Kegels not working? 6 mistakes men make and how to fix them
Six technique problems that clinical guides warn about, how to tell which one is yours, and how long Kegels really take.
Written by the Adaging Editorial Team with AI assistance. Every claim links to its source, and the full list is at the end.
Kegels look simple. Squeeze the muscles at the base of your pelvis, hold, let go. Plenty of men try them for a week or two, feel nothing and quit.
The exercise itself has decent evidence behind it. In a randomised trial, 55 men with erectile dysfunction either learned pelvic floor exercises from a physiotherapist or got lifestyle advice only. After 3 months, erectile function was significantly better in the exercise group (Dorey et al., 2005).
Men in the comparison group who had not improved were then given the same exercises. At the final assessment, 40% of all 55 men had regained normal erectile function and another 34.5% had improved (Dorey et al., 2004).
Those men were taught in a clinic and checked with biofeedback. At home, nobody checks your technique, and small errors are easy to miss. About 40% of people do not do a Kegel correctly the first time, according to Mayo Clinic Health System.
Below are six common mistakes, how to spot each one and how to fix it. If you have never done a Kegel before, start with our step-by-step guide to Kegel exercises for men and come back here if progress stalls.
For why this muscle group gets so little attention in the first place, see our earlier story, The Gap Nobody Trains.
Mistake 1: squeezing everything except the pelvic floor
A frequent error is recruiting the big muscles nearby. You clench your buttocks, press your thighs together, tighten your stomach or hold your breath. It can feel like hard work while the pelvic floor itself does little.
Mayo Clinic’s advice is plain: don’t flex your stomach, thighs or buttocks, and breathe freely during the exercises.
How to tell. Your buttocks lift off the chair, your belly goes hard, or you run out of breath during a 5-second hold.
The fix: use a concrete cue. The words you think while you squeeze change what your body does. In a 2022 ultrasound study of 35 healthy young men, the vague cue “squeeze your pelvic floor muscles” produced a correct upward lift in 69% of them (Ben Ami et al., 2022).
Concrete cues did better. “Shorten the penis” and “squeeze your anus” worked for 94% of the men, “elevate the scrotum” for 91% and “stop the flow of urine” for 89%. A cue that combined the lift with drawing in the belly button worked for only 26%.
An earlier study of 15 men found that the cue also decides which part of the pelvic floor works hardest. “Shorten the penis” gave the most activity in the sphincter around the urethra. “Tighten around the anus” worked the anal sphincter most, and “elevate the bladder” pulled in the most abdominal muscle (Stafford et al., 2016).
Check it in a mirror. Stand without clothes and do one slow squeeze: the base of the penis should pull in slightly toward your belly and your testicles should lift. Count out loud during the hold, as Cleveland Clinic suggests. If you can count, you are still breathing.
Mistake 2: practising while you pee
Stopping your stream midway is a popular way to find the right muscles. It works as a one-off test. As a daily exercise it causes problems.
Mayo Clinic says not to do Kegels while you urinate, because stopping your bladder from emptying could raise your risk of a bladder infection. Continence Health Australia says to try the stop test once or twice at most, because doing it regularly can interrupt your bladder’s natural rhythm.
How to tell. Most of your sets happen at the urinal, or you stop and restart the stream every time you go.
The fix. Use the stop test once to learn the feeling. After that, practise lying down or sitting, and empty your bladder before a set.
One toilet habit does help: a strong squeeze right after you finish, to clear the last drops. More on that in mistake 6.
Mistake 3: never fully letting go
An NHS leaflet on pelvic floor relaxation puts it simply: healthy pelvic floor muscles contract when you need them to, then relax back to their resting position. It is easy to train only the first half.
How to tell. You start the next squeeze before the last one has faded, or the muscles never feel fully soft between reps.
Some men already carry too much tension down there. Cleveland Clinic calls this a hypertonic pelvic floor. In men it can show up as erection problems or pain with erection or ejaculation.
Other signs it lists include a stream that is hard to start, needing to strain on the toilet, and pain or pressure in the pelvis. None of these is specific to a tight pelvic floor, so they need a proper check.
A tense pelvic floor can feel weak. An NHS physiotherapy leaflet notes that when the muscles are already tense, it is very difficult to contract them effectively. Pelvic floor physiotherapists warn that squeezing harder and more often adds to the tension.
The fix. Rest after each squeeze for as long as you held it. During the rest, breathe in through your nose, let your belly soften and let the pelvic floor drop. NHS physiotherapists call this “sniff, flop and drop”.
If letting go feels hard, or Kegels cause pain, stop and see a doctor or a pelvic floor physiotherapist. Our guide to a tight pelvic floor in men covers the signs and the relaxation drills.
Mistake 4: one kind of squeeze, done one way
It is easy to settle into a single slow squeeze, done lying down, every day. Clinical guides for men ask for more variety than that.
NHS guidance for men includes two kinds of squeeze. Slow holds build up to 10 seconds. Quick squeezes lift and let go straight away. Continence Health Australia suggests 3 to 5 quick squeezes after the slow ones, building towards 8 to 10.
Daily life asks for both. Mayo Clinic advises squeezing just before and during anything that pushes down on your belly, such as a sneeze, a cough, a laugh or a heavy lift.
How to tell. Every set looks the same, you only ever practise lying down, and you count reps instead of checking each lift.
The fix. Do the slow holds first, then a few quick squeezes. Once lying down feels easy, practise sitting, then standing, then walking, as Mayo Clinic suggests.
End the set when the lift gets weak or sloppy. Cleveland Clinic advises stopping when the muscles get tired, and the NHS sheet puts the quality of a set ahead of the number of reps.
Mistake 5: giving up after two weeks
It is tempting to judge Kegels after a week or two. The studies behind them measured results after months.
The main erectile dysfunction trial measured results at 3 months, and erectile function improved further by 6 months. Its authors concluded that the exercises should be taught properly and practised for at least 3 months, then kept up (Dorey et al., 2004). A study of men with lifelong premature ejaculation measured its results after 12 weeks (Pastore et al., 2014).
Clinical guides agree. Mayo Clinic says to expect results within a few weeks to a few months of regular practice. An NHS information sheet for men says it can take up to 3 months to see an improvement.
How to tell. You are judging the whole thing by how sex or the toilet feel after two weeks.
The fix. In the first weeks, track the muscle itself. Write down your longest clean hold and how many good squeezes you manage before the lift fades, and compare every couple of weeks. If those numbers go up, the muscle is responding.
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If nothing has improved after about 3 months of regular practice, the same NHS sheet advises getting further help. A professional can check your technique.
Mistake 6: never using the muscles when it counts
A set done lying in bed is practice. The payoff comes when the muscles work at the moments you care about.
After you pee. Mayo Clinic suggests a set right after urinating to clear the last few drops. In a trial of 55 men with erectile dysfunction, 36 also had dribbling after urination. Exercises that included a strong squeeze straight after urinating reduced it significantly at 3 months (Dorey et al., 2004).
Before a cough, a sneeze or a lift. Gently tighten just before the effort and hold it until the effort is over, as NHS guidance for men describes.
During sex. Some of the muscles you train contract rhythmically at climax. Learning to find, hold and release them is the idea behind using pelvic floor training for ejaculatory control.
The evidence is promising but thin. A systematic review found that pelvic floor training appears to help, but rated the studies as low to moderate quality (Myers and Smith, 2019). The NHS suggests practising control techniques alone first. Our guide to premature ejaculation exercises covers the stop-start technique and the research in more detail.
How to tell. Your pelvic floor only works during the set, and you forget about it for the rest of the day.
The fix. Pick one real-life moment and pair a squeeze with it for a week, such as after every pee or before every heavy lift. Then add the next one.
When to see a doctor or a physiotherapist
Some symptoms need a check before you start training, or alongside it. See a doctor if you have:
- erection problems that started suddenly
- pain in the pelvis, penis or testicles, or pain during the exercises
- blood in your urine or semen
- recent pelvic or prostate surgery, in which case follow your surgical team’s plan
- erection problems together with chest pain or diabetes
Mayo Clinic notes that erection problems can be an early warning sign of heart disease. The arteries in the penis are smaller than those that supply the heart, so trouble can show up there years before heart symptoms such as chest pain.
If you cannot feel a clear squeeze and lift, or see no movement in the mirror, a pelvic floor physiotherapist can check your technique, often with biofeedback. In the US the title is pelvic floor physical therapist.
Adaging is a daily pelvic floor training program for men, done in the browser in 5 to 10 minutes a day. It starts with relaxation, then builds strength and control, takes the skill into real life and retests you against your own starting numbers.
There is a 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can cancel in two clicks from your profile. If you want a plan built around the fixes above, take the 3-minute quiz.
This article is general information, not medical advice.
Sources
Studies
- Ben Ami et al. Verbal instruction for pelvic floor muscle contraction among healthy young males. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2022.
- Stafford et al. Pattern of activation of pelvic floor muscles in men differs with verbal instructions. Neurourology and Urodynamics, 2016. Summary by Herman & Wallace.
- Dorey et al. Randomised controlled trial of pelvic floor muscle exercises and manometric biofeedback for erectile dysfunction. British Journal of General Practice, 2004.
- Dorey et al. Pelvic floor exercises for erectile dysfunction. BJU International, 2005.
- Dorey et al. Pelvic floor exercises for treating post-micturition dribble in men with erectile dysfunction: a randomized controlled trial. Urologic Nursing, 2004.
- Pastore et al. Pelvic floor muscle rehabilitation for patients with lifelong premature ejaculation: a novel therapeutic approach. Therapeutic Advances in Urology, 2014.
- Myers and Smith. Pelvic floor muscle training improves erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation: a systematic review. Physiotherapy, 2019.
Clinical guidance
- Mayo Clinic. Kegel exercises for men: Understand the benefits.
- Mayo Clinic. Erectile dysfunction: A sign of heart disease?
- Mayo Clinic Health System. Kegels are for men too.
- Cleveland Clinic. Kegel exercises for men.
- Cleveland Clinic. Hypertonic pelvic floor.
- MedlinePlus, US National Library of Medicine. Kegel exercises.
- NHS. Ejaculation problems.
- Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust. Pelvic floor muscle exercise information sheet for men.
- University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust. Pelvic floor relaxation.
- Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust. Relaxing the pelvic floor.
- Continence Health Australia. Pelvic floor exercises for men.
- Australian Government Department of Health. Pelvic floor muscle training for men.
- Pelvic Floor First. Men: working your pelvic floor.
- Pelvic Floor First. Pelvic floor training: a men’s issue.
- Proactive Pelvic Health Centre, Toronto. To Kegel or not to Kegel?
