Pelvic Floor Muscle Exercises: Kegel Exercises

The pelvic floor muscle surrounds the urethra and rectum. As the bladder fills with urine, the pelvic floor helps maintain the urine in the bladder and prevent leakage. It relaxes during normal urination and allows urine to flow freely.

Pelvic muscle exercises strengthen the muscle and may decrease urinary urgency. It can benefit men with stress incontinence (by strengthening and bulking up the muscle).

Exercise Program
There are disagreements about what is the “proper” way. I like the following:
A man can learn to identify the group of muscles by simply imagining that he is urinating and then contracting the muscles to "cut off" the stream. He should hold it for only a second or two. Then, he should let the muscle rest for 5-10 seconds and repeat the contraction. He should do a set of 10 contractions four times a day – usually at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed time.

Slow (Sustained Pelvic Floor Contractions)
Also, he should actually stop the urinary stream once or twice when urinating to determine whether he is contracting the right muscles. If the stream stops, he is contracting the right muscles.

Proper and Consistent Exercise is Key
Taken together, this leads to about 50 contractions per day. This is like doing 50 pushups a day and will strengthen the muscles if done faithfully. More than 50 contractions may be too much and may leave the muscles fatigued – resulting in worse continence.

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