Electrostimulation Adds No Extra Benefit to Pelvic Floor Exercises in Young Healthy Women, Trial Finds

A randomized controlled trial testing whether adding endovaginal electrostimulation to pelvic floor muscle training improves muscle bioelectrical activity in young, healthy women has found no advantage over exercises alone. The preliminary, single-center study, published in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, compared two stimulation frequencies and concluded that neither 10 Hz nor 50 Hz electrostimulation produced changes that were statistically distinguishable from those seen with pelvic floor exercises by themselves. The trial enrolled 45 healthy women aged 18 to 28 years who had no urinary or genital dysfunction, and all 45 completed the intervention and follow-up.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups of 15 women each. Study group I received 10 Hz endovaginal electrostimulation combined with pelvic floor muscle exercises, study group II received 50 Hz electrostimulation with the same exercises, and the control group performed pelvic floor exercises only. Interventions were administered three times per week over eight weeks.

Measurements were taken at four time points: at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and at one-month and three-month follow-up. Each assessment used surface electromyography (sEMG) to capture both resting activity and functional, contraction-related activity, with participants evaluated in supine and standing positions.

Over the course of the study, resting sEMG activity declined over time, particularly in the supine position. However, when the researchers applied mixed-effects statistical models to test whether the trajectories of change differed between groups, they found no significant group-by-time interactions. In other words, the decrease in resting activity followed a similar pattern in all three arms of the trial, and the changes could not be attributed to either electrostimulation frequency or to the combination of electrostimulation with exercises.

Equally important, the comparison between the two stimulation frequencies showed no clear differences. The 10 Hz and 50 Hz protocols produced outcomes that were statistically indistinguishable from each other. The authors are explicit about the implications: the findings do not support a superior effect of either electrostimulation frequency, or of combining electrostimulation with pelvic floor muscle exercises, compared with exercises alone.

For young, healthy women without pelvic floor dysfunction, adding endovaginal electrostimulation to a structured exercise program did not measurably enhance the bioelectrical activity of the pelvic floor muscles beyond what the exercises achieved on their own. Several caveats frame these results. The population consisted exclusively of young women without urinary or genital dysfunction, so the results cannot be generalized to older women or to patient groups with pelvic floor conditions.

The trial was single-blinded and conducted at a single center, and the primary outcome was a laboratory measure of muscle bioelectrical activity rather than clinical symptoms or quality-of-life outcomes. The authors themselves state that further studies with larger samples are warranted before firm conclusions can be drawn.

The observed time-related reduction in resting activity occurred across all groups, including the exercise-only control, but the trial design did not include a no-treatment arm, so the effect of exercise alone versus no intervention at all cannot be isolated from these data. The trial was prospectively registered with ISRCTN (registration number ISRCTN81464370, registered on 25 July 2022), and the open-access publication makes the full protocol and results available for scrutiny.

Until further evidence emerges, the message from this preliminary randomized trial is measured: in young, healthy women, pelvic floor muscle training alone produced changes comparable to those seen when electrostimulation at either 10 Hz or 50 Hz was added, and neither frequency showed a clear edge over the other.

Subject of Research: Comparative efficacy of low- versus high-frequency endovaginal electrostimulation combined with pelvic floor muscle training on pelvic floor muscle bioelectrical activity in young healthy women

Article Title: Comparative efficacy of low- vs. high‐frequency endovaginal electrostimulation combined with pelvic floor muscle training on pelvic floor bioelectrical activity in young, healthy women: a preliminary, single-center, randomized controlled trial

Article References: Duda, J., Dymarek, R., Ptaszkowski, K., Foltys, J., & Taradaj, J. (2026). Comparative efficacy of low- vs. high‐frequency endovaginal electrostimulation combined with pelvic floor muscle training on pelvic floor bioelectrical activity in young, healthy women: a preliminary, single-center, randomized controlled trial. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-026-05659-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12906-026-05659-x

Keywords: pelvic floor muscle training, endovaginal electrostimulation, surface electromyography, randomized controlled trial, women's health, pelvic floor dysfunction, rehabilitation, physical therapy, sEMG, preventive therapy, electrostimulation frequency, Comparative