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The Kegel Queen’s Top Three Reasons You Should
Never Do Kegels While Driving Your Car
by Alyce Adams, RN
The Kegel Queen
You’ve heard that kegels are the do-anywhere exercise. “I’m doing them right now! Right here at this
meeting! I’m doing them while I’m talking to you and you don’t even know!” Millions of women are
doing kegels this way, a few quick pelvic floor muscle contractions whenever they think of it, when
they’re stopped at a red light, sitting in a boring meeting, or standing in line at the bank.
You’ve heard that kegels can help urinary incontinence, or even cure it completely. You’ve heard that
kegels can help prevent your bladder, rectum, and uterus from falling out of place. You’ve heard how
dramatically a well-toned pelvic floor can improve your sex life. All this is true — but only if you are
doing kegels correctly. You just can’t effectively strengthen your pelvic floor while you drive your car or
wait in a grocery line.
The Kegel Queen’s First Reason You Should Never Do Kegels While Driving Your Car:
A Strong Contraction Needs Your Full Attention
To build strength, you need to squeeze those muscles as hard as you can. You need to give it all you’ve
got, and hold the muscle contraction. This kind of effort takes your focused concentration. If you are
trying to drive and do kegels at the same time, you’re either going to do wimpy kegels or crash the car.
If you do weight training, you know that to build and strengthen muscle, you need to do a small number
of reps, at slow speeds, with a heavy weight. Doing a lot of quick reps with a light load might be useful
aerobic exercise, but it’s not the best way to build strength. It’s the same with your pelvic floor (although,
fortunately, you don’t need weights of any kind). You need to work hard to create strength.
The Sprint or the Marathon?
You have two types of muscles in your body. There’s smooth muscle, which usually operates without
your conscious control, like the muscles in your stomach and intestines which move your food along as
you digest it. Then there’s skeletal muscle. Skeletal muscle is connected to your bones, and you usually do
control it consciously, as when you move your arm or leg. The pelvic floor is made of skeletal muscle.
Skeletal muscles have two types of fibers in them: slow-twitch fibers and fast-twitch fibers. Slow-twitch
fibers are involved in maintaining posture and work steadily over long periods of time. Think of them as
“marathon fibers.” Fast-twitch fibers give you a burst of power but fatigue quickly. You can think of these
as “sprint fibers.”
Every muscle in the body has different amounts of slow-twitch (marathon) and fast-twitch (sprint)
fibers. The pelvic floor muscles are made of seventy percent marathon fibers, to do the constant work of
holding the weight of your organs, and thirty percent sprint fibers. The sprint fibers are activated when
you do a high-intensity kegel, when you have an orgasm*, or when a sneeze, cough, heavy lifting, or some
other activity causes increased pressure on the pelvic floor. When you do a kegel, the marathon fibers are
already engaged, because they’re working all the time. During kegels your goal is to actively engage the
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sprint fibers, because that’s what will build strength and increase muscle mass in the pelvic floor. In order
to activate the sprint fibers, you need to contract your pelvic floor beyond seventy percent intensity. So
on a scale of one to ten, if one is relaxed, and ten is squeezing your pelvic floor as hard as you can, you
should be aiming for eight, nine, or ten when you do your kegels. This requires more concentration than
you can spare during a boring meeting or in line at the bank. Certainly, you can’t give kegels that kind of
attention while you’re driving.
* Please note: The muscle contractions of orgasm do activate the fast-twitch (sprint) fibers of the pelvic
floor muscles. However, because these contractions are brief and rapid, not slow and sustained, orgasms
don’t do much to build pelvic floor strength. Sorry, folks!
The Kegel Queen’s Second Reason You Should Never Do Kegels While Driving Your Car:
Routine Is Crucial
Doing kegels whenever and wherever you find a moment is not an effective strategy. You need to do
them consistently. Most women who do kegels whenever they get the chance are still peeing their pants
even after they try a kegel program. Women who do succeed are those who link kegel sessions to
activities they are already doing each day at a certain time. This means you need to plan your sessions
around something you already do predictably on a daily basis, such as going to bed at night, taking a
medication, doing another exercise routine, or taking your lunch break. If you wait until you find
yourself at a red light or find yourself in line somewhere, the research says you just won’t stick to it.
Perhaps you have a routine commute, and you reliably do the same drive each day at the same time.
Great! Just plan on sitting in the car and doing your kegel workout before you start the ignition, or after
you have arrived at your destination and parked the car.
The Kegel Queen’s Third Reason You Should Never Do Kegels While Driving Your Car:
Relax, Relax, Relax
One more reason you don’t want to do kegels whenever and wherever is that you want to enjoy your kegel
session and use it as a time to consciously relax. Relaxation is an important part of kegel practice for three
reasons.
First, researchers have found that women who succeed with a kegel program are those who find their
kegel practice relaxing. Women who find it boring generally don’t stick with it.
Second, between kegel contractions, you must relax the pelvic floor completely and let it rest. This is far
easier if you are relaxing the other muscles of your body, as well as relaxing your mind, at the same time.
While you’re doing kegels, you need to relax the pelvic floor muscles fully, for a certain length of time,
between contractions. This rest period ensures that you are ready to give the next contraction your full
effort, and we’ve already talked about how important that is. Also, developing your ability to fully relax
the pelvic floor helps refine your ability to control those muscles. Better pelvic floor muscle control helps
with bladder control. It also helps you have better sex.
Finally, relaxation helps you enjoy your kegel session. If you want to stick with any kind of exercise
program, enjoying the exercise is a key ingredient. In our fast-paced culture, most of us are pretty
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stressed out. The Kegel Queen Three Minute Workout incorporates relaxation and slow, deep breathing
as an integral part of the program because relaxation reduces stress and makes you feel good. If you feel
good when you do your kegels, you’ll keep doing them.
I want you to enjoy your life more. That’s why I’m teaching women about kegels. I want you to enjoy good
health, dry pants, and better sex. And I want you to enjoy your kegel sessions. So please, find a quiet
place where you can focus, close your eyes, and relax. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you again, that quiet
place is not behind the wheel of your car!
What Is the Pelvic Floor, and What Does a Kegel Actually Do?
In simple terms, the pelvic floor is a flexible hammock of muscle which holds and supports your bladder,
uterus, and rectum. It also helps carry the weight of your abdominal organs. Getting older, pregnancy
and childbirth, and other factors can weaken the pelvic floor. This can lead to pelvic organ prolapse (the
bladder, uterus, or rectum falling out of place), or urinary or fecal incontinence (i.e., you need adult
diapers).
Kegel exercises are contractions of the pelvic floor muscles. This is also called pelvic floor muscle
training. When the pelvic floor contracts, it moves up toward your head and forward toward the front
of your body, and the openings of the urethra, vagina, and anus are squeezed so that they are more
tightly closed. Practicing kegels correctly and consistently causes the pelvic floor to become thicker,
stronger, and more firm, and builds your ability to consciously control the pelvic floor muscles.
Done correctly, kegels have no negative side effects. And unlike drugs, surgery, or any other medical
treatment I’ve ever heard of, they offer this fabulous positive side effect: better sex.
How Can Kegels Help Me Not Pee in My Pants?
Pelvic floor muscle training — doing kegels — conditions and strengthens the muscles you use to stop
urine from coming out. It also gives you practice identifying and controlling those muscles. Over time,
as the pelvic floor becomes thicker and more firm, it holds the bladder and urethra (the tube through
which urine exits your bladder) in a slightly different position. This puts a little kink in the urethra
where it meets the bladder, which helps stop urine leaks 24/7, like bending a kink into a garden hose to
shut it off.
How Can Kegels Help with Prolapse?
The pelvic floor is an elastic, flexible hammock of muscle which holds up the organs in your pelvis and
abdomen. If the pelvic floor is too weak to do its job, the pelvic organs (the bladder, uterus, and rectum)
lose support. They can literally fall through the natural opening in the pelvic floor muscles and bulge out
the vagina. This is pelvic organ prolapse. If you’ve had a baby, there’s a fifty percent chance that you have
some form of prolapse. Older women, in particular, may have prolapse whether or not they’ve ever been
pregnant. Prolapse can be so mild that you don’t even know you have it, or it can be so severe that the
uterus, or the rectum or bladder covered by the vaginal wall, actually hang out of the vagina and make
normal function impossible.
Kegels, performed correctly, make the pelvic floor muscle stiffer and thicker, making a stronger
hammock to support your organs. A kegel program can also increase the muscles’ response when the
nervous system tells the pelvic floor to contract. Over time, kegels can cause the pelvic floor to
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permanently lift the pelvic organs into a higher position, and the pelvic openings may grow more
narrow. These changes all improve your chances of preventing or improving prolapse.
How Can Kegels Help Me Have Better Sex?
Kegels can help you enjoy better sex in several ways.
• Kegels fine-tune your ability to contract and relax the pelvic floor muscles at will. Doing this during
sex can increase your pleasure.
• Exercising the pelvic floor increases blood flow to the pelvic floor and genital region while you
exercise. Also, as you build muscle over time, blood flow to that region is better not just during exercise,
but all the time. Strong, healthy circulation to the pelvic floor and genitals is an important part of
functioning at your best sexually.
• A firm, well-toned pelvic floor firms and tightens the opening of the vagina, both during a kegel and
at rest.
• After doing a kegel program, women have reported increased desire and arousal, reduced pain with
intercourse, greater lubrication, more and better orgasms, and more satisfaction with sex overall.
How Can I Learn More?
You’ve received this special report because you signed up at www.kegelqueen.com to receive information
from me. Stay tuned! You’ll get updates and information about Kegel Queen classes (in person or by
phone); announcements when I release new books, CDs, and other goodies; health tips; Kegel Queen
news; and more. If a friend has shared this fact sheet with you, please visit www.kegelqueen.com and
sign up to receive my updates. Don’t worry, I won’t bury you with spam. And I won’t share your contact
information, ever.
By the way, I’m a seriously good cook and I’ll be sending you recipes occasionally too. What does this
have to do with your pelvic floor? Nothing! I’m all about helping you enjoy your life more, so I want you
to enjoy some great recipes for delicious, seasonal, healthy, natural food.
I’ll see you at www.kegelqueen.com!
In good health,
Alyce
Alyce Adams, RN
The Kegel Queen
www.kegelqueen.com
Copyright 2008 Alyce Adams, RN. Kegel Queen, Kegel Queen
Three-Minute Workout, and Three-Minute Pelvic Floor Workout
are service marks of Alyce Adams, RN.
Disclaimer: Pelvic floor muscle training can benefit many women in many ways. However, the specific results I describe here
may not be experienced by every woman and are not necessarily typical. Every woman’s body, genetic makeup, and health
history are unique. The results you get with the Kegel Queen program are dependent on the work you put into the program,
as well as your individual anatomy and physiology, pelvic floor nerve or muscle damage you may have experienced, the type
and severity of incontinence you have had, and other factors. Please consult a health care provider if you have pelvic organ
prolapse or significant sexual dysfunction, or if you have urinary incontinence that is severe, has appeared suddenly, or has
suddenly become worse. All Kegel Queen informational material, including the material presented here, is for educational
purposes only. It does not constitute medical advice and is not a substitute for medical advice or other medical care.