I Tried Elvie's High-Tech Pelvic Floor Trainer and It Made Kegel Exercises Fun

We put the Elvie Trainer to the test after receiving a complimentary sample from the brand. Keep reading for our full product review.

Despite the buzz around it, when I first saw a picture of the Elvie Trainer I thought it looked…weird, to say the least. I desperately needed to strengthen my pelvic floor muscles postpartum, but I couldn’t imagine actually inserting a jade egg-like thing inside my body to make it happen.  

I wasn’t just pleasantly surprised not just by how easy it was to use, but how much I enjoyed using it and how well it worked. Read on for my honest (and at times very personal) review of the Elvie Trainer.

About Me: I love to exercise

I know this isn’t everyone’s experience, but I found the experience of labor and delivery—which I first became acquainted with when my daughter was born in October of 2019—to be surprisingly straightforward and not nearly as traumatizing as I’d imagined it would be. While I did have a bit of tearing, it was minor, and my recovery was swift. When I got the all-clear to start exercising again at six weeks, I was excited: After a month and a half of having a newborn constantly attached to me, I desperately wanted to go for a run. I couldn’t wait to hear the sound of my feet on the pavement, feel the wind in my hair, and sweat a little. 

That first run was hard, but that didn’t surprise me. I’d just had a baby, and it had been a while since I’d attempted an actually hard workout. What did surprise me? By mile two, I seemed to totally lose control of my bladder. When I asked my doctor about it, she told me my pelvic floor muscles were weak from giving birth, and I should do kegels.  

In the months that followed I attempted different kegel exercises that I found online. The peeing-while-running problem got better, but it still wasn’t great. By the third or fourth mile, I’d almost always pee, at least a little. I started running with a pantiliner in, which wasn’t exactly comfortable. 

Running is one of my favorite activities ever, and the peeing was really cramping my style, to say the least. And it wasn’t just that—strong pelvic floor muscles are also important for posture and overall spine support. While I was skeptical of the Elvie, I knew it was worth a shot. 

Design: Lightweight and comfortable

The Elvie Trainer is mint green, made of silicone, and extremely soft to the touch. It’s lightweight, comfortable, comes with a charger, is Bluetooth compatible, and meant to be used with an app—although you can use it without it. It has to actually be inserted inside your vagina, which feels a little weird at first, but I got used to it within a few days.  

The App: Easy and fun to use

When I say the Elvie is fun to use, it’s all because of the app. When I first started using it, I kept thinking there was no way the app could actually detect the little squeezes I was giving the trainer, but it picked up on even the most subtle movements. 

The app moves you through pulses, tells you when to relax and when to squeeze, gives you tips—at one point, it told me I was pushing down, and should instead try to pull up—and gives you little lines and dots to hit. In a way, it felt like I was playing some sort of video game, but my kegels controlled whether I won or lost.

The Results: Not an instant fix

I wish I could say I instantly stopped peeing when I ran, but I didn’t start seeing real changes until about three weeks after I started using the Elvie Trainer. What I did notice almost right away was that my lower abs felt like they were getting a workout, which I was pleasantly surprised by. In addition to stronger pelvic floor muscles, I desperately needed some lower ab strengthening postpartum, so this was a nice bonus.

I think the main reason I kept up with the Elvie trainer so regularly was that it was so much fun to use. I looked forward to using it and trying to hit certain marks with the app, and within three weeks I noticed that I had much better control of my bladder. Now, I can run after drinking a glass of water—and even a cup of coffee!—and not pee at all.  

The Value: Worth it if you need extra discipline 

At nearly $200, the price of the Elvie Trainer is admittedly steep. I never had a whole lot of discipline around actually doing my kegel exercises, and if I had, I probably could have gotten the same results I got from the Elvie—but the “fun” factor made me actually do these exercises on a regular basis. So if the price point of the Elvie doesn’t fit your budget, you can likely get similar results with a lot of discipline. 

Similar Products: You've got options 

Perifit Kegel Exerciser with App ($199): The Perifit kegel exerciser is the same idea as the Elvie (you insert it in your vagina and it pairs with a game-like app). Although it retails at $199, you can sometimes find it on sale for around $139.