Reverse Kegels: How to Relax Your Pelvic Floor and Last Longer

1. What Are Reverse Kegels?

A reverse kegel is the deliberate relaxation and gentle lengthening of the pelvic floor muscles. Where a standard kegel squeezes and lifts — the movement you make to stop the flow of urine — a reverse kegel does the opposite: it lets the floor drop and open, the way the muscles release in the first moment of urinating or when you let out gas.

Most men have never done one on purpose. Pelvic floor training, as it reaches the internet, means kegels: contract, hold, release, repeat. The release is treated as a pause between contractions rather than as a skill in itself. Reverse kegels take that neglected half and make it the exercise.

For ejaculatory control this matters more than it sounds. The pelvic floor is not a passive bystander during sex — its rhythmic contractions are the expulsion phase of ejaculation. A floor that is chronically tense, or that clenches harder as arousal climbs, sits closer to that trigger. Learning to release it on command gives you a physical lever on arousal that works in the opposite direction from the one you already have.

Two things a reverse kegel is not:

• It is not straining. Bearing down hard, the way you would to force a bowel movement, is a different movement with real risks. A reverse kegel is soft, slow, and closer to a sigh than to an effort.
• It is not a replacement for kegels. Contraction and relaxation are two halves of the same control. This guide assumes you have read our kegel exercises for men guide or are training both together.

2. Why a Tense Pelvic Floor Speeds Up Ejaculation

To understand why relaxation is a control skill, it helps to see what the pelvic floor does during sex.

The pelvic floor is a sling of muscle stretching from the pubic bone to the tailbone. Its sexually relevant members are the bulbospongiosus (which wraps the base of the penis), the ischiocavernosus, and the pubococcygeus — the PC muscle that kegel guides talk about. Electromyographic studies by Gerstenberg and colleagues (1990) showed the bulbospongiosus firing rhythmically during ejaculation: the muscle contractions you feel at climax are these muscles pumping.

The Overactive Pelvic Floor

In a healthy resting state these muscles hold a low, steady tone. In many men — and a disproportionate number of men with premature ejaculation — the resting tone is chronically high. Clinicians call this a hypertonic or overactive pelvic floor. A 2016 review by Cohen, Gonzalez and Goldstein in Sexual Medicine Reviews links pelvic floor overactivity to premature ejaculation, erectile difficulty and chronic pelvic pain, and describes relaxation-based rehabilitation as a core part of treatment.

The causes are ordinary: prolonged sitting, stress held in the body, a habit of clenching during masturbation, years of "holding on" to delay ejaculation, and — ironically — enthusiastic kegel training with no attention to release. Whatever the origin, the effect is the same. A muscle that is already partly contracted has a shorter distance to travel before it reaches the contraction that triggers the reflex.

The Arousal-Tension Loop

The second problem is dynamic. As arousal rises, most men tense involuntarily: the pelvic floor tightens, the buttocks and thighs clench, breathing becomes shallow and fast. That tension is not neutral. It feeds back into arousal and hurries the reflex. Men with PE often describe a moment where "everything locks up" just before the point of no return — that is the pelvic floor bracing.

Reverse kegels attack both problems. Practised daily they lower resting tone, moving your baseline further from the trigger. Practised under arousal they give you a way to interrupt the bracing reflex in the moment: release the floor, and the whole cascade slows down.

3. What the Evidence Says

Reverse kegels rarely appear under that name in the scientific literature. What the studies test is pelvic floor rehabilitation — programmes that teach men to perceive, contract and relax the pelvic floor, usually with physiotherapy, biofeedback or both. Relaxation is a built-in component of those protocols, which is where the evidence for reverse kegels comes from.

The foundational study is La Pera and Nicastro (1996) in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy: 18 men with premature ejaculation completed a pelvic floor rehabilitation programme, and 61% gained ejaculatory control. The strongest modern data come from Pastore and colleagues (2014) in Therapeutic Advances in Urology: 40 men with lifelong PE trained for 12 weeks, and 33 of them — 82.5% — gained control, with mean time to ejaculation rising from about 32 seconds to about 146 seconds. Notably, the programme trained relaxation explicitly; the authors describe men learning to release the pelvic floor as much as to contract it.

Two further lines of evidence support the relaxation half specifically:

• Pelvic pain research. Anderson and colleagues (2006), in the Journal of Urology, treated men with chronic pelvic pain using trigger point release and "paradoxical relaxation" of the pelvic floor. Alongside reductions in pain, the men reported improvements in sexual function, including ejaculatory symptoms — evidence that lowering pelvic floor tone changes sexual response.
• Breathing mechanics. Hodges, Sapsford and Pengel (2007) in Neurourology and Urodynamics showed that the pelvic floor moves in coordination with the diaphragm during breathing: it descends on the inhale and rises on the exhale. This is the physiological basis for the breathing cue in every reverse kegel protocol, and it links directly to our guide on breathing exercises for lasting longer.

A note on honesty: no trial has isolated reverse kegels from the rest of a rehabilitation programme, so we cannot say how much of the 82.5% belongs to relaxation alone. What the evidence shows is that programmes which train both directions work, and that pelvic floor tone shapes sexual response. That is a strong reason to train the release — not a promise that it works by itself.

4. Kegels vs Reverse Kegels

The two exercises are not competitors. They are the two directions of a single muscle group, and ejaculatory control needs both.

• Kegels (contraction) build strength and the ability to produce a strong, fast clamp — the movement used in the squeeze technique and in the emergency "brake" at the point of no return. They also build awareness: you cannot control a muscle you cannot feel.
• Reverse kegels (relaxation) lower resting tone, widen the gap between your baseline and the ejaculatory trigger, and give you a way to bring arousal down gradually rather than slamming the brakes.

The men who get into trouble are those who train only one side. Contraction-only training in a man with a hypertonic floor makes the problem worse: he strengthens a muscle that already cannot let go, and finds that his "brake" is permanently half-pressed. Relaxation-only training leaves him without the fast clamp he needs when he misjudges his arousal.

Which Should You Emphasise?

Use resting tone as your guide. Sit quietly and pay attention to the pelvic floor without changing anything. If you notice a low-level clench that you can release — and especially if releasing it feels unfamiliar or difficult — you are on the tense side and should weight your training toward reverse kegels for the first weeks. If you struggle to feel the muscle at all, or your contractions are weak and short, start with contraction to build awareness and add the release once you can locate the muscle.

Most men with PE fall into the first group. Our guide comparing pelvic floor exercises with medication sets out how the two directions fit together in a full programme; this article goes deep on the release.

5. How to Find the Movement

The reverse kegel is harder to locate than the kegel because it has no obvious everyday cue — nobody "holds in" a relaxation. These four methods work, in order of reliability.

Method 1: The Urination Start

The most reliable reference. The moment the flow of urine begins, the pelvic floor drops to let it through. That drop is the reverse kegel. Next time you urinate, pay attention to the first half-second: notice the release, and try to reproduce it after you have finished, standing still. Do not practise while urinating and do not interrupt the flow — the aim is to learn the sensation, not to train on the toilet.

Method 2: The Breathing Cue

Lie on your back with your knees bent. Place one hand on your lower abdomen and breathe slowly into it, letting the belly rise on the inhale. As the diaphragm descends it pushes gently down on the pelvic organs, and the pelvic floor lowers with it. On each inhale, direct your attention to the perineum — the soft area between the scrotum and the anus — and try to let it drop and widen a fraction further than the breath alone takes it. This is the version you will use in training.

Method 3: The Fingertip Check

Place a clean fingertip lightly on the perineum. Do a standard kegel: you will feel the tissue lift and firm. Now release completely, then try to go a little further in the same direction — the perineum should move slightly downward and outward under your finger. The movement is small, a few millimetres. If it moves, you have found it.

Method 4: The Contrast Drill

If nothing is registering, use the contrast. Perform a firm kegel and hold it for five seconds. Then release, and keep releasing — imagine the muscle continuing to melt for another five seconds after the contraction has ended. The muscle will often overshoot slightly past its resting point, and that overshoot is the sensation you are looking for. Repeat the contrast a dozen times and the release becomes easier to find without the contraction first.

6. How to Do a Reverse Kegel: Step by Step

Once you can find the movement, this is the training form. Every phase of the routine in the next section uses it.

1. Position. Lie on your back, knees bent, feet flat, or sit upright on a firm chair. Lying down is easier at first because gravity helps the floor drop.
2. Settle. Take three slow breaths into the abdomen. Let the buttocks, thighs and lower belly go slack. You cannot release the pelvic floor while everything around it is braced.
3. Inhale and release. On a slow 4-second inhale, let the belly rise and direct the breath downward. As it arrives, let the perineum drop and widen. Think of the anus gently opening and the base of the penis lengthening — a softening, not a push.
4. Hold the release. Pause at the bottom of the breath for 2 seconds, keeping the floor open. This is the part that trains conscious control: staying released on purpose.
5. Exhale to neutral. Breathe out slowly for 4 seconds and allow the pelvic floor to return to its resting position. Do not contract it — just let it come back.
6. Repeat. Ten breaths make one set. Between sets, do a single light kegel and release to reset your sense of where neutral is.

Two checks while you practise. First, the abdomen: it should rise softly with the breath, never brace outward as if you were bearing down. Second, the breath: never hold it against a closed throat. If you catch yourself pushing, stop, breathe out, and restart with a smaller, gentler release. Effort is the enemy here — the more you try, the more you clench.

7. The 4-Week Reverse Kegel Routine

This routine is designed to slot into the kegel programme from our kegel exercises for men guide, replacing the "relaxation cool-down" with structured work. Ten minutes a day, every day.

Week 1: Locate and Release (lying down)

• Breath-led release (4 minutes): 3 sets of 10 reverse kegels using the 4-2-4 pattern above. Fingertip on the perineum for the first set to confirm movement.
• Contrast drill (3 minutes): 10 cycles of a 5-second kegel followed by a 10-second release-and-keep-releasing.
• Body scan (3 minutes): lie still and scan for tension in the buttocks, thighs, abdomen and jaw. Release each on an exhale. The pelvic floor follows the rest of the body.
• Goal: reliably feel the perineum drop on the inhale without the abdomen bracing.

Week 2: Longer Holds (lying and sitting)

• Extended release (4 minutes): 3 sets of 8 reverse kegels with a 4-second hold at the bottom instead of 2. Do the second set sitting upright.
• Kegel-reverse alternation (3 minutes): 3-second kegel, 3-second full release, 3-second reverse kegel, back to neutral. 10 cycles. This builds the full coordination pattern.
• Daily awareness checks: three times a day, at your desk or in the car, notice your pelvic floor. If it is clenched, do one reverse kegel and move on.
• Goal: release on command while seated, within one breath.

Week 3: Standing and Under Mild Arousal

• Standing release (3 minutes): 2 sets of 10 reverse kegels standing, hands resting on the lower belly. Gravity now works against you; the release gets subtler.
• The elevator down (3 minutes): imagine the pelvic floor descending through four floors below neutral. Release in four small stages on one long inhale, then return in four stages on the exhale. 6 cycles.
• Aroused practice (4 minutes): during masturbation, at arousal level 5 on a 1-10 scale, stop stimulating and perform 5 reverse kegels. Notice whether arousal drops and by how much. Do not push past level 6 this week.
• Goal: a noticeable drop in arousal from 5 reverse kegels at level 5.

Week 4: Integration With Stop-Start

• Aroused release (5 minutes): using the stop-start technique, stimulate to level 7, stop, and instead of simply waiting perform slow reverse kegels with belly breathing until you reach level 4-5. Resume. 4-5 cycles.
• Release without stopping (3 minutes): at level 6, keep stimulating slowly while performing reverse kegels. The aim is to hold arousal steady using the release alone — the skill that transfers to intercourse.
• Maintenance (2 minutes): 2 sets of 10 standing reverse kegels.
• Goal: bring arousal from 7 to 5 with release and breath, without needing a complete stop.

From week 5 onward, keep reverse kegels in every session at roughly a 1:1 ratio with contractions, and progress the aroused work toward higher levels and partnered practice. Our edging guide covers the high-arousal phase in detail.

8. Using Reverse Kegels During Sex

Training builds the skill. Sex is where it earns its keep — and the transfer is not automatic, so it helps to know exactly what to do.

The Preventive Release

The most valuable use is the least dramatic: staying released before you need to. From the first moments of penetration, keep a fraction of your attention on the pelvic floor and let it stay soft. Most men brace unconsciously from the start, which means they begin intercourse already halfway to the trigger. A soft floor at level 3 buys you far more time than a frantic release at level 8.

The Active Release

When arousal climbs toward 7, slow your thrusting or pause deep, take a long belly breath, and perform two or three reverse kegels on the inhales. Let the buttocks and thighs go slack at the same time — they are almost certainly clenched. Arousal will typically drop one to two points, enough to resume. This works best combined with slower, shallower strokes rather than a full stop, which is more discreet and keeps the encounter flowing.

Choosing the Right Brake

You now have two opposite tools. The kegel clamp — the squeeze technique — is the emergency brake for the last second before the point of no return. The reverse kegel is the gradual brake for everything before that. Use the release early and often; keep the clamp for genuine emergencies, because a hard contraction at high arousal can also tip some men over. Men who have trained both report that the reverse kegel is the one they use most, and the clamp becomes rarer as their control improves.

Positions and Tension

Some positions make release harder. Any position where you support your weight on braced arms and legs — classic missionary with your body held rigid, or standing — encourages full-body tension that spreads to the pelvic floor. Positions where your weight is supported and your legs are relaxed — lying on your side, or with your partner on top — make it easier to keep the floor soft. Use these while the skill is new.

9. Common Mistakes and Safety

Mistake 1: Straining Instead of Releasing

The most common and the only one with real risk. Bearing down hard against a held breath — the Valsalva manoeuvre — is not a reverse kegel. It raises pressure in the abdomen, and done repeatedly it can aggravate haemorrhoids, strain the pelvic floor, and in men with a weakness in the abdominal wall contribute to a hernia. The correct movement is small, soft and breath-led. If you feel pressure in the rectum, a bulge in the abdomen, or any urge to push, you are straining. Back off to half the effort.

Mistake 2: Holding the Breath

Holding the breath locks the diaphragm, and a locked diaphragm cannot lower the pelvic floor. If your breath stops, the release stops with it. Keep the throat open throughout; humming quietly on the exhale is a useful check that air is flowing.

Mistake 3: Bracing the Abdomen or Glutes

Pushing the belly out, or squeezing the buttocks, are compensations that feel like "doing something" but block the release. Use the hand-on-belly check: the abdomen rises softly with the breath and does not harden.

Mistake 4: Training Only the Release

Just as contraction-only training creates a floor that cannot relax, relaxation-only training creates a floor with no fast clamp. Keep both in every session, in the alternation pattern from week 2.

Mistake 5: Expecting It to Work Under Arousal Without Practice

Releasing on the sofa is easy. Releasing at level 7 with a partner is a different skill, and it is built only by practising the release under progressively higher arousal — which is what weeks 3 and 4 are for. Skipping the aroused practice is the main reason men report "it doesn't work during sex".

When to See a Professional

Reverse kegels are safe for healthy men. See a doctor or a pelvic health physiotherapist if you have persistent pelvic, testicular or rectal pain; pain with ejaculation; urinary symptoms; a history of hernia or prolapse; or if you cannot feel any movement after two weeks of practice. Chronic pelvic pain in men responds well to professional pelvic floor treatment — the Anderson protocol cited above is one example — and it is not something to train through on your own.

10. Tracking Your Progress

Relaxation is harder to measure than strength, which is exactly why it needs tracking — without numbers it is easy to believe you are releasing when you are not. Log four things:

• Resting tone (1-5): once a day, before practice, sit quietly and rate how clenched the pelvic floor feels. Expect this to fall over weeks 1-3 and then stabilise. It is your baseline.
• Release depth (1-5): after each set, rate how far and how easily the floor dropped. Fingertip confirmation counts as a 3 or above.
• Arousal drop: from week 3, note your level before and after 5 reverse kegels during aroused practice — for example "6 → 4". The size of the drop is the most direct measure of the skill you are building.
• Recovery time: from week 4, seconds from the stop at level 7 to reaching level 5 using release and breath. This should fall from a minute or more to 20-30 seconds as the skill matures.

Expect the numbers to move in that order: resting tone first, release depth second, arousal drop third, recovery time last. Partnered results lag solo results by a few weeks, and a week where nothing improves is normal around the one-month mark — respond by varying position and arousal level, not by adding effort. Consistent daily practice produces measurable change within 4-6 weeks and durable change by 12, in line with the timelines in the clinical studies.

11. Frequently Asked Questions

What is a reverse kegel?

A reverse kegel is the opposite of a standard kegel: instead of squeezing and lifting the pelvic floor, you deliberately release and gently lengthen it, the way the muscles drop when you start to urinate or let out gas. Done on a slow inhale, it trains conscious relaxation of the pelvic floor — the half of muscular control that standard kegel routines leave out.

Do reverse kegels help you last longer in bed?

For many men, yes — particularly those whose pelvic floor is chronically tense. Ejaculation is driven by rhythmic contractions of the pelvic floor, and a floor that is already clenched sits closer to that trigger. Pelvic floor rehabilitation programmes that teach both contraction and relaxation have lengthened intercourse from roughly 30 seconds to over two minutes in clinical studies. Reverse kegels are the relaxation component of that training, not a stand-alone cure — see our overview of premature ejaculation causes for the bigger picture.

How do I know if I am doing a reverse kegel correctly?

Place a fingertip on the perineum, the soft area between the scrotum and the anus. During a correct reverse kegel it moves slightly downward and outward as you inhale, without the abdomen bracing, the buttocks clenching, or the breath being held. If nothing moves, you are probably only breathing; if you feel pressure in the rectum or a hard push, you are straining instead of releasing. The right feeling is closer to a sigh than to an effort.

Can reverse kegels be harmful?

Performed correctly they are gentle and safe. The one thing to avoid is straining: bearing down hard against a held breath, as if forcing a bowel movement, raises abdominal pressure and over time can aggravate haemorrhoids or a hernia. A reverse kegel is a release, not a push. If you have pelvic pain, a history of prolapse or hernia, or symptoms that persist, see a pelvic health physiotherapist before training.

How long does it take to see results from reverse kegels?

Most men can feel the movement reliably within one to two weeks of daily practice. Using it under arousal — lowering your excitement by releasing the pelvic floor mid-session — usually takes three to six weeks. Transfer to partnered sex typically follows over the second and third month, in line with the 12-week timelines used in pelvic floor rehabilitation studies. Daily consistency matters far more than session length.

References

• Anderson, R. U., Wise, D., Sawyer, T., & Chan, C. A. (2006). Sexual dysfunction in men with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome: improvement after trigger point release and paradoxical relaxation training. Journal of Urology, 176(4), 1534-1539.
• Althof, S. E., McMahon, C. G., Waldinger, M. D., et al. (2014). An update of the International Society of Sexual Medicine's guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of premature ejaculation (PE). Sexual Medicine, 2(2), 60-90.
• Cohen, D., Gonzalez, J., & Goldstein, I. (2016). The role of pelvic floor muscles in male sexual dysfunction and pelvic pain. Sexual Medicine Reviews, 4(1), 53-62.
• Gerstenberg, T. C., Levin, R. J., & Wagner, G. (1990). Erection and ejaculation in man. Assessment of the electromyographic activity of the bulbocavernosus and ischiocavernosus muscles. British Journal of Urology, 65(4), 395-402.
• Hodges, P. W., Sapsford, R., & Pengel, L. H. (2007). Postural and respiratory functions of the pelvic floor muscles. Neurourology and Urodynamics, 26(3), 362-371.
• La Pera, G., & Nicastro, A. (1996). A new treatment for premature ejaculation: the rehabilitation of the pelvic floor. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 22(1), 22-26.
• Pastore, A. L., Palleschi, G., Fuschi, A., et al. (2014). Pelvic floor muscle rehabilitation for patients with lifelong premature ejaculation: a novel therapeutic approach. Therapeutic Advances in Urology, 6(3), 83-88.
• Rosenbaum, T. Y. (2007). Pelvic floor involvement in male and female sexual dysfunction and the role of pelvic floor rehabilitation in treatment: a literature review. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 4(1), 4-13.
• Semans, J. H. (1956). Premature ejaculation: a new approach. Southern Medical Journal, 49(4), 353-358.