You might have heard of your 'pelvic muscle', your 'Kegel muscle' or your 'PC muscles', but did you know that your pelvic floor is not just a single muscle, rather a layer of muscles, fibres and ligaments that work together to support your pelvic organs and give you urogenital control.
Your Pelvic Floor Muscles
Your pelvic floor muscles, or 'Kegel muscles' are made up of three main layers of pelvic muscle:
The superficial group: This is the group of muscles that are found at the entrance to the vagina. This is the group that helps with sexual function and help you to control the bladder. After childbirth, these muscles can become weak. They can also weaken over time due to aging and the menopause.
The urogenital muscle group: This is the group of muscles that surround the urinary and genital muscles, and are responsible for bladder function.
The deep pelvic floor muscle group: This is called the levator ani, and extends from the pubic bone at the front, towards the coccyx at the back and the side walls towards the hips. It is a broad, thin group of muscles which is made up of 3 parts:
- The iliococcygeus muscle
- The pubococcygeus muscle
- The puborectalis muscle
This group of muscles is the main support for your pelvic floor, and provides a sort of 'hammock' for your pelvic organs, and forms a platform which helps to keep your pelvic organs in place. Pelvic floor muscles are also important for sexual function in men and women. It is important in men for erectile function and ejaculation and in women squeezing of the pelvic floor muscles is responsible for sexual sensation and arousal. In women our pelvic floor muscles provide support for the baby during pregnancy and assist in the birthing process. The pelvic floor muscles work with the core muscles of the abdomen and back muscles to stabilise and support the spine so they are vital for posture and support.
You should make exercising your Kegel muscles a part of your daily exercise routine. Dr Arnold Kegel published his clinical research in 1948 about the importance of pelvic exercise – but it seems as though women still don't realise how important it really is!
Did you know there is a good Kegel and a bad Kegel?
It's really important that you exercise the correct pelvic floor muscles in the correct way to make sure your pelvic floor is strong and healthy.
Kegel8 makes it easy!
When you exercise with a Kegel8 Ultra 20 Digital Pelvic Toner, you can be sure that you are giving your pelvic floor muscles the very best workout possible. When you do manual Kegel exercises correctly, you target around 40% of the pelvic floor, but a Kegel8 Pelvic Toner works around 90% of the pelvic floor, right down to the deepest layers of pelvic floor muscle.
Discover more effective pelvic floor exercises in just 12 weeks, with the help of the Kegel8 Ultra 20 & Amanda Savage!
Amanda Savage is one of the UK’s leading specialist pelvic floor and women’s health physiotherapists, who has worked in the field for over 20 years offering supervised pelvic floor muscle training and support for the recovery of pelvic organ prolapses, incontinence and pelvic surgeries. With post-graduate qualifications, including a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge, she has also gained full membership of the Professional Network of Pelvic, Obstetric & Gynaecological Physiotherapy (POGP). As a Kegel8 ambassador, Amanda Savage has worked alongside us for many years in the development of our best-selling device, the Kegel8 Ultra 20 V2 Electronic Pelvic Toner, to ensure its efficacy. In addition, she has been integral to ensuring all supporting information and instructions are medically accurate so that the device is used correctly/effectively, and treatment is tailored to the specific condition of the user.
Find out more about Amanda Savage, her qualifications, experience, knowledge, and affiliations here.
Comes complete with an easy exercise plan, created by Amanda Savage, to get results in 12 weeks!
The included exercise plan designed to promote more effective pelvic floor exercises not only ensures the efficacy of Kegels when using the device, it actively encourages the user to practise contracting their muscles alongside the machine, which prepares them for ‘real life’ scenarios when they don’t have access to the machine. In addition, by training the brain to correctly identify the location of the pelvic floor muscles, it will improve the user’s ability to perform independent pelvic floor exercises and help them to ‘hold’ a contraction. This ensures more effective pelvic floor exercise, whether training with or without the device.
It is thought that many women push downwards during independent pelvic floor exercises, which, rather than strengthening the muscles, can lead to further damage. In addition, it can be difficult to locate and target the correct muscles, making exercise less effective. The Kegel8 Ultra 20 V2 Electronic Pelvic Toner removes the guesswork and essentially acts as a Sat-Nav for your pelvic floor muscles, correctly targeting and stimulating a contraction within them using a small electric current. These contractions not only build strength and tone in a matter of weeks, but they also calm the nerves that are responsible for a sensitive bladder! With 20 clinically proven pelvic floor exercise programmes which vary in frequency, intensity and duration, the Ultra 20 is proven to treat a variety of different conditions, including bladder weakness and sensitivity, lack of intimate sensation, pelvic organ prolapses, pelvic pain and more. And, in addition to tailored programmes, the specific condition guides created by Amanda Savage advise exactly how the device should be used to ensure optimum results.