What this resource is
This print-friendly guide helps a person with female pelvic anatomy record pelvic-floor instructions for bladder, bowel, support, pregnancy, postpartum, menopause, sexual-health, or general training goals. It does not infer identity, diagnosis, weakness, or the need to strengthen from anatomy alone.
Print this page from the browser when a paper copy is useful. Navigation, advertising spaces, and promotional calls to action are hidden in print, while the instructions, blank fields, related context, and sources remain.
Review the on-screen version again if the page shows a newer update date.
How to use the handout
Choose only the sections that match your goal. Write clinician-supplied variables in the blank fields rather than copying a friend’s plan. Pregnancy stage, birth recovery, prolapse symptoms, pain, surgery, and difficulty emptying can change what is appropriate, so existing maternity or treatment-team advice takes precedence.
Read every safety boundary before completing the fields. Keep a completed copy private because bladder, bowel, sexual-health, pregnancy, surgery, or symptom notes can be sensitive. This resource is educational and does not establish a clinician–patient relationship.
Close, lift, breathe, and release
A common cue is to close gently around the urethral, vaginal, and anal openings and sense an inward lift, without bearing down. The movement should be followed by a complete release and normal breathing. IUGA/ICS terminology treats pelvic-floor training as a broader process than repeated maximal squeezing and includes functional qualities such as coordination and relaxation.
Different goals need different reasoning
Stress leakage, urgency, vaginal heaviness, postpartum recovery, bowel symptoms, sexual symptoms, and pelvic pain can overlap but are not the same target. A generic contraction programme cannot diagnose the cause. Record which symptom or function the plan is intended to address, how improvement will be judged, and when lack of progress should trigger reassessment.
Pregnancy, postpartum, and prolapse
Conservative pelvic-floor guidance is included in NICE pelvic-floor dysfunction guidance, but individual decisions still depend on symptoms and context. During pregnancy or after birth, follow obstetric and postpartum advice for wounds, bleeding, infection, pain, pressure, and return to activity. With prolapse symptoms, pressure management and activity modification may matter alongside any contraction plan.
When relaxation or assessment comes first
Pain with penetration, persistent pelvic tension, inability to release, difficulty urinating or opening the bowel, or worsening symptoms after exercise should not be answered automatically with more Kegels. Pause painful practice and seek an appropriate pelvic-health assessment. Internal examination is not mandatory for every visit and should be explained, consented to, and modifiable or declineable.
Personal or clinician-supplied fields
Leave any item blank when it has not been assessed or agreed. Blank space means “not supplied”; it is not an invitation to invent a dose, diagnosis, treatment date, or clearance decision.
Goal, symptoms, and relevant life stage
Approved movement cue and position
Effort, hold, release, rest, repetitions, and frequency
Stop rules, review date, and clinician notes
Safety and review boundaries
Pause an exercise that causes pain or clearly worsens symptoms.
Seek a qualified pelvic-health physiotherapist or other appropriate clinician when technique is uncertain, symptoms are complex, emptying is difficult, a programme is not helping, or treatment and recovery affect exercise choice.
New or severe symptoms may require medical assessment rather than an exercise review.
The page cannot examine tissue healing, muscle activity, sensation, coordination, prolapse, retention, infection, neurological function, or the reason for leakage. A completed form records observations and instructions; it does not convert them into a diagnosis or prove that the exercise was performed correctly.
Review before reusing
Date the printed copy and replace it when professional instructions, symptoms, medicines, pregnancy stage, catheter status, treatment, or functional goals change. Do not keep progressing an old plan because it is convenient.
If the resource is shared by a clinician, that clinician remains responsible for checking that the written variables and safety route fit the individual.
Related guides
Continue with Female pelvic-floor anatomy, Signs of a weak pelvic floor in women, and Hypertonic pelvic-floor symptoms in women.
Sources
- Bø K et al. Evidence-Based Physical Therapy for the Pelvic Floor. 3rd ed. Elsevier; 2023. Chapter 7.1: Female Stress Urinary Incontinence. Official or indexed source.
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Pelvic floor dysfunction: prevention and non-surgical management. NG210. 2021. Official or indexed source.
- Bø K, Frawley HC, Haylen BT, et al. An International Urogynecological Association (IUGA)/International Continence Society (ICS) joint report on the terminology for the conservative and nonpharmacological management of female pelvic floor dysfunction. Int Urogynecol J. 2017;28(2):191-213. doi:10.1007/s00192-016-3123-4. Official or indexed source.
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Kegel Exercises. National Institutes of Health. Official or indexed source.