What this resource is
This print-friendly handout helps an adult remember the basic ideas behind a pelvic-floor contraction: identify the intended area, use a comfortable squeeze and inward lift, keep breathing, avoid unnecessary bracing, and release fully. It is an educational prompt, not a diagnosis or a universal exercise prescription.
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
Read the whole sheet before practising. If a qualified clinician has examined you or supplied different cues, positions, timing, repetitions, or stop rules, write those instructions in the fields and follow them instead. Practise away from urination; routinely interrupting the urine stream is not a workout.
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.
The movement in plain language
Pelvic-floor exercise is often described as closing around the openings and gently lifting inward. The visible movement may be small. The ICS assessment terminology distinguishes contraction, relaxation, endurance, coordination, and other qualities, so a forceful squeeze is not the whole task. A correct action should not require breath-holding, bearing down, or a large movement of the hips.
A simple technique check
Choose a supported position. Let the jaw, abdomen, buttocks, and thighs stay as quiet as practical, breathe normally, and try a comfortable close-and-lift action. Then stop the effort and allow a complete release. The aim is not to hold background tension all day. If the movement cannot be found without straining, more repetitions are unlikely to solve the uncertainty.
What this handout does not prescribe
There is no hold time, set count, daily frequency, or progression printed here because an appropriate dose depends on the goal, current function, symptoms, and response. Incontinence, 7th Edition and the pelvic-floor training textbook record describe training as more than a single contraction. A plan may address awareness, coordination, strength, endurance, power, relaxation, or use during a task.
Signs to pause
Stop and reassess if practice causes pain, increasing pelvic pressure, new difficulty emptying the bladder or bowel, worsening urgency, or symptoms that persist after the session. Urgent medical symptoms such as new numbness around the saddle area, sudden major bladder or bowel change, fever with illness, or unexplained bleeding require appropriate medical care rather than an exercise adjustment.
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.
My reason for using this handout
Clinician-approved cue or position
Clinician-approved timing and repetitions
Symptoms or changes to discuss
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 how to do kegels correctly, contracting and fully relaxing, and When to see a pelvic-health physiotherapist.
Sources
- Cardozo L, Rovner E, Wagg A, Wein A, Abrams P, eds. Incontinence. 7th ed. International Consultation on Incontinence and International Continence Society; 2023. Chapter 8, section 2: Pelvic Floor Muscle Training, p. 807. Official or indexed source.
- Frawley H, Shelly B, Morin M, et al. An International Continence Society (ICS) report on the terminology for pelvic floor muscle assessment. Neurourol Urodyn. 2021;40(5):1217-1260. doi:10.1002/nau.24658. Official or indexed source.
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Kegel Exercises. National Institutes of Health. Official or indexed source.
- Bø K, Berghmans B, Mørkved S, Van Kampen M, eds. Evidence-Based Physical Therapy for the Pelvic Floor. 3rd ed. Elsevier; 2023. Chapter 5: Measurement of Pelvic Floor Muscle Function and Strength. Official or indexed source.