Kegel Exercises For Men: Know The Benefits & How It Works

Introduction

If you have a weak pelvic floor, or you can’t control your muscles, then you may lead a low-quality life.

Just imagine that you won’t be able to hold your urine, control your bladder, and even the bowels? And you may suffer from men’s sexual health problems like erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation.

These instances could mean you won’t enjoy the sexual performance as you last a short time. Fortunately, research shows that you can manage to control the pelvic muscles through kegel exercises for men.

What Are Kegel Exercises?

Contrary to popular belief, kegel exercises aren’t only a preserve of women. For better men’s sexual health, urine control, and prostate management, men can do the Kegels too. Men’s pelvic floor holds the rectum, prostate, and bladder.

Do kegel exercises for men to last longer, prevent involuntary urination, urine dribbles, control prostate pain after surgery, and improve bowel control.

By doing pelvic floor exercises, men can make their groin stronger and become more active during sexual activities. This is so because you practice the hold and release exercises that make your pelvic floor muscles firm.

Prioritizing kegel exercises for men to last longer and doing them before and after prostate cancer treatment will help strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. Furthermore, pelvic floor exercises are important since the pelvic floor muscles weaken with increased age.

Weakening of the muscles can lead to incontinence, where one loses control of urine and feces, particularly after prostate surgery^[1].

How To Find The Right Muscles

Men sparingly use the pelvic muscles. It can be a little difficult to establish the right pelvic muscles and make the kegel exercises for men to last longer. If you squeeze the wrong muscles, then you won’t get the needed results. Or you may strain different parts of the body.

But to find the right muscles, try to stop and hold your urine as you urinate a few times. A word of caution is you shouldn’t do kegel exercises longer than necessary.

Secondly, if you try to tighten the muscles that you use when you want to prevent yourself from passing gas, you feel a tightening sensation in the right pelvic muscles.

Do not squeeze the buttocks, thighs, and stomach to get the kegel exercise benefits. The inner thigh muscles may tighten a bit, though, as you hold.

You can stand in front of a mirror, squeeze the pelvic area, and you will see the penis being drawn in and the scrotum lifting if you are doing it right. Ultimately, you can consult a urologist if you aren’t sure or if you require special care.

Location Of The Pelvic Floor Muscles In Men

For kegel exercises for men to last longer, they must find the pelvic muscles and try to stop the flow of the urine when urinating. If you can do it without holding your breath, and tightening your buttocks, stomach, or thighs, then you have found the pelvic floor muscles.

So, the muscles may be summed up into – the bladder, whose muscles hold the urine. Then, you have the pelvic floor muscle (pubococcygeus or PC muscle) that supports the rectum and the bladder as you pass urine and empty your bowels.

Finally, you have the sphincter muscles to help open and close the urethra as you release urine from the bladder.

If you can squeeze and relax the muscles by stopping urine flow midway as you pass urine in the morning, those are your pelvic muscles.

Remember, this holding of urine shouldn’t be a routine as it can damage the bladder despite the benefits of Kegels on men’s sexual health.

Doing Kegel Exercises By Yourself

To control incontinence and bowel movement and get better sexual health, you need to do the kegel exercises for men the right way. This will help you avoid medication or surgery in case of problems. So, do it properly at home.

To begin with, squeeze and tighten the pelvic floor muscles and count up to four for about five seconds.

Then, release and relax the pelvic floor muscles. Repeat both steps about 15 to 20 times. Each squeeze, pause, relax process is a kegel exercise.

The second variation of kegel exercises for men involves tightening your upper rectum muscles as if you’re holding your bowel movement. Ensure you feel a pulling sensation as you do the exercise^[2]. Hold for 5 seconds and count up to four slowly again.

Pause and repeat the process about 15 times. A better way to time the counting of one to four is by doing the counts as “one one-thousand, two two-thousand, three three-thousand, up to four four-thousand.” That way, you will maintain the tempo and the timing of each kegel exercise.

Remember not to tighten the stomach, thigh, or buttocks muscles as you do the kegel exercises for men to make it more effective and exercise the right pelvic muscles. Additionally, don’t hold your breath as you perform the exercises.

As you get more used to and get kegel exercise benefits, do it as you sit, walk, urinate, stand, or lie down. In the end, you can do many sets of Kegels daily as you perfect the techniques. Again, if you get lost or are not sure of yourself, consult a urologist or an expert to help you.

You never feel pain during DIY kegel exercises. If you feel any pain in other body parts like the stomach, legs, or back, you aren’t doing them properly. Don’t overdo the exercises so that the muscles won’t tire and fail.

The Best Time To Do Kegel Exercises

You can do kegel exercises any time you wish. However, many people remember them when preparing for prostate surgery. But under normal circumstances, most people prefer doing them to prevent various problems. Many prefer doing them when lying down on a chair or floor mat and bed.

Some do it while standing, which is appropriate to control the unexpected flow of urine. After all, men pee while standing.

As a routine, you can schedule kegel exercises for men in the morning, lunch break, supper time, and before going to sleep. And you can do more in between as you walk, stand, laugh, sneeze, lift, brush your teeth, and many other times.

You can do them by yourself. In the beginning, when you are learning, ensure to do them when your bladder is empty. And NEVER do kegel exercises for men to last longer while wearing a catheter or under medical care.

When You’re Having Trouble

You shouldn’t get embarrassed if you are having trouble while doing the kegel exercises for men. You can let your urologist or health care practitioner guide you through the pelvic floor exercises.

With time, you will learn to squeeze, tighten, hold, and relax the right pelvic floor muscles as you get feedback from the experts. And you will also learn how to do kegel exercises for men to last longer.

There are two techniques to help you: biofeedback training and electric stimulation muscles of your pelvic floor.

In biofeedback training, you determine if the correct pelvic floor muscles are tightened or squeezed.

Here, the medical practitioner can insert a probe into your anus with a monitor to measure and show your activity as you perform the kegel exercise. It helps locate the pelvic floor muscles too.

Electric stimulation establishes a sensation to simulate what a perfect kegel exercise should feel like.

The expert touches your pelvic floor with a harmless electric current that makes the muscles squeeze. You feel a pulling sensation similar to the one you get in real kegel exercises.

Kegel Exercise Benefits Not Only Women But Men Too

Why bother with kegel exercises? A weak pelvic floor is a source of many problems like incontinence, leaking of urine, and feces. Besides, men’s sexual health problems are widespread as many men can’t control their pelvic floor muscles.

Here is a summary of the kegel exercise benefits:

• Helps improve many pelvic floor malfunctions – Kegel exercises help strengthen and rehabilitate the pelvic area muscles. Doing pelvic floor rehabilitation is likened to a form of surgery. By doing it, men have solved many problems that existed within the pelvic area even without the need for surgery.

  In severe cases, you can combine pelvic rehabilitation and strengthening with biofeedback training and electric stimulation to make the muscles firmer.

• Kegels and Erectile Dysfunction (ED) – Do you suffer from erectile dysfunction? Studies show that doing kegel exercises may help get rid of or reduce men’s sexual health embarrassment that lowers their quality of life.

  Though kegel exercise alone may not be sufficient to reverse erectile dysfunction, it’s effective if you combine it with diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes. And if you add counseling, medication, and other interventions, then you can reverse erectile dysfunction and start getting an erection you are proud of.

• Kegels and men’s sexual health – Men who have premature ejaculation may find solace in kegel exercises. Because premature ejaculation and low libido are men’s sexual health problems. Come to think of it, you get a hard-on, but you ejaculate even before you are halfway inside your woman!

  Kegel exercises, biofeedback, electrostimulation, counseling, diet, and other exercises can alleviate men’s sexual health concerns. That’s simply because the man can hold and control ejaculation using strong pelvic floor muscles.

• Bladder and urine flow control – Doing constant or daily kegel exercises can solve the problem of that last drop or two that ends in your pants. The kegel exercise benefits you by preventing waking up at night from your sleep to go and pee (nocturia). This is because it will help you control the bladder and urethra even in your sleep. So, you will sleep soundly till morning.

• Kegel exercise is discrete – Another of the kegel exercise benefits is that the exercises are discreet, inexpensive, and can be done anywhere, anytime.

  Plus, kegel exercises for men help exercise muscles without interfering with your life habits. Remember, you can do them while sitting, standing, relaxing on the bed, or brushing your teeth.

• Helps manage pain and recovery after prostate surgery – Many times, men who undergo prostate surgery to treat prostatitis or benign prostatitis hyperplasia^[3] are in pain. Some suffer from incontinence as their pelvic muscles are loose. Doctors prescribe kegel exercises for men to manage the pain and try to bring the function of the pelvic muscles back to normal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

However, you must find the right muscles and follow the simple do-it-yourself process. Try to stop urine flow in the morning and hold your rectum muscles to prevent passing gas as a form of practice to get the right muscles. Ensure you don’t hold your breath or tighten the stomach, buttocks, or thighs to get many kegel exercise benefits.

But never overdo Kegels to avoid harming the pelvic muscles and the bladder. Consult your doctor or urologist to help you get started.