Why sexercises are essential

Sexercises are essential

Sexercises are designed to maximize sex muscle strength and control.

Weak flabby muscles cannot do their job well. Your arm muscles may be reasonably strong because you use them every day.

Your sex muscles, though, are rarely used in your daily life. You use them to hold in urine or stools - but it is all very passive. You only consciously use them in an emergency - when you are desperate to get to the bathroom. That's about it.

But if you don't exercise your sex muscles on a regular basis they get flabby and slacken. In childbirth through vaginal delivery the muscles can become stretched beyond the point of natural elasticity, and after menopause they just fade away and atrophy because of the lack of oestrogen.

No laughing matter

When this happens, the lack of contact between the penis and vagina is not a laughing matter - despite the number of jokes on the subject! It's frustrating for both parties and can be a major cause of relationship failure. Sex after children is just not what it was - for very physical reasons.

So much is written about Female Sexual Dysfunction. The lack of contact between the penis and vagina suggests a specific reason why many women take much more to get turned on and could be more of a factor than emotional issues, tiredness and depression that pharmaceutical companies want to treat with drugs!

It may not be news that you can exercise your sex muscles. The popularity of Kegel exercises has seen to that. But do you know that the Kegel exercises are a rediscovery?

The history of sexercises

Effective sexercises have been practiced in China and India for thousands of years. The ancient experts viewed the human body-mind as a bucket full of energy with holes in the bottom where life energy leaked out. These holes are the urethral opening, the anal opening and, in the woman, the vaginal opening. It was believed that when the sex muscles were sufficiently strengthened through exercise they sealed the bottom of the bucket. The Eastern sexercises were developed in cultures that placed less emphasis on the genital orgasm. For more information read what we say about mula bandha exercises in yoga.

The monarch of the sex muscles is the pubococcygeus (pew-boh-cox-uh-jee-us), or PC, muscle. This muscle contracts at the rate of one every 0.8 seconds in both sexes during orgasm. The anal muscles also contract. The contemporary rediscovery of the great value of these muscles for sexual health and pleasure is credited to a Los Angeles physician, Arnold Kegel. He developed the famed Kegel (ka~gill) exercises in the 1950s.

Currently, sex experts recommend the development of the sex muscles as a way to achieve, intensify, prolong and control genital orgasm in both sexes. However, when less emphasis is placed on getting the orgasmic payoff though, other personal gains such as emotional growth or health benefits may become more noticeable. Whether or not you focus on having orgasms is not the real issue. That is a matter of personal style. It is also worth noting that some men and women have observed that these sexercises have a significant rejuvenating effect.

Ask any group of women how many regularly do Kegel or yogic PC muscle exercises. Usually, only a few hands go up. Given the endless emphasis on exercise in our culture, this seems surprising. Perhaps it is guilt about sex, perhaps it is the fact that it is not obvious (until you make love!) that you do these sexercises, as they do not give you big breasts or bulging biceps. Addicted to appearances, we fail to become artists of love. As the paint brush is to the painter, these sexercises are to the love artist. They are not crude mechanical gestures but symphonies of the body-mind that lead to self-generated waves of bliss.

For those so inclined, these methods lead to the awakening of the mystic life force, and the arousal of and union with the cosmic lover within who leads us beyond inner conflict to happiness.

Getting started on your sexercises

Once you have definitely found the PC muscle, start with quick or short Kegel squeezes. Contract the muscle 20 times at about one a second or faster as one session. Do two sessions your first day. Gradually build up to 75 twice a day. When you can comfortably do 75 quickie Kegel contractions twice a day, add sustained or long Kegel movements.

Long Kegel squeezes are equally simple. Instead of holding the muscle contraction for a count of one, hold it for a count of three. Start with 20 of these per session, two sessions a day. Build up to 75 each session twice a day. Take your time. Avoid straining.

The PC muscle is just like any other muscle. If you overdo it, it will become sore. You may find that a tightening of the muscles in the stomach and thighs happens no matter what you do at first. This is common. But after the first few days or weeks, when you've completely isolated the muscle, these extra contractions should be hardly noticeable. You will have built up to 300 reps a day. However, once the PC muscle has been strengthened, a maintenance regime of 150 per day in one three-minute session should be plenty. Make these focused, committed clenches.

Concentrate deeply on the physical sensations. You may find this easier if you close your eyes. Learn to relax between contractions. Without this relaxation the muscles will not grow as quickly. Relaxation is as important to your control as are the contractions. If a man learns how to relax these muscles during sexual intercourse, he can last much longer. It may help to breathe in time with your clenches or to count breaths. You may be holding your breath and not even realize it.

Some people include the bearing down manoeuvre in their daily work outs. After first tightening, then releasing the PC muscle, push down and out gently as if trying to have a bowel movement. This is the same sequence that you would use for sexual arousal and control. You will feel the action of your stomach muscles and anus as you bear down. We call this a push out.

A useful variation is to do sets of reps that pair long Kegel clenches with strong push outs. Try doing these after you've developed good PC muscle strength.

Making Your Sexercises Even More Effective

As with any exercise, you can achieve far greater rewards the more effort you put in. Walking will exercise your legs - a little! Working out on a Stepper or CrossTrainer in the gym will really help you feel the burn. Similarly, you could stand in the gym and bend your arms a bit. The benefits will be greater if you use a barbell!

The most effective exercise comes with a combination of repetition and resistance. Repeated exercise with a low resistance or weight helps you develop your muscle tone and improves blood flow. Low numbers of repetitions at much greater resistance or weight helps build muscle strength. It's just the same with sexercises, except you are not really looking to achieve a bodybuilder's bulges!

For many women it is much easier to work with a vaginal exerciser that provides a variable resistance to squeeze against. The PelvicToner is perfect - squeezing against the resistance provided by springs is so much more effective than squeezing against 'thin air'.

Based on extracts from Sexercises - A Practice from the book Sexual Energy Ecstasy by David and Ellen Ramsdale.