Reverse kegels for men

By Kyrylo Lozovyi · September 18, 2026

Every guide to pelvic floor training tells you to squeeze. Almost none tell you that the release is a skill of its own, that some men need only the release, and that doing the squeeze without ever learning the release is how you end up with a pelvic floor that hurts. This page is the missing half.

What it is, physically

The pelvic floor is a hammock of muscle between the pubic bone and the tailbone. A kegel lifts it. A reverse kegel lets it lengthen and drop — not far, not forcefully, just back to and slightly past neutral. The sensation most men recognise is the easing that happens in the instant before urine starts, or the gentle giving-way you would use to let wind pass without a sound.

The reason it is a skill and not just "stop squeezing" is that most people with a tight pelvic floor are holding it without knowing. The resting state is the contraction. You cannot release what you cannot feel, so the first job is to feel it.

Who this is for

Two groups, with different reasons.

Men with a pelvic floor that is too tight. Pain in the perineum, penis or testicles; aching after ejaculation; difficulty starting urination; a feeling of never emptying; discomfort sitting. For this picture, kegels are the wrong direction and the reverse kegel is the primary exercise — alongside breathing, hip release and, properly, a pelvic health physiotherapist. The full picture of an over-tight pelvic floor →

Everyone doing strengthening work. A muscle that cannot fully release cannot contract well from a good starting length, and a squeeze that never fully lets go trains a permanently shortened muscle. The release phase in every session on the kegel page is a reverse kegel in all but name. Doing it deliberately makes the strengthening work better.

Not sure which group you're in? The self-check sorts it →

How to do it

1. Get comfortable. Lying on your back with knees bent, or sitting with feet flat, belly soft. Lying is easier at first because nothing is loading the floor.
2. Find the muscle once. Do one gentle kegel so you know where it is, then let it go completely. Notice the letting go — that is the direction you are practising.
3. Breathe in, slowly, through the nose. Let the belly rise. As it does, let the pelvic floor drop and widen with the breath. Think of the first moment of urination, or of gently making room. The diaphragm and the pelvic floor descend together on a real belly breath, so if the breath is right, most of the movement happens on its own.
4. Breathe out. Let the floor return to neutral. Do not squeeze it back up; just stop lengthening.
5. Five breaths. That is a full first session. Two to five minutes once or twice a day is the working dose. More does not help.

The one thing to get right

It is not a push. Bearing down — the strain you would use on the toilet when things are difficult — raises abdominal pressure and forces the pelvic floor downward. That is the opposite of what you want: it loads the muscle instead of releasing it, and done habitually it is associated with the kind of pelvic floor problems that involve things descending that should not.

The difference in feel: a reverse kegel is a reduction of effort. Bearing down is an addition of effort. If your abdomen braces, your breath catches, or you feel pressure rather than easing, you have crossed from one to the other. Stop, breathe, and try a smaller version.

If you genuinely cannot tell the two apart, that is not a failure of concentration — it is a good reason to see a pelvic health physiotherapist, who can feel what the muscle is doing and give you the feedback a web page cannot.

Building it into training

If you are on a strengthening programme, the reverse kegel has two homes:

• As the release phase of every rep. The protocol on this site already gives the release at least as long as the hold. Make that release a deliberate reverse kegel rather than a passive gap — a lengthening, not just an absence of squeezing.
• As its own short session, at a different time. Two to five minutes of breath-led release, so that the last thing the muscle learns each day is how to let go.

If you are not on a strengthening programme because your symptoms are pain and tension, then this — plus the breathing and the hip release on the tight pelvic floor page — is the programme, and strengthening waits until a clinician has assessed the muscle.

What the evidence covers, and what it doesn't

Pelvic floor relaxation and "down-training" are a standard part of physiotherapy for chronic pelvic pain in men, and the narrative reviews of pelvic physical therapy for male sexual disorders describe release-based approaches alongside strengthening. What does not exist is a trial of reverse kegels in isolation: the evidence is for the physiotherapy programmes that include them, delivered by a clinician who can assess the muscle. That is the honest limit of this page, and the reason it sends you to a physiotherapist rather than claiming to replace one.

Sources

• Sahin E, Brand A, Cetindag EN, Messelink B, Yosmaoglu HB. Pelvic physical therapy for male sexual disorders: a narrative review. Int J Impot Res 2025;37:941–949.
• Dorey G, Speakman M, Feneley R, et al. Randomised controlled trial of pelvic floor muscle exercises and manometric biofeedback for erectile dysfunction. Br J Gen Pract 2004;54(508):819–825.