To squeeze your pelvic floor muscles, imagine you’re trying to stop yourself from passing gas or cutting off your urine stream midflow. The muscles that tighten when you do either of those things are your pelvic floor. Once you can feel that squeeze, you can train it like any other muscle, building strength that helps with bladder control, sexual function, and recovery after prostate surgery.
Finding the Right Muscles
The pelvic floor is a hammock of muscle that stretches from your pubic bone to your tailbone. You can’t see it working, which is why most men struggle to know if they’re squeezing correctly. Research on healthy young men found that certain mental cues work far better than a vague instruction to “squeeze your pelvic floor.” The four cues that reliably activate the right muscles are: squeeze your anus, shorten the penis (as if pulling it inward), lift the scrotum, and stop the flow of urine.
Of those, “stop the flow of urine” was the most intuitive for participants, followed by “squeeze your anus.” Try each one and notice which produces the clearest sensation of a deep internal lift. You can test the urine-stopping cue once while actually urinating to confirm you’ve found the muscles, but don’t make that a regular exercise. Repeatedly stopping your urine midstream can interfere with normal bladder function.
How to Perform the Squeeze
Once you’ve identified the muscles, the exercise itself is straightforward. Tighten your pelvic floor, hold for three to five seconds, then relax completely for the same amount of time. That’s one repetition. Aim for 10 repetitions per set, and do three sets spread across the day (morning, afternoon, evening). Over the course of several weeks, gradually work up to holding each squeeze for 10 seconds with a 10-second rest between reps, and increase to 10 to 15 repetitions per set.
Counting out loud while you hold can help prevent a common mistake: holding your breath. Breathing normally throughout the exercise keeps your abdominal pressure steady and lets the pelvic floor do the work on its own.
Mistakes That Undermine Your Progress
The most frequent problem is engaging the wrong muscles. Many men clench their abs, squeeze their glutes, or tighten their thighs instead of isolating the pelvic floor. If your stomach visibly tenses, your buttocks lift off the chair, or your legs press together, you’re recruiting muscles that shouldn’t be involved. A proper pelvic floor contraction is subtle. Someone watching you shouldn’t be able to tell you’re doing it.
Overdoing it is the other pitfall. Training your pelvic floor too aggressively or for too many reps can cause pelvic pain and make the muscles so tight that you have difficulty with bowel movements. If the quality of your contractions falls apart partway through a set, stop there. It’s better to do five good reps than 15 sloppy ones. Start where your muscles actually are and build gradually.
Progressing the Exercise Over Time
Gravity makes pelvic floor exercises harder the more upright you are. If you’re just starting, practice lying on your back with your knees bent. This takes load off the muscles and makes it easier to isolate them. Once you can hold a solid contraction in that position, move to sitting. When sitting feels easy, progress to standing.
The real-world goal is to tighten your pelvic floor automatically before and during any activity that causes leakage or pressure, like coughing, sneezing, lifting something heavy, or standing up from a chair. Practicing in different positions trains the muscles to fire when you actually need them, not just when you’re lying in bed.
Benefits for Erectile and Sexual Function
Pelvic floor muscles play a direct role in erections. Specific muscles in the group compress the vein that drains blood from the penis, helping maintain rigidity once you’re erect. Other fibers contract during ejaculation and orgasm. Strengthening these muscles has measurable effects.
A randomized controlled trial published in the British Journal of General Practice assigned men with erectile dysfunction to a pelvic floor training program. After three months, 40% regained normal erectile function and another 34.5% showed meaningful improvement. Only about a quarter saw no change. The men who trained also showed gains in ejaculatory control and orgasm quality, which makes sense given that the muscles responsible for pumping the ejaculate are the same ones targeted by these exercises.
After Prostate Surgery
Pelvic floor exercises are a cornerstone of recovery after prostatectomy. The surgery disrupts the normal support structures for bladder control, and rebuilding pelvic floor strength is the primary way to regain continence. Ideally, start practicing in the weeks or months before the procedure so the muscles are stronger going in. After surgery, you can resume once the catheter comes out, typically about a week later.
Your recovery program will likely include a mix of quick squeezes and longer holds. Early on, you may only manage a few seconds of contraction before the muscles fatigue. That’s normal. Build slowly. Avoid cycling, heavy squatting, or anything that puts intense pressure on the pelvic floor for at least the first several months after surgery. Pair your Kegel routine with general fitness (walking, light cardio, eventually weightlifting) on most days of the week for the best recovery outcomes.
When to Expect Results
Pelvic floor muscles respond to training like any other skeletal muscle, but they’re small and the gains are gradual. Most men notice initial changes in bladder control or the strength of their contractions within a few weeks of consistent daily practice. More significant improvements in erectile function and continence tend to emerge around the three-month mark, which is the timeline reflected in clinical trials. Some men continue improving through six months of regular training.
Consistency matters more than intensity. Three short sessions a day, every day, will outperform one aggressive session followed by days off. If you’re unsure whether you’re contracting the right muscles or not making progress after several weeks, a pelvic floor physical therapist can assess your technique. Biofeedback, where a sensor gives you real-time feedback on your contraction strength, has strong clinical evidence for improving outcomes and can confirm you’re on the right track.