What is a Kegel? What it means, and who Dr. Kegel was

This page answers the word question: what a Kegel is, why it has that name, and how it differs from a reverse Kegel. For the full how-to, from first squeeze to a weekly routine, see our guide to Kegel exercises for men.

What a Kegel is

A Kegel is one deliberate squeeze of your pelvic floor, held and then released. Your pelvic floor is the layer of muscles that runs from your pubic bone at the front of your pelvis to your tailbone at the back.³ When you squeeze it, it draws up and in. When you let go, it drops back.

Kegels, Kegel exercises, pelvic floor exercises and pelvic floor muscle exercises all mean the same thing. Medical papers often use the last one.^2,4 On forums you'll also see "PC muscle exercises", after the pubococcygeus, one part of the pelvic floor. Our guide to the PC muscle explains that name.

No equipment needed. The squeeze is small, and done well, nobody watching would see a thing.

What Kegel exercises are for men

Men have a pelvic floor too. Two of its muscles sit at the base of the penis: squeezing them raises the pressure inside an erect penis, and they contract in rhythm during ejaculation. Erections start with blood flow, not with these muscles.^5,6,7

For men, a Kegel feels like holding in wind. An NHS physiotherapy leaflet puts it as tightening "your back passage as if you're trying to stop yourself passing wind".³ You can also check it by sight: you should be able to see the base of your penis move nearer to your abdomen and your testicles rise.⁸

There are two kinds. The NHS leaflet uses slow squeezes that you hold, and fast ones that you let go of straight away, about one a second.³ Our routines are built from those two, plus a let-go at the end. Where your pelvic floor sits, layer by layer, is in our guide to male pelvic floor anatomy.

Who was Dr. Kegel?

Arnold Kegel was an American gynaecologist. One review calls him an obstetrician and gynaecologist.^2,4 He worked on the pelvic floor in women, and he proposed these exercises for women with urinary incontinence.²

In 1948 he published a paper in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology called "Progressive resistance exercise in the functional restoration of the perineal muscles".⁹ The title tells you how he thought about it. Progressive resistance is the principle behind adding weight in a gym, applied here to the muscles of the pelvic floor.

He didn't rely on feel alone. The same year, he wrote about using a pressure gauge called the perineometer as an aid.¹⁰ A perineometer is designed to record how strongly the pelvic floor muscles contract, and it can be used to guide people to do the exercises correctly.¹ Later researchers still called it the Kegel perineometer.¹¹

By 1952, a paper he co-wrote named the pubococcygeus as the muscle being exercised.¹² That's the muscle forums now call the PC muscle.

Why they're called Kegels

They carry his name because he was the first to describe them, in 1948.¹ Plenty of medical techniques are named after the doctor who described them, and this one stuck in everyday speech.

His methods didn't stay popular. One review says they "sank into unjustified oblivion" over the years, until interest picked up again in Europe in the 1980s, alongside electrical stimulation and biofeedback.²

Kegels through the years

Kegel vs reverse Kegel

A reverse Kegel is the other half of the same skill. Instead of squeezing your pelvic floor up and in, you let it soften and drop on a slow breath in. You don't push.

You need both. The NHS leaflet asks you to feel the muscles relaxing and softening each time you let go.³ Our guide to reverse Kegels for men takes you through the release step by step.

Try your first Kegel

This takes about 20 seconds.

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent. Breathe normally.
2. Squeeze up and in, as if holding in wind, for 3 seconds. Keep breathing.
3. Let go completely for 3 seconds. Feel the muscle drop back.
4. Do that 3 times in a row.

While you squeeze, try to avoid holding your breath, pulling in your abdomen or tensing your buttocks. That was the cue in the best-known UK trial of these exercises in men.⁸ If you felt nothing, that's normal at first. Squeeze lighter, not harder, and see our guide to finding your pelvic floor. Prefer a voice to count? The free Kegel timer does it in your browser.

The Dr. Kegel app is something else

If you searched "Dr. Kegel" and found an app: Dr. Kegel is also the name of a Kegel app for men, published by Appercut Sp. z o.o., according to its App Store listing when we checked on 24 Oct 2026. The listing doesn't mention him. This page is about the doctor. If you're weighing up the app, our Dr. Kegel alternatives page compares it with others. We make GoBeast, a competing app, so read it with that in mind.

Do Kegels work?

Nobody can honestly promise you a result. Here is what the research says, in the wording we use across this site.

Pelvic-floor training has been studied for erection problems. The trials were small, mostly supervised clinic programmes with biofeedback, and their results were mixed. No guideline recommends training for erection problems, so treat it as one tool alongside a check-up with your doctor.^8,13,14

Pelvic-floor training has also been studied for early ejaculation, mostly in small clinic studies of supervised rehab that included electrical stimulation and biofeedback. Not everyone improved, some lost ground over the following years, and where it was compared with a medicine, the medicine did better on average. Guidelines don't recommend training on its own.^15,16,17,7

Nothing has tested GoBeast. Our guide to whether Kegel exercises work for men goes through what the studies tested and what they didn't.

When to stop

In studies, pelvic-floor training caused few or no reported side effects, but men with pelvic pain weren't included. Pain isn't normal: stop.^15,18

Think your pelvic floor may be tight rather than weak? Read tight or hypertonic pelvic floor in men before you train.

See a doctor before you train if

• You have new or changing urinary symptoms, like a weak stream, straining, peeing more often or at night, or new leaks. See a doctor before starting pelvic-floor training.¹⁹
• You have had prostate or pelvic surgery or radiotherapy. Follow your care team's plan first. GoBeast isn't designed for recovery after surgery.²⁰
• There is blood in your pee. Ask for an urgent doctor's appointment.²¹
• You can't pee at all. Get urgent medical help today.¹⁹

How GoBeast helps

GoBeast is a voice-guided Kegel trainer for men. It turns the squeeze and the release on this page into a plan you can follow with your eyes closed.

• Ten Kegel levels, from your first squeeze up, with reverse Kegels built in.
• A calm voice and haptic cues for every squeeze, hold and release.
• A Release set at the end of every session, and a Pain button that stops the session and switches you to a relax-first path.
• A discreet icon option and an app lock.

Questions