Get Busy Whilst Busy

A strong pelvic floor (or the love muscle) means a more enjoyable sex life and better bladder control. The ‘pelvic floor’ is not something you may have thought too much about before now. It’s a muscle consisting of three layers of muscle tissue that attach to the pubic bone, tailbone and sitting bones.

It’s important for all women to strengthen their pelvic floor: childbirth really changes and weakens the muscle, but it also weakens with age. If you neglect your pelvic floor, just like any other muscle and don’t exercise it, it becomes weak and loses tone.

To give mums an idea of what happens, your pelvic floor lies relatively flat before pregnancy. Then the additional weight of the growing baby bears down on it, weakening it and causing it to sag. Imagine someone lying in the hammock - it drops to the pressure and the same happens to your pelvic floor. When combining any tearing with childbirth itself, it’s not hard to see that this poor muscle really takes a beating.

This can lead to many women experiencing the following symptoms:

• Leaking urine when coughing, laughing, sneezing or during exercise or physical activity (even walking upstairs or long walks).
• Leaking urine before reaching the toilet

Did you know?

• 1 in 3 women suffer incontinence problems 5 years after childbirth
• In the USA 50% of women aged 55 or over suffer one or more of the problems caused by pelvic floor dysfunction

(Bristol Urological Institute: www.biomedhtc.org.uk)

This isn’t something you should have to live with even if you have had children. Your pelvic floor can be treated with specific exercises known as ‘Kegels’, (after Dr. Arnold Kegel, a gynaecologist who created them). They are the only proven way to treat, repair and strengthen your pelvic floor. The great thing is you can do them sitting, lying or standing - without getting out of breath or sweaty and without a gym.

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The first thing to do is to identify the two key muscles. As we can’t really see them when exercising here’s a way of getting familiar with them. Keep your bottom relaxed and keep breathing throughout.

The Posterior (rear) Pelvic Floor

• Sit or lie down - your thighs, bottom and abdomen should be completely relaxed.
• Imagine you are in public and feel the need to pass wind. Pull up and tighten the ring of muscle around the back passage. Then relax it. Practice this several times until you are sure you are exercising your rear pelvic floor.

The Anterior Pelvic Floor

• Pretend you are trying to stop passing urine - mid-stream by pulling up the muscles of the vagina, then relax. Visualisation can help out here.

Tip: To check if you are doing it correctly, place one hand above your pubic bone. When you tighten and pull up you’ll feel the muscles lift and shut. If your stomach bulges out you are holding your breath, which you want to avoid, so try counting out loud.

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Kylie’s bottom was a nationwide phenomenon and front page news everywhere so you know what effect getting it into shape can have! A toned bottom can really lift your body confidence so here are some top moves to sculpt your butt.

These moves are so effective! They exercise each of the muscles of your bottom (of which there are three), the Gluteus Maximus (main rounded part of the bottom), Gluteus Minimus (where your bottom goes into the top of the back of your thigh) and Gluteus Medius (outside of the bottom). What’s more some of them target other muscles too so you can exercise far more efficiently!

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A flat stomach is every woman’s dream, whether you’ve had children or not! With a flat stomach you can feel confident in a swimsuit and slim in your party dress. With some core exercises and eating plenty of lean protein, essential good fats and a variety of coloured vegetables and fruit your stomach can really flatten. There are also some easy moves that you can do in five minutes to help you slim down your waist.

Please click on the following video for a demonstration of all of the above.

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Certain hormones in the body, known as endorphins affect how you feel and can be boosted naturally with exercise. Endorphins are released by your brain during sport and other exhilarating activity!

Getting the right contraception to suit you is also important in managing harmonious hormones. Intrauterine contraception and other long-term options offer a convenient alternative for busy women to enable you to enjoy your life and love life to the full.

Research has shown that enjoyable exercise can double the amount of endorphins you produce and the more endorphins your brain releases the better your mood. So get busy with exercise and you’ll reap the rewards.

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