Sex efficiency through exercises : special physical culture for women / by Th. H. van de Velde ; [photos, by E. Steinemann].
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CHAPTER II NATURE AND PURPOSES OF PELVIC EXERCISES (a) Exercises of the Pelvic and Abdominal Zone. (b) Exercises of the Pelvic Floor. Gymnastic exercises are systematic and purposive training of muscles ; in most gymnastic exercises two or three sets of muscles take part, for the joints of the body are involved. There are, however, important muscles which are not attached to joints, or with which joints are not specially connected. As examples, we may cite the facial muscles and those of the diaphragm. The diaphragm has the form of a cupola, or segment of a sphere, with the convex side uppermost; the cupola becomes ]ower and flatter when the diaphragmatic muscle is contracted. There are certain resemblances, together with considerable differences, between the diaphragm and the pelvic floor. The pelvic floor is a narrow and shallow cupola with the convex side undermost. If the local muscles are contracted the pelvic floor is some- what flattened, and the terminal portions of the passages which open into the perineal cleft—vagina and rectum— are drawn upwards and inwards, thus narrowing certain portions of these passages. But, if special portions of the perineal muscles are contracted separately, the vagina may be even more definitely affected in other sections of its length. There is virtually no action of the joints in these contractions of the pelvic floor. For the hip joints, though generally very important, have only a limited degree of flexibility, and that portion of our bony framework, which we term the pelvis, is a comparatively solid girdle of massive bones connected by large, thick and inelastic ligaments. But there are also other and smaller muscles peculiar to the pelvis. So, in the strictest sense of the term, " Pelvic Exercises " ought to mean exercises for the control of the muscles of the pelvic