First off, I want to mention that I am going to drink a huge glass of filtered tap water while I write this post. I highly recommend that you run to the sink and fill up a tall one with the same precious stuff before you read any further.
Coincidentally, I began my work in pelvic floor rehab smack in the middle of a set of 12 group personal training sessions I bought on livingsocial.com. So, on Wednesday, I went straight from an intense workout to therapy. I freshened up with a wet towel in between, so if you were just thinking "ew!" then, no, that was not the issue.
As the future valedictorian of pf&c rehab, I had done my homework well enough to advance to level two of therapy in just one week. Hold your applause, please. Full disclosure: I only leaked once at home during week one, at the end of a series of sneezes that caught me while I was loading the dishwasher. And yesterday, our gym workout included a series of jumps executed while simultaneously scissoring our legs, open and close, rather like a game of hopscotch, and I had to run the toilet as soon as I tried to do it. But the "issue" was - that is, the most frustrating thing for me as a type-A therapy patient was - that the core workout I had to do with Emily (my new pf&c therapist) this week was chock full of exercises that challenged the same groups of muscles I had just pushed to fatigue less than one hour earlier in the gym. Consequently, when Emily hooked up the the hand held video monitor to my pelvic floor and core muscles, she saw digital evidence of someone whose tummy was tired.
Emily immediately found a positive use for the workout that had just worn me out. We reviewed all the exercises I had done at the gym, from that day's workout as well as the previous one, and suggested how I might modify all of them to incorporate the contraction of pelvic floor muscles. Essentially, Emily gave me a lesson in adding kegels to many of the forms of physical activity I perform in the course of a cardio and weight training workout.
It seems obvious that the point of rehab is to enable me to defer urination during all the activities of my day, other than that of sitting on the toilet. But I hadn't thought about specifically incorporating pelvic floor work into a workout designed to target my quadriceps, biceps, deltoids and gluteus maximus, for example. What a revelation! It makes my trip to the gym doubly rewarding.
So, my homework this week is to continue the quick flicks and long holds from week one, and to do them while I am vacuuming, while I am unloading the diswasher, while I am in line at the grovery store, and while I am stooping to pick other people's wet towels off the carpet. But I also have several exercises to do while lying on my back, doing nothing but breathing and targeting my lower abdominals, and/or raising one leg at time. And when I do go to the gym, as I did today and yesterday, I concentrate on including pelvic floor contractions into each and every exercise the trainer asks me to do.
At a gym, you can see and feel how effectively you are targeting an externally visible muscle, like a bicep or tricep, simply by positioning that muscle to face the mirror while you execute the movement. And most people are gratified, while working out, to see the targeted muscle contract and relax in the mirror. Unless you want to position a gooseneck mirror in between your legs, a pelvic floor workout requires a bit more faith. But I know I am working the right muscles in a targeted way and I have to believe that I am going to see some results before too long.
When I went to the desk to schedule my third rehab session for next Wednesday, I felt optimistic enough to cancel my appointment for a cystoscopy, a surgical prerequisite procedure about which I know very little and hope it stays that way.
As always, I will keep you posted. Now, let's finish that drink of water and refill our glass. L'chaim!
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