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• You squeeze the wrong muscles.
• You only do them sitting down.
• You do them while you pee.
• You do way too many.
• You skip the relaxation step.
• You consider Kegels a cure-all.

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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.

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.

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The 4 more Kegel mistakes shown here are available after clicking the (https) link @ the bottom of the page

You do them while you pee.

You do way too many.

You skip the relaxation step.

You consider Kegels a cure-all

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Thomas Barwick//Getty Images

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