How to Become a Kegel Ninja!

Recently, there has been some debate on my blog about Kegel exercises. It appears that people just aren't sure how, when, or even where to do them. There's a lot of conflicting information out there, so I ambled over to the library website to do a little research.

Kegel (often misspelled as "keggle" or "kegle") exercises are named after the gynaecologist Dr. Arnold Kegel, who cared so much about vaginas that he gave them exercises to do so that they could stay in shape.

Kegel exercises are done by clenching and unclenching the muscles at the bottom of the pelvis, specifically, the pubococcygeus muscle. When you try them -- as I'm sure you are at this very moment -- you'll want to focus on clenching the same muscles that you might use to stop yourself from peeing. It is alright for your abs to clench, but make sure that you aren't tightening your thighs -- if you are, then you aren't focusing on the right muscle.

Kegel exercises strengthen the pubococcygeus muscle (aka the PC or Kegel muscle), which is found in the pelvic floor of both men and women and is incredibly useful. It controls urine flow, contracts during orgasms, and surrounds the openings of the anus, vagina, and bladder.

In women, Kegel exercises can help strengthen and tone the pelvic muscles, which is great for toning up before and after childbirth and for preventing urinary incontinence (i.e. peeing your pants when you sneeze -- a significant problem for millions of people in North America).

Kegels can also be a lot of fun during penetrative sex; a male partner should be able to feel the muscles tighten around his penis as you clench your PC muscles.

In men -- yes it works for the guys, too -- Kegel exercises can aid urinary continence, and are said to be able to help them reach orgasm without ejaculation and even help attain multiple orgasms!

Doing Kegel exercises will also raise and lower their testicles which could be a fun party trick, as well as work out their anal muscles, which could handy during penetrative anal sex.

The disagreements start when it comes time to talk about where/how to do Kegel exercises. Some people are convinced that Kegel exercises should be done during urination -- that is, the person should exercise their Kegel muscles by stopping and releasing the flow of pee when they are on the toilet. On the other hand, some vehemently oppose doing Kegel exercises during urination because of the reported risk of urinary tract infection.

One of the papers I found, by Dr. Katharine Kolcaba et al., recommends locating the appropriate muscles for Kegel exercises by pretending to stop to flow of urine. And a few other websites also suggest locating the muscles this way or by actually stopping the flow of urine, but only once or twice, until you get the hang of it.

Personally, I suggest that you go the route of "better safe than sorry." Since it has been suggested that stopping the flow of urine is not a good thing to be doing regularly -- why do it at all? There are many ways to work out your Kegel muscles without resorting to this uncomfortable and potentially dangerous method.

In fact, let's look at what Dr. Kegel prescribed - his method had an 84% success rate. He instructed his patients to contract their pelvic muscles against a "perineometer," a cone-shaped balloon inserted into the vagina, but a dildo, fingers, ben wa balls, or a piece of foam cut to size would work just as well. They were instructed to alternately contract and relax the PC muscles for 20 minutes, three times a day, for a total of 300 contractions.

And this brings us to another disagreement on my blog -- how many clenches should be done in a day?

As you read above, Dr. Kegel recommended doing three sets of 100 clenches in a day, but there are two recognised ways to do Kegel exercises: fast and slow.

For slow Kegels, you clench your Kegel muscles and hold for 5-10 seconds. For fast Kegels, you clench and hold your Kegel muscles for only 1 second -- this would have been the type that Dr. Kegel was thinking of when he prescribed doing 300 in a day. You should also keep in mind that he was prescribing this to patients diagnosed with urinary incontinence -- I'm sure Dr. Kegel won't be angry if we healthy folks do a little less than the full 300 clenches a day.

You could also try alternating between fast and slow Kegels.

Once you've gotten pretty good at your regular Kegel exercises try this: imagine that your pelvic floor is an elevator and slowly clench it tighter and tighter, imagining that the elevator is going up floor by floor, and then slowly unclench, bringing the elevator back down.

You could also try incorporating Kegel clenches into your yoga routine -- this is called tightening your Moolabandha -- it is said that this will increase your energy levels and relieve tension.

The nifty thing about doing your Kegel exercises, whether you do them fast or slow, is that no one has to know! You can do them anywhere, at almost any time -- like a Kegel Ninja! And the benefits are certainly worth the small amount of concentration required.

There's A Vas Deferens Between Men and Women - or is there

Ejaculation can be a sticky topic (pun intended). Everyone knows that men ejaculate, but many don't realise that women do as well! Grab a box of tissues, because this week we will be exploring the mysteries of male and female ejaculation.

Most people know that in men the testicles are involved in ejaculation and many people know that the prostate also has a hand in the goings on. But are you really aware of how male ejaculation happens?

As you know, in men the purpose of ejaculation (besides for money shots in porn) is to squirt out sperm -- which is made in the testicles.

Inside your scrotum (that handy little sack between your legs guys), each testicle contains coils of tissue called seminiferous tubules. Assuming you are healthy, the cells in these tubes make sperm constantly, from the point that you hit puberty onwards.

Newly created sperm travel into the epididymis where they mature and are stored -- it's like sperm school, where they gain the ability to swim and fertilize an egg. Once they are mature, the sperm hang out in the back of the epididymis until the body is ready to ejaculate.

You might think that in a busy guy, things could get pretty backed up in there, as more and more sperm are made every day. Thankfully, men don't have to worry about having sperm backed up in their epididymis -- if the sperm is not used, after a few weeks it will be reabsorbed by the body or it will be expelled by night-time emissions (read: wet dreams).

When it's time to ejaculate, the sperm are packed together tightly at the back of the epididymis. They don't have to swim their way out either -- the sperm move out of the epididymis and along the vas deferens towards the urethra via peristaltic muscle contractions (that's the same rhythmic, forward moving muscle contractions that happen when you swallow -- it's like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube by squeezing one finger at a time from the back to the front).

In the vas deferens (a tube which connects to the urethra), other fluids are added to the mix from the seminal vesicles and the prostate gland. Sperm makes up only 3.5% of the stuff that is in your semen, the seminal vesicles contribute a sweet 60%, and the prostate a citrus-y 11.5%.

The prostate also contains smooth muscles which contract rhythmically to shoot that semen out of your penis and onto/into whatever you have "handy."

For many years it was thought that only men were capable of ejaculation. Female ejaculation was dismissed as a myth and many of the women who could do it ended up having surgery and/or therapy in an attempt to "fix" it because people thought that it was urine. But, in 1980, the medical community was finally made aware of this phenomenon when John Perry and Beverly Whipple showed a film to the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex.

The professionals at this showing saw a female being stimulated by her partner until her urethra began to swell (on a woman it's located between the vaginal opening and the clitoris). And after a few moments, milky fluid shot out! When the fluid was examined, it turned out that it wasn't urine at all but actually was pretty similar to the prostate fluid in men's ejaculate.

It's actually nearly impossible to pee while you orgasm, no matter your gender. The pubococcygeus muscle contracts to stop the flow of urine when you are peeing, and this is the same muscle that clamps down when you orgasm. This muscle contracts to keep you from emptying your bladder when you orgasm and prevents retrograde ejaculation (fluid getting sucked back into the bladder).

Female ejaculatory fluid is usually clear or milky and doesn't have the look, smell or taste of urine. It's as thin as water and in terms of taste, which varies with multiple factors like diet; it can taste sweet, sour, bitter or any combination of these.

Some researchers believe that the fluid is produced by the Skene's gland (located in the G-spot) which is thought to be the female equivalent of the male prostate gland. But thus far, much of the research on female ejaculation does not give any serious data about the origin or composition of the fluid expelled.

It has been estimated that 10% of women do ejaculate during sex, but many more women may be capable of ejaculation. It is possible that not as many women have experienced ejaculation because, for female ejaculation to occur, certain psychological, emotional, and physical conditions must be met, and this can represent a significant inhibiting factor if one or more area is neglected. It has been found that female Tantra practitioners experience ejaculation most frequently because the prolonged and uninhibited nature of tantric sex helps these women to attain the conditions required.

Ejaculation certainly is a wonderful thing; thank goodness men and women can both do it.