Whether you’re dealing with pelvic floor issues now or wanting to avoid them in the future, the Kegel really has a lot to offer. This classic exercise involves repeatedly contracting and relaxing your pelvic floor muscles, which sit like a basket at the bottom of your pelvis and support your bladder, uterus, ovaries, and rectum.
Pregnancy, childbirth, certain lifestyle habits, and aging can all weaken these muscles. And that raises your risk of issues including pee leakage, fecal incontinence, and pelvic organ prolapse, says Sara Reardon, D.P.T., a board-certified pelvic floor physical therapist and author of Floored: A Women’s Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage. Doing Kegels regularly can help combat these problems by strengthening your pelvic floor muscles.
But there’s a catch: The Kegel isn’t as simple as it sounds.
In fact, people botch the exercise all the time, which prevents them from reaping its benefits…and in some cases, even causes harm. Read on to learn six common Kegel mistakes, why they’re problematic, and how to correct them.
Meet the experts: Sara Reardon, D.P.T., a board-certified pelvic floor physical therapist and author of Floored: A Women’s Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage; Alex Hill, D.P.T., a board-certified pelvic health and oncology physical therapist and spokesperson for the American Physical Therapy Association.
You squeeze the wrong muscles.
Doing the contraction improperly is the most common error Reardon sees people make with Kegels. A lot of people incorrectly squeeze the big, external muscles—like the glutes, back, or thighs—which “basically overpowers the pelvic floor,” says Alex Hill, D.P.T., a board-certified pelvic health and oncology physical therapist and spokesperson for the American Physical Therapy Association. That means they don’t actually engage the pelvic floor muscles, which negates the benefits of the exercise.
Another mistake people make is pushing out while doing the Kegel, like they’re pooping or giving birth, Reardon says. This is essentially the opposite of what a proper Kegel is: The correct form, she explains, involves lifting and squeezing the pelvic floor muscles upward. The true Kegel movement, Hill adds, is “a lot more gentle” than many people realize. “I like to tell my patients that no one should be able to tell that you’re doing them.”
To master the Kegel, Reardon cues patients to think about sucking up a thick smoothie or picking up a blueberry with their vagina while simultaneously holding in gas. Those small cues can encourage you to gently engage your pelvic floor muscles instead of inadvertently tightening all the big muscles, she says.
Still not feeling quite right? Consider seeing a pelvic floor physical therapist for in-person training, Hill says. She points to a small, impactful study back in the 1990s, which found that when women were just given verbal or written instructions on how to do the Kegel, many of them performed it incorrectly—some to the extent that it could promote incontinence. Looping in a pro can help you nail good form. Find one near you by searching for pelvic floor specialists on ChoosePT.com.
You only do them sitting down.
The no-equipment nature of Kegels can make them a tempting exercise to do when you’re sitting on the couch, parked in your desk chair, or in the car waiting at a red light. But only performing them from a seated position is a no-go, Reardon says.
That’s because it doesn’t train your body to use and strengthen your pelvic floor muscles during the activities where you actually need them to work, like jumping, running, lifting heavy weights, or walking to the bathroom with a full bladder. Basically, seated Kegels don’t help you develop the real-world pelvic floor strength you need to properly support your pelvic organs.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a time and place for them, though. When you’re first learning how to do a Kegel, Reardon typically recommends seated ones as part of a progression. Start lying down so that you can “really learn to connect with the muscles” without the added stress of gravity, she says. When that feels easy, graduate to seated Kegels. And once those are no biggie, move on to standing Kegels and pair them with movements that mimic the specific ways you want to train the muscles to work. For example, if your goal is to pick up your grandkids without leaking pee, do Kegels along with weighted squats.
You do them while you pee.
Doing Kegels while peeing may sound odd, but Reardon says people adopt this habit “all the time.” It usually originates from a doctor instructing them to Kegel mid-pee as a way to ensure they’re engaging the right muscles and doing the exercise correctly. The thinking goes that “if you can stop your stream, that’s a Kegel,” Reardon explains.
And while that’s technically true, it’s not a great idea to habitually do this move while you urinate. That’s because to successfully empty your bladder, you need to relax (not contract) your pelvic floor, Reardon says. So it won’t do you a lot of good to practice a habit you don’t want to stick around.
Reardon advises trying a mid-pee Kegel just once to see if you’ve got the exercise down. After that, keep bathroom time and Kegel time separate.
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You do way too many.
Like many things in life, more is not always better. “I’ve had some people that come in doing 100 or 200 Kegels a day because they saw it on TikTok,” Hill says. That can be a problem, she says, because your pelvic floor is like any other muscle group in the body: It can get overworked if you do too many reps.
And that could end up exacerbating the very problem you’re trying to solve. For example, Hill says she’s had patients who do a bunch of Kegels to alleviate urinary leakage and end up with more leakage because their pelvic floor muscles are too wiped to adequately support the bladder.
There’s no one “right” number of Kegels to do each day—it depends on your specific issue and baseline strength level. But a common recommendation is to do between 20 and 40 daily, Hill says. Some people may need a little more and others may need less, she caveats, but you can start in that range and adjust up or down as needed.
You skip the relaxation step.
Engaging your pelvic floor for a Kegel is just one part of the equation. “You also have to relax afterward,” Reardon says—that step is just as important as the contraction.
If you’re only contracting your muscles and not fully releasing them, this can cause your pelvic floor to get overly tense, which can then make it difficult for you to relax it for activities such as peeing or pooping. “You’re essentially retraining [your pelvic floor muscles] to always be on or slightly on,” Hill says. “And sometimes they don’t need to be.”
To sidestep this error, Hill cues her patients to let go of all tension in between each rep. “It should feel like the vaginal opening and the rectum are just letting go, almost like right before you release to use the bathroom,” she says.
You consider Kegels a cure-all.
Yes, Kegels come with a lot of benefits, but they’re not a solution for all pelvic floor issues—nor are they appropriate for every person.
“A lot of people assume that pelvic floor problems always mean the pelvic floor muscles are weak,” says Hill. But sometimes, the root issue is pelvic floor tension, in which case doing a bunch of Kegels could actually worsen your symptoms, Reardon says. “It’s not the right exercise for many people,” she says. That’s why Reardon recommends anyone who’s dealing with pelvic floor issues get checked out by a pelvic floor therapist before adding Kegels to their routine; a pro can assess whether you’d benefit from the exercise, or if another approach (for example, doing specific stretches and massage techniques to alleviate tension) is the better bet.
If you don’t have any pelvic floor issues right now, but want to start doing Kegels as a preventive measure, it’s okay to try them at home first without going to a physical therapist, Reardon says. Just make sure they don’t trigger any new symptoms, such as tailbone pain, hip pain, painful sex, constipation, or difficulty starting your urine stream, she says. Those may be a sign you’re actually dealing with pelvic tension, in which case you should drop your Kegel routine and get evaluated by a PT.
Lastly, remember that Kegels are just one exercise, Reardon says. They are useful, but they may not solve all your pelvic floor problems by themselves. Sometimes, other treatment strategies—like posture training, breathing techniques, and changing your movement patterns—are needed. So if you’ve been doing Kegels (and doing them correctly) for six to eight weeks and your pelvic floor issues aren’t getting any better, Reardon recommends seeing a pro.
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