Exercises for Bladder Problems

Urinary incontinence, while not a life-threatening condition, is often embarrassing and may severely impact your lifestyle and activities. It strikes both sexes, although women are twice as likely to experience incontinence. Age, menopause, immobility and mere stress on your body from life can weaken the pelvic floor muscles. Some common causes of incontinence include pregnancy, giving birth, obesity, constipation and urinary tract infections as well as side effects from medication. All of these conditions can cause acute bladder incontinence. Usually, if these muscles do become weak, exercises can make them strong again.

Stop the Frequent Urges

• Pelvic muscles support the urethra and the bladder. When these become weak, so does you ability to hold urine in your bladder. As with all muscles, without exercise they can become weak. In the case of pelvic muscles, the result can often be a weak bladder. Kegel exercises are a commonly prescribed rehabilitative exercise for people with temporary incontinence. These exercises strengthen the pelvic floor and have been known to be effective in eliminating temporary urinary incontinence. Before you attempt Kegel exercises, you need to understand what muscles to isolate. An easy way to understand is to pretend that you have to empty your bladder but you must hold it in. Actually imagine urinating and then having to stop mid-way. That feeling of stopping, holding it in, happens when you engage the very same muscles that are used in Kegel. Alternatively, you can tighten the rectal muscles as if you were holding in gas.

Squeeze, Release, Repeat ...

• The two types of Kegel exercises are the quick and the slow Kegel. The quick Kegel is simply the process of squeezing and relaxing the pelvic floor muscles very quickly, usually in sets of 10. During the slow version, tighten the muscles, hold up to 10 seconds and then release. Again you should do these in sets of 10. Ideally, to see change, do Kegel sets four times a day. You may not be able to do very many at the start, but four sets of 10 should be the eventual goal. Then every week, increase the sets until your pelvic floor muscles get stronger. It may take a few weeks to see any progress, so it is imperative that you develop a regular routine. As always, consult a physician for follow-up exams, if your condition worsens or you see no improvement.

A New Meaning to Weight Training

• Another lesser-known pelvic floor exercise therapy for women who suffer with incontinence is vaginal weight training. This is often used for stress incontinence. Vaginal weights are shaped like small cones and come in sets of four or five with different weight values just like hand weights. The cones generally weigh 20 to 80 g. You insert the cone and tighten the muscles around the vagina for several minutes. You should build up to 15 minutes and be able to increase the weights as you grow stronger. Ideally the exercise should be performed for 30 minutes. You should add vaginal weight training into your routine so that you are doing your exercises every day, two times a day.