic floor contraction correctly is often glossed over. However it is vital that you take it very seriously and try not to progress things too quickly. This means it will take some dedication of time and effort to get it right. At Online Prostate Physiotherapy we often hear stories of men contracting their "pelvic floor" as a regular routine, but the reality can be that they've been doing it incorrectly for weeks or even months. So learning a pelvic floor contraction properly is highly important, therefore it is recommended that you consider a few things when you start out.
Just like any skill in life, some of you will pick it really quickly whilst others will need more time and coaching. The fundamental principle in the beginning is to give yourself a lot of time to learn the skill at the most basic level. This means dedicating time daily or even a few times a day to practice. Try to eliminate any distractions and use a quiet environment that allows you to totally focus on the quality of the exercise. Remember, you didn't learn how to ride a bike from reading an instruction manual. This can't be skipped.
Learning How To Perform A Pelvic Floor Contraction
Ultimately, in the early phase it is best to seek professional help or use high quality resources that are available. This will help you to learn the right strategies for engaging just the pelvic floor muscles. This is best achieved with guidance from real time ultrasound imaging from a trained physiotherapist. Think of the same equipment used to monitor a growing baby in the womb. A transducer or 'wand' is used to provide an image of your lower pelvic floor muscles during action. This allows you to get immediate feedback on how well you perform when trying to control these muscles. Usually this will be very fleeting before you make mistakes or fatigue.
Nevertheless, learning by using ultrasound imaging is not the bee all and end all, you can navigate around it. Learning some cues or sayings act as a good reminder to contract the pelvic floor correctly each time. In fact, research has established that the cue "shorten the penis" is the most effective at activating the desired muscles (1). Therefore for those men who don't have access to ultrasound feedback as a learning tool, it's beneficial to focus on using this cue as a guide. Luckily, this means you can be assured you're doing your pelvic floor contractions well.
Although, like with many exercises, it's important to make sure that you're not cheating with the wrong muscles. It's very common for men to activate everything in the beginning, like they're bracing for a stomach punch. This is not the goal! Feeling the abdominal and gluteal muscles firming under your hand will give you instant knowledge regarding any trickery. Gently easing into the muscle contraction will help you in this process. Aim to build up to a level of anywhere between 30-60% of what you think is the most you can do. From here it may not last long (2-5 secs) but see how long you can hold it for before it fades away.
Mastering Pelvic Floor Exercises
After getting over that initial hurdle it's critical to capitalise on what you've learnt so you can master it. Again, just like any skill that you learn, you need to practice repeatedly to get better and better. This helps the skill stay in your memory. You'll find that you won't need to be attentive to how you're doing them, it'll just happen automatically. The next steps are to continually challenge yourself to build greater power and endurance of these muscles. Doing so will help you completely empty your bladder, have harder erections and not have to worry about leakages during your favourite activities .
A large problem is that men usually don't keep pressing on with their exercises to a level where it remains to be difficult. Basically you need to keep doing these exercises beyond the point of only learning to get to a sufficient level of function. If you want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you don't train without breaking a sweat. It's not meant to be easy or enjoyable but this will help you reach your full potential, especially when trying to overcome these challenging issues.
Mapping out a pelvic floor exercise program to gradually increase its difficulty can be done in a number of ways, such as: building the endurance of how long you can hold a contraction, scaling the intensity of the contraction to build power, changing your body positions (thinking about the effect of gravity), and incorporating pelvic floor contractions into other gym based exercises. Therefore, as there are many pieces in this puzzle, it is an art to work out what fits your current ability level.
Still Stuck?
To cover bases it is best to start with some guided advice with a physiotherapist experienced in teaching men pelvic floor exercises. It can be particularly useful to be guided by another man, who knows and understands the male anatomy well. Especially if you're struggling to wrap your head around it or are unsure if you're doing things incorrectly.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE PELVIC FLOOR WITH OUR ONLINE COURSES
References
- Stafford RE, Ashton‐Miller JA, Constantinou C, Coughlin G, Lutton NJ, Hodges PW. Pattern of activation of pelvic floor muscles in men differs with verbal instructions. Neurourology and urodynamics. 2016 Apr;35(4):457-63.
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Source: https://onlineprostate.physio/how-to-perform-a-pelvic-floor-exercise-for-men/
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