How Often Do I Need To Do My Pelvic Floor Exercises?

Do I need to do pelvic floor exercises every day?

Can pelvic floor exercises reduce urinary incontinence?

There is a lot of evidence to support the fact that a good pelvic floor training program can reduce urinary incontinence but knowing what to do and how often to do it can be really confusing for a lot of women.

Urinary incontinence/leaking is thought to affect up to 1/4 of women however pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) has been shown in several studies to significant improve or completely get rid of the symptoms of leaking. This is really encouraging for anyone who is suffering with these symptoms however up until recently there has been a lack of research into how best to train the pelvic floor and how often you should be doing the exercises.

A recent paper by Garcia et al (2019) analysed all of the recent studies looking at PFMT and has helped to answer this question. What they found was that PFMT using short sessions (10–45 min) and with a frequency of 3 and 7 days per week creates the biggest change in women suffering with urinary incontinence.

This is quite a big move away from the more traditional approach of women having to do lots and lots of sets everyday, which for most people is just not achievable. This makes sense, as the pelvic floor is still just a muscle and can be trained in the same way that you would train your glutes or your biceps. This also makes PFMT much more achievable - being able to do 10/15 minutes of specific exercises 3/4 times a week is something most of us can fit in.

Using this knowledge of training your pelvic floor like you would any other muscle makes creating a training plan much easier. Like with any other training program we want to gradually build up the difficulty of the exercises that we are doing and gradually add resistance to make them harder.

For example, with the pelvic floor, you might start with just simple pelvic floor squeezes before building into doing these pelvic floor squeezes with more functional movements such as the bridge and the clam. Once you are feeling confident doing those then you can start adding in more difficult movements like the squat and the lunge - first just bodyweight and then adding something such as resistance bands or weights.

Training the pelvic floor should reflect what you do on a daily basis - the traditional way of squeezing your pelvic floor at traffic lights is not enough for a normal busy mum who is lifting their baby and running after their toddler. We need to up the game and add in movements such as squats which will build the strength to allow you to pick up your baby easily and with no leaking.

If you are looking at a more guided program that expertly guides you through the process of building up your pelvic floor then please do have a look at my ‘Pelvic Floor Strong’ program here . This is a uniquely designed 6 week online program that will leave you feeling strong and confident in your pelvic floor.