Bladder Control Exercises to Restore Your Confidence
Whether you’re a 24-year-old female athlete into competitive sports or a recently divorced 45-year-old mom of two who’s ready to date again, bladder leakage can hinder your confidence at times when you really want to shine. Unfortunately, most women--we’re talking 66%--have some level of urinary incontinence (aka: bladder leakage) bringing them down. Many of us may feel like there’s nothing we can do about it that we must simply just live with the symptoms for the rest of our lives.
The good news: With some focus and exercise, It is within your control. In fact, 80% of women who follow a proven routine for bladder control exercises are cured or can see symptoms dramatically decrease in less than 12 weeks. For many, symptoms go away within just a few weeks with focus and effort. The bad news: ignoring the symptoms means you can only expect embarrassing moments to become more and more frequent.
Lack of Bladder Control Over Time
If not addressed with bladder control exercises, the problem of incontinence becomes more extreme as women age. There is a common theme in the way many women handle the challenges of bladder leakage. See if this sounds familiar to you:
At first, you may choose denial and try to ignore the issue. You probably won’t wear pads to catch the leakage, but instead will try to avoid situations that exacerbate the problem. This may mean tightening up when coughing or trying not to sneeze. Then it becomes limiting laughter (no fun), avoiding exercise, and reducing travel.
Many women say they intentionally dehydrate to try to keep leakage down during important events. Skipping water for a day in certain moments may sound benign, but in fact, dehydration is dangerous and could easily create other health concerns. Dehydrating before public speaking is bad for your voice and affects concentration. Dehydrating before playing in sporting events could land you in the hospital. Dehydrating before a date can turn it into a very dry romance indeed.
At a certain point, you may have to succumb to wearing menstrual pads to catch the urine as you feel it is too embarrassing to buy or be seen carrying pads made for incontinence. Pads complicate planning on long days, not to mention worrying about odor, rashes, and leaking beyond the pad’s capacity. Long story short, if you are suffering from bladder leakage, you are more than likely stressed out trying to manage and hide the issue.
Pelvic Exercise Restores Control
There is good news! Rather than continually try to mask the issue, bladder control exercises can quickly fix the root cause of the problem. They’re also referred to as kegels. Doing kegels, as recommended by doctors, will take about 15 minutes a day made up of three separate five-minute workouts, every day of the week. That is roughly 100 minutes of isometric contractions per week.
If this time commitment stops you in your tracks, you’re not alone. Finding 100 minutes in a week added on top of an already busy life can seem unlikely for the modern woman trying to do it all with less and less time for self-care. Add to the time challenge, bladder control exercise form is key, with three out of four women doing bladder control exercises incorrectly, which means they may be wasting their time.
When Exercising the Pelvic Floor, Form Matters
Isometrically contracting the muscles of, and around, the vagina is hard to do correctly, unless you have the right tool. Using a tool to assist you in doing proper bladder control exercises may be a welcome addition to your routine to get your form right. You’ll save time by using a device that adds resistance training to super-charge your kegel routine, such as, of course, the Kegelbell training system.
Why Weights? Benefits of a Kegel Training System
Try this simple test: Put your arm down by your side and try to flex your bicep without moving your joints or using weight as resistance. While it’s possible, think of how much easier and more effective it is to put a weight in your hand and force your muscle to resist the weight. You know from experience that you’ll get better tone and faster results with weight.
This is also true with the muscles of the pelvic floor. You can reduce exercise time from the doctor-prescribed 100 minutes per week to just 10-15 minutes per week and see speedier results by amplifying your kegel routine with weight resistance.
Reclaim Your Confidence
If you begin your bladder control exercises with vaginal weights, you can accelerate the time it takes to reduce your bladder leakage concerns. While individual results vary, you can expect to see some improvements after just two weeks of training. Your confidence and trust in your body will follow as you regain control.
Lift it. Love it. #kegelbell
