Pregnancy brings a whole host of changes to your body but one of the most significant changes happens in an area you can't see, your pelvic floor. The pregnancy hormone relaxin, alongside the increasing weight of your baby, puts pressure on your pelvic floor muscles. As a result, it can be more challenging for your muscles to hold your pelvic floor organs in their correct position. Those important organs include the bladder and bowel, explaining why a strong pelvic floor is so crucial to maintaining bladder and bowel control during and after your pregnancy. After all, no woman wants to worry about wetting herself every time she laughs, coughs, or sneezes! Luckily there are exercises you can do before, during, and after pregnancy, to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles, helping to support you in the best way. Some call them pelvic floor exercises, I call them kegels...
Kegel exercises help to strengthen pelvic floor muscles by developing long-lasting core strength from the inside out. They reduce lower back pain, prevent against post-pregnancy accidents, and - more importantly - improve your sex life.
Kegels are easy to do, you just squeeze the muscles you use to stop urine flow for three seconds, then relax for three seconds (please don't do this while on the toilet though!). You then just repeat the exercise 15 times per workout. One of the best things about kegal exercises is that they're free to do and can be done anywhere with no one knowing. You also don't break a sweat!
Luckily for chochas everywhere, kegel exercises are becoming more popular and with that popularity comes a rush of products designed to support and boost the exercise...the Elvie Trainer is one of them.
The Elvie Trainer (£169.00 elvie.com) is a small kegel exercise tracker and trainer built to encourage and help women strengthen their pelvic floor muscles. It is a small pebbled-shaped pod that goes up your chocha and connects (via Bluetooth) to an app. Using a patented system of force and motion sensors, Elvie guides women through various five minute workouts using real-time biofeedback which helps users do the exercise properly.
Much like a personal trainer, this bad boy really gets you working. As you build up your pelvic floor strength, you will move to more challenging levels and you can even keep track of your progress with a personalised LV score on the app's homepage.
I, as well as many other women, have seen great improvements after regularly training with the Elvie Trainer, on both the health and sex front. It takes a few sessions to get comfortable and confident using it but persevering is well worth it.
I will continue using it post-pregnancy to ensure my lady bits stay intact!
Much like a personal trainer, this bad boy really gets you working. As you build up your pelvic floor strength, you will move to more challenging levels and you can even keep track of your progress with a personalised LV score on the app's homepage.
I, as well as many other women, have seen great improvements after regularly training with the Elvie Trainer, on both the health and sex front. It takes a few sessions to get comfortable and confident using it but persevering is well worth it.
I will continue using it post-pregnancy to ensure my lady bits stay intact!