Breathing and your pelvic floor: a guide for men

For the let-go half of training, slow belly breathing is the practice we use. Below: when to breathe in and out for each kind of squeeze, belly breathing step by step, a 3-minute drill, and what one trial looked at. New to Kegels? Find the muscle first with our guide to finding your pelvic floor.

Don't hold your breath

The cue in the best-known UK trial of pelvic-floor exercises for men was to try to avoid holding your breath, pulling in your abdomen or tensing your buttocks.¹ Breath-holding creeps in when you concentrate hard on a small muscle, so check it on every rep.

Two quick checks, which also work for the holds in how long to hold a Kegel:

• Count out loud during a hold. If you can count, you are breathing.
• If you can't breathe through a squeeze, it is too strong or too long. Go lighter and build back up over the next sessions.

When to breathe in and out

Different drills pair the breath differently. Here is how they line up.

Breath Lift is a coordination drill, not a strength one. It runs at about 4 seconds in and 4 seconds out, which works out at 7 or 8 breaths a minute.

Belly breathing, step by step

Diaphragmatic breathing, or belly breathing, means breathing low into your belly rather than high into your chest. Learn it while you are calm, so it is there when you need it.

1. Get comfortable. Lie on your back with your knees bent, or sit tall. Put one hand on your chest and one on your belly.
2. Breathe in through your nose for about 4 seconds. Let your belly rise into your hand. The hand on your chest should barely move.
3. Breathe out for about 6 seconds, through your nose or softly through your mouth. Let your belly fall.
4. Stay soft. Jaw loose, shoulders down, buttocks and thighs relaxed. Let your pelvic floor soften as you breathe in, and stay soft as you breathe out.
5. Repeat. In for 4 and out for 6 comes to about 6 breaths a minute.

Common slips:

• Chest breathing. If the top hand moves more than the bottom one, slow down and aim lower.
• Forcing it. Belly breathing should feel easy. If you are straining to fill up, take a smaller breath.
• Pausing at the top. Let the in-breath turn into the out-breath without a hold.

If you feel dizzy or uncomfortable, go back to normal breathing for a few breaths, then start again with smaller breaths.

Slow breathing to help you relax

Slow breathing, under 10 breaths a minute, is linked to feeling more relaxed and less anxious.³ That finding comes from a 2018 review of small studies in healthy adults, none of them about the pelvic floor. So take it for what it is: a good reason to practise slow breathing as a relaxation skill.

That is also why the let-go half of every GoBeast session is paced by slow breaths.

Breathing with reverse Kegels

A reverse Kegel is the release: you let the pelvic floor soften and drop, without pushing. In our Release set you soften on a slow in-breath and stay soft on the out-breath. Our guide to reverse Kegels for men has the steps and the common mistakes.

Breathing and ejaculatory control: one trial

In one 2025 trial of 62 men with early ejaculation, one group added daily belly breathing to pelvic-floor and behavioural training, and the authors reported better results.⁴

Read it with care. It is a single small study, and breathing was tested on top of training, not on its own. The abstract also calls one key comparison significant while the figure it reports doesn't support that, an inconsistency we can't resolve from the abstract. So we see breathing as a useful skill, not a sure thing. If early (premature) ejaculation bothers you, a doctor can talk you through the options.

A 3-minute slow-breathing practice

Sit tall or lie with your knees bent, and keep a clock where you can see it.

Do it before a Kegel session, after one, or on its own. Our 4-week Kegel workout plan ends every session with a shorter version. It works at your desk too: Kegels at your desk has a seated routine that ends the same way. Every session on the free voice-guided Kegel timer also ends with a Release set.

Can breathing relax a tight pelvic floor?

We can't tell you that it does. Slow breathing is linked to feeling more relaxed,³ but that isn't the same as relaxing a tense pelvic floor.

Pelvic-floor strengthening isn't right for everyone. If you have pain in your pelvis, genitals, perineum or bottom, pain when you ejaculate or pee, or trouble starting to pee, your pelvic floor may be too tense rather than too weak, or something else may be going on. Guidelines advise against Kegel-style strengthening for pelvic pain with a tender pelvic floor. Stop, see a doctor, and ask about a pelvic-floor physiotherapist.^5,6,7

When to see a doctor

How GoBeast helps with this

• Paced breathing and body-scan practices to help you relax.
• Breath Lift and Release sets that pair the breath with the pelvic floor.
• A voice on every hold: "Hold it. Keep breathing."
• Eyes-free cues that keep going with the screen locked.

Comparing apps first? See how the main Kegel apps for men compare.

Questions