One of the best ways to support your prostate is to engage in Kegel exercises for prostate health. Are you ready to exercise your pelvic muscles? The good news is, you don’t need special shoes, you won’t break a sweat, and you don’t even have to get out of your chair. Kegel exercises fit every one of these criteria, and they also are an excellent way to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles.
To do Kegel exercises for prostate health, you repetitively tighten the pubococcygeus (PC) muscle, which is a muscle that runs from the pubic bone to the tail bone. It is also the same muscle you clench when passing gas.
This clenching action, practiced several times a day with 20 to 40 repetitions each time, can help men achieve better control of urinary flow, enhance sexual arousal, and improve prostate health. Keeping your PC muscle toned may help reduce or eliminate an inflamed prostate.
Kegel exercises are also recommended before men undergo prostatectomy (prostate surgery) because they can facilitate recovery in men, especially when it comes to urinary incontinence, which is a common side effect of the procedure. In a study of 32 men who were scheduled to undergo radical prostatectomy, half of the participants were assigned to an intervention group (biofeedback plus Kegel exercise training before and after surgery) or to a control group (standard postoperative care plus written instructions on Kegel exercises).
During one-, three-, and six-month follow-up sessions after radical prostatectomy, occurrences of urinary incontinence were significantly less among the men in the intervention group. That is, continence was achieved by six, eight, and ten patients at each follow-up, respectively, versus no patients, one patient, and one patient in the control group, respectively.
Read more in our Prostate Cancer Health Center.
Reference
Tienforti D et al. Efficacy of an assisted low-intensity programme of perioperative pelvic floor muscle training in improving the recovery of continence after radical prostatectomy: a randomized controlled trial. BJU International 2012 Oct; 110(7): 1004-10
