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Betty Dodson designed her Barbell after working with women to connect to their orgasm for over 40 years. It's our best-selling product and, most recently, was featured in Gwyneth Paltrow's Netflix series Goop Lab. We teach how to use the barbell in our Bodysex workshops and online courses.

The Barbell is both a practical vaginal exerciser and an excellent pleasure device.  Made of stainless steel, the Barbell is sturdy enough to become a family heirloom that can be passed down from grandmother to granddaughter. The Barbell is 6 3⁄4 inches long and weighs nearly one pound. Once inserted, the weight holds it in place. 

First Some Useful Information 

Kegel Exercises: 

Many women today are familiar with doing Kegel exercises especially after giving birth. In the early 1940's a gynecologist named Dr. Arnold Kegel was helping women to overcome urinary incontinence through pelvic floor exercises instead of relying only on surgery. After several months, some of his clients reported having orgasms for the first time. 

Dr. Kegel designed a feedback instrument called the Perineometer, a meter with a rubber hose attached to a penis shaped device. Once inserted, it showed the amount of pressure applied by tightening the vaginal muscle. In Betty's early 1970's orgasm workshops, women took turns using a Perineometer with a condom on it. Similar to the strong men in the circus swinging a mallet to ring the bell, when a woman scored a 100, Betty rang a bicycle bell while the group applauded. 

Locating the Pelvic Floor Muscle: 

The pelvic floor muscle attaches to the front of the pubic bone and goes around the anus. When the pelvic floor is contracted it can be felt in the clitoris, vagina, and anus. One way to locate the muscle is to abruptly stop and start the flow of urine. A second and more dramatic way is to insert a finger inside the vagina and squeeze the pelvic floor muscle. When you feel pressure around your finger, you are using the correct muscle. 

Exercising the Pelvic Floor Muscle: 

Try to keep everything relaxed except the vaginal muscle. LIFT UP. Do not bear down. At first, women often tighten the surrounding muscles in their stomachs, thighs, and buttocks. For the best results practice isolating and then tightening just the pelvic floor muscle. Be patient. Many women find it's easiest to use the barbell first thing in the morning or just before going to bed. 

There are many ideas about how to best do pelvic floor muscle exercises like squeezing the muscle 10 times and resting. Or holding the muscle tight for a count of 5 followed by several rapid contractions. Most professionals agree that having a resistance device inside the vagina gives better results. 

However there's nothing wrong with exercising the pelvic floor without the barbell while watching television, talking on the phone, or browsing the Internet. It not only feels good but it keeps us in touch with our bodies. 

Possible Benefits from Using Betty's Barbell

1. A toned Pelvic Floor Muscle: 

Insures better orgasms, genital health, and bladder control as well as regulates the bowels and enhances overall health. Engaging the pelvic floor muscle can also shorten delivery time and restore vaginal muscles after giving birth. During intercourse, rhythmically squeezing the pelvic floor muscle enhances sexual pleasure for both a woman and her partner. 

A healthy pelvic floor muscle would lower the number of preorgasmic women, avoid surgery to tighten relaxed vaginas, and eliminate Urinary Stress Incontinence. USI is the involuntary loss of urine while lifting, coughing, sneezing, laughing or having an orgasm. Millions of women needlessly suffer some degree of urinary incontinence resulting from multiple births, menopause, and the absence of genital awareness due to the lack of sex information. 

Using the Barbell will avoid off-putting treatments like surgery or having to wear adult diapers.

2. Combining Pelvic Floor and Orgasm: 

Simply using the Barbell during your self-pleasure sessions will engage the pelvic floor muscle. The weight provides resistance when we forget to squeeze and release the muscle (see Betty's Rock n Roll). Ultimately, having an orgasm is the best exercise for your pelvic floor. 

3. Vaginal Dilator and Aerator: 

Young women can use the Barbell as a vaginal dilator to prevent painful first time intercourse. By getting in touch with her pelvic floor muscle and starting with the smaller ball, she can gradually penetrate her own vagina with a minimum of discomfort. Many women diagnosed with vaginismus (painful spasm of the vagina) or who suffer from a chronically tight vagina can use the barbell to gradually learn how to relax the vaginal muscles by working the pelvic floor muscle. 

For women who are postmenopausal or no longer having penetration sex with a partner, using the Barbell will aerate the vagina, help slough off dead cells, encourage lubrication and enhance orgasms during self-stimulation. 

How to Use Betty's Barbell

1. Inserting the Barbell: 

Lie down on your back with one or more pillows under your head. Bend your knees with both feet on the floor. Be comfortable. While taking several deep breaths and relaxing, spend a few moments connecting with your body. Apply massage oil on your hands and warm up with a genital massage that includes your clitoris. Lubricate the Barbell and place the larger ball just at the vaginal opening. 

Totally relax the vaginal muscles as you exhale then squeeze and release the pelvic floor muscle on the edge of the ball. Take another deep breath and exhale relaxing the vagina as you slowly insert the Barbell an inch. Again squeeze and release the pelvic floor muscle several times. Continue this process until full penetration has been achieved. If any discomfort is experienced, use the smaller end of the Barbell.

2. Enhancing Your Orgasm with Pelvic Floor Exercises:

Depending on the length of each woman's vaginal barrel, an inch or two of the Barbell will remain on the outside of her vagina. Once fully inserted, the weight of the Barbell holds it in place leaving both hands free. Use one hand for clitoral stimulation either manually, with a battery or an electric vibrator while squeezing and releasing the pelvic floor muscle. 

Try using the other hand for body and breast massage. To move the Barbell, tighten the pelvic floor muscle as you slowly pull it out leaving the larger ball just inside the vagina. Then relax the vaginal muscle and let go of the Barbell. Its weight will allow it to drop back inside effortlessly. In the beginning, most women prefer to leave the Barbell in place while they combine pelvic floor muscle contractions with pelvic rocking, breathing, and their preferred clitoral stimulation.

3. Coordinating Breathing, Pelvic Rocking and the Pelvic Floor Muscle: 

As you rock the pelvis up, exhale and squeeze the pelvic floor tight. Then inhaling you drop your hips back down and relax the muscle. Keep the movements small and gentle. If the reverse feels better you can inhale rocking forward and exhale dropping back. At first this seems complicated but it's similar to learning a new dance step. 

In the beginning we feel awkward and self-conscious but after many repetitions the body takes over and the moves become automatic. There is no one "right" way to use any of these techniques. The important thing is to breathe, rock and squeeze the muscle until your own individual style emerges.

4. Betty's Barbell as a Sleek Sextoy: 

It's very sensual to have a lover slowly move the Barbell back and forth inside the vagina while a woman uses her fingers or the Magic Wand vibrator to stimulate the clitoris. With the woman lying on her back, try angling the Barbell up to press on the ceiling of the vagina, stimulating the urethral sponge/female prostate/g-spot. Or gently press the Barbell against the cervix. 

The smooth surface of the barbell makes it a safe toy for anal penetration. It is important to note that when using the barbell anally you or your partner must hold on to the end to prevent the barbell from slipping all the way inside.

5. The Pelvic Floor Muscle and Men: 

A toned pelvic floor muscle is as important for men as it is for women. If young men knew how to use their pelvic floor muscles during masturbation, they could learn to control the urge to ejaculate. Then they would be able to extend the pleasures of intercourse and enjoy having fuller orgasms as adults. Men at any age can benefit from doing isometric exercises with the Barbell inside the anus. 

A healthy pelvic floor muscle will not only reduce the vast numbers of fast ejaculating men, it would also lower the high percentage of older men who no longer have erections and/or end up with urinary incontinence. Using the Barbell anally while stimulating the penis heightens male orgasm with or without internal prostate massage.