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Kegel exercise
Sign in to saveAlso known as Kegel motion, pelvic-floor exercise
contracting and relaxing the muscles that form part of the pelvic floor
Key facts
- Pronunciation
- Kegel: / ˈ k eɪ ɡ əl , k iː -/
- Other names
- pelvic muscles exercise
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- physical exercise
- Named after
- Arnold Kegel
Show 4 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Arnold Kegel
- Commons category
- Kegel exercise
- time of discovery or invention
- 1947-00-00
- NCI Thesaurus ID
- C155847
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Kegel exercise, also known as pelvic floor exercise, involves repeatedly contracting and relaxing the muscles that form part of the pelvic floor, also sometimes colloquially referred to as the "Kegel muscles". The exercise can be performed many times a day, for several minutes at a time, but takes one to three months to begin to have an effect.
Kegel exercises aim to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. These muscles have many functions within the human body. In women, they are responsible for holding up the bladder, preventing urinary stress incontinence (especially after childbirth), vaginal and uterine prolapse. In men, these muscles are responsible for urinary continence, fecal continence, and ejaculation. Several tools exist to help with these exercises, although various studies debate the relative effectiveness of different tools versus traditional exercises.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Kegel exercise” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.