By
Willa Trenton, Gynecologist
Updated
August 4, 2023
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Perifit and Elvie Trainer are today the most popular choices when it comes to pelvic floor muscles training with biofeedback for at-home use. Their aim is the same: strengthen pelvic floor muscles, alleviate symptoms like urine leaks and prolapse, improve post-natal recovery, and enhance intimate wellbeing. They help strengthen pelvic floor muscles, alleviate symptoms like urine leaks and prolapse, improve post-natal recovery, and enhance intimate wellbeing.
The biofeedback technology measures and displays real-time pelvic muscle contractions on a screen, such as a smartphone, through a connected probe and app. This approach is considered as one of safest and most effective methods of doing Kegel exercises, which help to deal with pelvic floor muscles dysfunctions. Until recently, the biofeedback technology was only available in hospitals, and now Elvie and Perifit made it available from the comfort of your home. For both Elvie and Perifit, the pelvic floor muscles contractions are measured by the probe, transformed in a real-time visual feedback and displayed by the smartphone app. After inserting the probe, the app will guide you into squeezing the muscles in a certain way, allowing you to measure and track the progress.
But which one will you choose?
While using similar biofeedback approach, they remain quite different.
Design and technology
From the first look on the devices, they look very different. Elvie Trainer looks smaller and shorter since it is egg-shaped. Perifit is longer and shaped as a wand.
Entirely covered in pale green soft medical grade silicone, Elvie uses a “system of force and motion sensors” which allows measuring the contractions and detect when you are pushing down (rather than pulling up) with your pelvic floor, which can be damaging. However, when the app notifies about pushing down, it doesn’t guide on how to correct the situation, but just stops the exercise.
Perifit comes in two different colours, bright magenta and turquoise green, and the insertable part is made of safe medical grade silicone (BPA free, Phthalates free and EA free). Perifit features a "unique double pressure-sensor technology to identify faulty contractions". One sensor is located closer to the base of the device, it detects pelvic floor muscles contractions, and the second measures intra-abdominal pressure, which corresponds to faulty contractions. The two sensors are shown on the app screen, so you immediately know when you activate the wrong muscles and can adjust.
Perifit has no accessories, while Elvie Trainer comes with a storage and charging case and an additional cover. Perifit doesn’t need any charging, since its battery is guaranteed 5 years.
- You’ll like Elvie Trainer if you want a smaller device which comes with a storage box.
- You’ll like Perifit if you prefer a wand-like shaped device and/or you want to keep an eye on your contraction quality at all times.
Our preference: Perifit. While design preferences are personal, we prefer Perifit because it is more helpful in identifying faulty contractions, which may be damaging to your pelvic floor muscles. Research shows that 30% of women performs Kegel exercises in a wrong way, which makes this functionality quite important.
Apps, TRAINING PROGRAMS and features
Both Perifit and Elvie Trainer apps aim to gamify Kegel exercises and help to remain consistent with your training. The results from your workouts are saved, allowing you to measure your performance, track your progress and stay motivated. The apps are very different though, proposing different approaches on focusing on different priorities. We’ve also got the feeling that Perifit’s app is more regularly updated with new features.
Elvie’s app is quite sober, featuring clean and uncluttered design and a limited colour palette. The training is structured with four levels and six different exercises : they are organized in the workouts according to your goals and your progress, to help you build muscle power, agility, and endurance. You start on "Training" level to learn how to exercise correctly, then you move up to Beginner, and so on, each of the 4 levels presenting 10 workouts. Each workout consists in repeating up to 6 different exercises: Lift (squeeze and relax), Pulse (make several quick squeezes), Hold (lift and hold), Speed (Pulse fast), Step (execute all the previous exercises with a more challenging timing), Strength (squeeze as string as possible).
The exercises are not really games, but rather gamified visualizations where your pelvic floor is represented with a gem. It can feel a bit repetitive because even if you switch from one exercise to another, the visuals remain very similar. On a long term, the training offer can be perceived as quite limited, not offering enough variety needed to stay engaged.
Perifit’s app is full of possibilities and clearly more oriented towards gaming, so you’ll unlikely to get bored. It offers 7 training programs and a quiz helps to choose the one which would fit your needs. They focus on symptoms you are experiencing, whether it's urge incontinence, stress incontinence, mixed incontinence or prolapse; and needs like sexual well-being, post-partum & prevention.
Each training program has 10 levels, and you progress by playing video games. Training patterns (all the series of different squeezes and holds and relaxation) are integrated in the games in a seamless way, so you don't get bored with repetition. There are 12 games to unlock as you progress, some of them are "multiplayer", which means you'll be competing against another user! The games are visually diversified, and you'll be able to play the ones you like the most: the relaxing "Scarlet's Melodies", the vintage "Flappy Bird" or a more adventurous "Aerial Fighter" - there are games for different tastes.
In addition to the games, there are unique features in the app, allowing you to understand and improve the quality of your pelvic floor contractions: “Kegel coach”, "3D pelvic floor" and “Practice mode”. Kegel Coach guides you towards a better understanding of your pelvic floor before you jump into training. 3d pelvic floor helps you understand the pelvic floor anatomy and visualize how the muscles "lift" when you squeeze. Practice mode shows the pressure captured by each sensor, so you can visualize the quality of your contractions in a very straightforward manner and work on improving it.
You can also track your contraction quality improvement over time, and other metrics. The app offers a lot of educational content, videos from pelvic floor specialists, advice on training positions and a lot of information about different symptoms and ways to reduce them. There is even a "Community" section where (real) women all around the world share their feedback, discuss their issues and support each other.
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- You’ll like Elvie if you want a simple app with minimalist visual, and also if you don’t like games.
- You’ll like Perifit if you are looking for fun ways of exercising and a complete and regularly updated app with a lot of content and helpful features.
Our preference: Perifit. The app is very complete with different activities, and we love the games which are definitely making training time fun time.
Perifit and Elvie Trainer are today the most popular choices when it comes to pelvic floor muscles training with biofeedback for at-home use. Their aim is the same: strengthen pelvic floor muscles, alleviate symptoms like urine leaks and prolapse, improve post-natal recovery, and enhance intimate wellbeing. They help strengthen pelvic floor muscles, alleviate symptoms like urine leaks and prolapse, improve post-natal recovery, and enhance intimate wellbeing.
The biofeedback technology measures and displays real-time pelvic muscle contractions on a screen, such as a smartphone, through a connected probe and app. This approach is considered as one of safest and most effective methods of doing Kegel exercises, which help to deal with pelvic floor muscles dysfunctions. Until recently, the biofeedback technology was only available in hospitals, and now Elvie and Perifit made it available from the comfort of your home. For both Elvie and Perifit, the pelvic floor muscles contractions are measured by the probe, transformed in a real-time visual feedback and displayed by the smartphone app. After inserting the probe, the app will guide you into squeezing the muscles in a certain way, allowing you to measure and track the progress.
But which one will you choose?
While using similar biofeedback approach, they remain quite different.
Design and technology
From the first look on the devices, they look very different. Elvie Trainer looks smaller and shorter since it is egg-shaped. Perifit is longer and shaped as a wand.
Entirely covered in pale green soft medical grade silicone, Elvie uses a “system of force and motion sensors” which allows measuring the contractions and detect when you are pushing down (rather than pulling up) with your pelvic floor, which can be damaging. However, when the app notifies about pushing down, it doesn’t guide on how to correct the situation, but just stops the exercise.
Perifit comes in two different colours, bright magenta and turquoise green, and the insertable part is made of safe medical grade silicone (BPA free, Phthalates free and EA free). Perifit features a "unique double pressure-sensor technology to identify faulty contractions". One sensor is located closer to the base of the device, it detects pelvic floor muscles contractions, and the second measures intra-abdominal pressure, which corresponds to faulty contractions. The two sensors are shown on the app screen, so you immediately know when you activate the wrong muscles and can adjust.
Perifit has no accessories, while Elvie Trainer comes with a storage and charging case and an additional cover. Perifit doesn’t need any charging, since its battery is guaranteed 5 years.
- You’ll like Elvie Trainer if you want a smaller device which comes with a storage box.
- You’ll like Perifit if you prefer a wand-like shaped device and/or you want to keep an eye on your contraction quality at all times.
Our preference: Perifit. While design preferences are personal, we prefer Perifit because it is more helpful in identifying faulty contractions, which may be damaging to your pelvic floor muscles. Research shows that 30% of women performs Kegel exercises in a wrong way, which makes this functionality quite important.
Apps, TRAINING PROGRAMS and features
Both Perifit and Elvie Trainer apps aim to gamify Kegel exercises and help to remain consistent with your training. The results from your workouts are saved, allowing you to measure your performance, track your progress and stay motivated. The apps are very different though, proposing different approaches on focusing on different priorities. We’ve also got the feeling that Perifit’s app is more regularly updated with new features.
Elvie’s app is quite sober, featuring clean and uncluttered design and a limited colour palette. The training is structured with four levels and six different exercises : they are organized in the workouts according to your goals and your progress, to help you build muscle power, agility, and endurance. You start on "Training" level to learn how to exercise correctly, then you move up to Beginner, and so on, each of the 4 levels presenting 10 workouts. Each workout consists in repeating up to 6 different exercises: Lift (squeeze and relax), Pulse (make several quick squeezes), Hold (lift and hold), Speed (Pulse fast), Step (execute all the previous exercises with a more challenging timing), Strength (squeeze as string as possible).
The exercises are not really games, but rather gamified visualizations where your pelvic floor is represented with a gem. It can feel a bit repetitive because even if you switch from one exercise to another, the visuals remain very similar. On a long term, the training offer can be perceived as quite limited, not offering enough variety needed to stay engaged.
Perifit’s app is full of possibilities and clearly more oriented towards gaming, so you’ll unlikely to get bored. It offers 7 training programs and a quiz helps to choose the one which would fit your needs. They focus on symptoms you are experiencing, whether it's urge incontinence, stress incontinence, mixed incontinence or prolapse; and needs like sexual well-being, post-partum & prevention.
Each training program has 10 levels, and you progress by playing video games. Training patterns (all the series of different squeezes and holds and relaxation) are integrated in the games in a seamless way, so you don't get bored with repetition. There are 12 games to unlock as you progress, some of them are "multiplayer", which means you'll be competing against another user! The games are visually diversified, and you'll be able to play the ones you like the most: the relaxing "Scarlet's Melodies", the vintage "Flappy Bird" or a more adventurous "Aerial Fighter" - there are games for different tastes.
In addition to the games, there are unique features in the app, allowing you to understand and improve the quality of your pelvic floor contractions: “Kegel coach”, "3D pelvic floor" and “Practice mode”. Kegel Coach guides you towards a better understanding of your pelvic floor before you jump into training. 3d pelvic floor helps you understand the pelvic floor anatomy and visualize how the muscles "lift" when you squeeze. Practice mode shows the pressure captured by each sensor, so you can visualize the quality of your contractions in a very straightforward manner and work on improving it.
You can also track your contraction quality improvement over time, and other metrics. The app offers a lot of educational content, videos from pelvic floor specialists, advice on training positions and a lot of information about different symptoms and ways to reduce them. There is even a "Community" section where (real) women all around the world share their feedback, discuss their issues and support each other.
- You’ll like Elvie if you want a simple app with minimalist visual, and also if you don’t like games.
- You’ll like Perifit if you are looking for fun ways of exercising and a complete and regularly updated app with a lot of content and helpful features.
