The P.C. Exercises
The following instructions are directed to wives who want to experience the benefits of these exercises. I will explain them to you as if you were a patient in my office.
You might have difficulty locating the P.C. muscles at first. Without instruction, it is more likely that only the weaker, external muscles around the vaginal opening will be contracted. This will tighten only the vaginal opening. Being told that the P.C. muscle group is more internal often causes the woman to contract muscles of the lower back, abdomen, and thighs. These muscles are not linked to the P.C. muscles, and contracting these may cause fatigue. The P.C. muscle exercise should be fairly effortless, though it may take some patience and concentration at first. After the exercise is learned, it’s almost as easy as shutting your eyelid.
Since one of the functions of the P.C. muscles is to stop the flow of urine, it can be said that the P.C. muscles have been contracted if urination is interrupted. However, the less important external muscles can also shut off the urine flow; so the simplest method to determine if the muscles contract is to attempt to stop urine flow with the knees spread. In the sitting position on the commode, with knees widely separated (about two feet apart), allow the flow of urine, and then attempt to stop the flow without moving the knees. In nearly all women, this procedure exercises the P.C. muscles. Once you feel what it is like to correctly contract the PC, you can do the exercise any time. The stoppage of urine flow during urination can then be used once in a while as a check to make sure you are contracting the right muscles.
Another way to tell if the P.C. muscles are being contracted is to see if the perineum rises. The perineum is the area between the anus and the vaginal opening. Use a mirror to observe the rise of the perineum or place one finger about an inch and a half inside the vagina and feel the muscle contract. When there is good P.C. muscle control, you should be able to squeeze this one finger very firmly.
After learning precisely how to contract the P.C, you can begin a program of exercising. Start with five to ten contractions on waking and every time you urinate. Hold each contraction for two seconds. When control of the P.C. muscles is improved, you should be able to release as little as a teaspoon of urine at a time, and the contractions should be easier than when first attempted.
In approximately four days, when you have confidence you are contracting the P.C. muscles, increase exercising to ten contractions about six times per day. If each contraction takes two seconds, the total time involved will be only two minutes per day. Over a four- to six-week period, gradually increase to three hundred contractions per day, which should require no more than a total often minutes per day. Better urine control and some sexual improvement may be occurring by now. About four more weeks (or a total of ten weeks) should complete the program. More planned exercise probably should not be necessary, since strong and well-developed P.C. muscles will keep the involuntary urine flow under control. Occasionally check to see whether you can still tightly squeeze one finger in the vagina.
Sexual activity also helps strengthen the P.C. muscles. Women are advised to start voluntary contractions of the P.C. during fore-play in order to heighten sexual tension before the penis is inserted. This helps condition the P.C. for involuntary contractions later in orgasm, and it also helps firm up the vaginal walls. By consciously contracting these muscles, the wife can have an earlier response and more intense pleasure. In the final spasms of each orgasm, the P.C. contracts by itself, involuntarily, four to ten times at intervals of four-fifths of a second. After these independent contractions, there is a tremendous feeling of release and lessening of tension, which signals that the wife’s orgasm is over.
Most nerve endings in the body are sensitive to light touch; the nerve endings in the P.C. muscles, however, are sensitive to pressure. Obviously, the skillful use of the P.C. muscles during intercourse is included in God’s design to give increased sexual stimulation to the woman.
P.C. muscle contraction can also provide the husband more pleasurable sensations during intercourse. When the wife develops voluntary control and when there is loving, verbal communication between the two, the wife can learn exactly when to contract the P.C. muscles to give him the maximum stimulation just before and during his orgasm.
Wives, you can see how important your involvement is and how necessary your helpful participation is in sex play, both for your husband’s benefit and your own. Remember, as we have said elsewhere, that the vagina is notz passive receptacle for the penis. Picture it as an active, involved organ during sex. The role of the vagina was described many years ago by Dr. Theodore H. Van de Velde in Ideal Marriage: “The working of the . . . muscles … is an apparatus for gripping and rubbing the male sexual organ . . . by pressure and friction, to ensure this orgasm.”
Ask yourself how good your P.C. muscle control is right now. The muscle should be able to grip the penis as tightly as a clenched fist.
Almost every woman can significantly heighten her sexual adequacy through understanding the Kegel exercises to condition, strengthen, and achieve voluntary control of the P.C. muscles. And some men have found more intense physical sensation in orgasm after strengthening their own corresponding pelvic muscles.
The few weeks of exercises for ten or fifteen minutes per day add up to very little time or trouble, and yet the rewards are great for both the wife and her husband. They enjoy more satisfying sex, and the benefits are lifelong. It all adds up to an experience that should be well worth the effort.
Here is a case history for your encouragement from Tim and Beverly LaHaye’s The Act of Marriage:
One such case, a mother of five and married almost twenty-five years said, “Dr. LaHaye, it all seems so unnatural to me. If God wanted those vaginal muscles strong enough for me to get more sensation during lovemaking, He would have made them that way.” I explained to her that He did originally, but her five births and natural aging process had so relaxed them, they were of little help to her and the older she grew, the more she would need them toned up through exercise.
Quite reluctantly, she went home to try, but she admitted she had little faith it would work. Fortunately, she did her exercises diligently and as she reported later: “Within one month I experienced sensations I had never felt before. Within five weeks my husband, who had been having a little trouble maintaining an erection, had noticed how much more exciting our love life became. Now we both think our next twenty-five years of lovemaking will be more exciting than the first twenty-five.”
Along with the exercise, here are further suggestions for the woman learning to experience orgasm: The ability to build sexual tension or excitement after actual introduction of the penis must be actively sought and learned. You should keep anticipation and desire foremost in your mind, surrender to your own natural drives, and build emotional excitement, as well as physical stimulation, until your tension climaxes in release. Many women have found that they are able to reach a climax more quickly if they also tense the muscles of their legs, thighs, and lower abdomen, while concentrating on their own sensations, until they have orgasm.
Vigorous thrusting as soon as the male organ enters the vagina usually guarantees that the wife’s sensation will be blurred and that excitement will actually decline.
A gende introduction of the penis will almost always better meet the wife’s needs. Both partners may wish to develop some mutually pleasing movements with the penis fully inserted—perhaps side-to-side movements, rocking motions, or hip movements, which help take some of the thrust away from the upper end of the vagina and direct the pressure to the more responsive lower vagina, which is surrounded by the P.C. muscles. The husband should be very sensitive and responsive to his wife’s movements.
The art of lovemaking involves an enjoyment of each phase of the experience, seeking every pleasurable sensation, anticipating but not hurrying toward climax. As you learn this art together, your “tortoise and hare” problems will diminish and disappear!
Posted in Solutions to Common Problems
To Ed Wheat Sr. and Gladys Gibson Wheat, whose commitment, devotion, warmth, generosity, and integrity stood for fifty years as a beautiful picture of genuine agape love.