Are Kegel Weights useful for postpartum healing?
I am asked this so often on Instagram and during postpartum pelvic health appointments that I thought I would address it because the answer is (as it is with many things in life) - it depends!
What are Kegel Weights?
Kegel or Vaginal Weights have been used for years as a ‘postpartum recovery aid’ or for those women who have pelvic dysfunction such as leaking or prolapse symptoms. The idea is that a woman’s pelvic dysfunction must be linked in weakness, so by ‘weight training’ with our vagina we can solve our issues. A very famous form of a vaginal weight is Gwyneth Paltrow’s Jade Egg (sidenote: please use this $66USD that it costs towards a pelvic health assessment from a professional instead, ugh).
However, new research has shown us that strong pelvic floor muscles doesn’t automatically mean less peeing ourselves, better sex, fix prolapse. Our pelvic floor muscles are only part of a larger system that must be addressed for pelvic wellness (the diaphragm, core, low back, and hips enter the chat).
Cons
Grab a weight and hold it in your fist as hard as you can as you go about your daily activities. In a couple hours, let if go and assess how your hand feels. It most likely doesn’t feel stronger, in fact it probably feels weak, stiff and generally shitty. THEN WHY WOULD THIS BE THE SOLUTION FOR OUR PELVIC FLOOR MUSCLES?
Most muscles in our body don’t operate in a static hold, they are designed to fluctuate with movement demand and function. We want to train the pelvic floor muscles the same way - to turn on when we need them, and relax when we don’t. We’re looking for strength AND coordination.
If you’re thinking of using them for leaking pee with movement and exercise specifically, pelvic floor weights do not help the female athlete. Leigtner et al. (2018) discovered rise and fall of the pelvic floor during running gait. Muscles move as we move through space so squeezing a weight inside ourselves during a dynamic activity would be akin to holding our hands in fists while we went about our entire day - it’s not functional and doesn’t feel good.
Furthermore, optimal strength is not the goal for pelvic health. We’re looking for pelvic floor coordination (can you turn your muscles on/off when you want to?), normal range of motion, normal sensitization, and integration into the entire core system.
Pros
Having Kegels Weights inside our vagina can give us proprioceptive feedback or something to feel that our muscles are contracting against/opening around so we can feel the difference between muscle contraction and relaxation.
What would be great would be training using Kegel Weights in contraction and relaxation phases (similar to a bicep curl) as opposed to a static squeeze. This type of strength training would be more functional and mimic actual pelvic floor muscle activity.
In Summary
Pelvic floor muscle strength is a small piece of the pie in building a strong core and pelvic system. Kegel Weights do nothing to help with whole body issues like leaking pee, pelvic organ prolapse, pelvic pain, diastasis recti, and low back and hip pain.
Also we have to consider the type of muscle function we’re training. If all you practice is squeezing a weight consistently, you’re not working on pelvic floor and core integration, normal muscle performance (contract/relax) and sometimes we may even create muscle hypertonicity (muscles are stiff and difficult to move).
Kegel Weights may be used for biofeedback to tap back into this area of yout body but it should not be the end-all-be-all of your pelvic health.
Leightner, Monika. “Evaluation of Pelvic Floor Kinematics in Continent and Incontinent Women during Running: An Exploratory Study.” Neurology and Urodynamics (2018); 37: 609-818. DOI: 10.1002
