Improving Pelvic Floor Endurance

Endurance is your pelvic floor’s ability to sustain a contraction over time. It plays a key role in daily situations where your body needs ongoing support, and it improves gradually with consistent training.

This guide will help you understand how endurance works and how to improve it effectively with Perifit Care(+).

Endurance refers to how long you can maintain a pelvic floor contraction.

It is especially useful for:

In the Perifit Care app, endurance is measured as the maximum time you can hold a contraction at at least 75% of your maximum strength, compared to the duration requested by the game.

Example:
A score of 92% means you were able to maintain that level of contraction for 92% of the required time.

Endurance is also closely linked to Control, which reflects your overall ability to hit targets in the games. You can think of endurance as your ability to maintain higher targets over time.

Even when holding a contraction, you should never hold your breath.

Your breath naturally supports your pelvic floor:

If this feels difficult, that’s completely normal.

A good starting point is to synchronize your breath:

When holding a contraction, try to exhale slowly through your nose to make it easier.

Over time, you’ll learn to contract and relax independently of your breathing—which is important for real-life situations.

Endurance is not a competition.

The goal is not to hold every contraction for as long as you can, but to make your pelvic floor adapt to different situations:

Endurance is closely linked to strength.

If holding contractions feels difficult at first, it may simply be because your pelvic floor is still building strength.

Focus on reaching the first targets in endurance sequences. As your strength improves, holding contractions will become easier.

Short, repeated efforts are more effective than one long attempt.

Example:
3 contractions of 5 seconds each are better than trying (and failing) to hold for 15 seconds.

If breathing feels challenging:

When it becomes difficult to maintain a contraction, mental cues can help:

These images can help you stay engaged and maintain the contraction more effectively.

Endurance is based on 75% of your maximum strength.

If your calibration is set too high, the exercises may feel too difficult to sustain.

You can recalibrate anytime: Pause → Recalibrate

You can train endurance with these simple exercises:

Always return to a fully relaxed state between repetitions.

As you progress, you can gradually increase the duration of your holds.

If you prefer training through games, Vortex is particularly effective for building endurance.

It is a more focused exercise that specifically challenges your ability to hold contractions over time, making it a great complement to Practice Lab exercises.

If endurance feels difficult, this is very common—especially at the beginning.

Here are a few possible reasons:

Like any muscle training, endurance takes time. Progress comes with regular and consistent practice.

If you pushed to your maximum during calibration, the games may be too challenging.

Try recalibrating at a slightly lower intensity.

If you’ve been training consistently and still feel stuck, consider consulting a pelvic health professional.

They can provide personalized guidance and help you better understand your body.

Endurance improves gradually with time, patience, and consistency.

Focus on:

With regular practice, holding contractions will feel easier and more natural 👍