A strong muscle is one that can also switch off
The standard professional description of a healthy pelvic floor, used in the Oxford University Hospitals NHS FT 2024 patient guide, is that the muscles should be able to tighten and lift up, hold, and fully relax and let go. Three capabilities, not one.
Most people only hear about the first two. A program that trains contraction and ignores release is training half the muscle, and it is the half that produces the problems. A pelvic floor that is permanently semi-engaged is not a strong one. It is a stiff one, and stiffness is its own dysfunction.
Faubion, Shuster and Bharucha 2012 is the standard reference on what happens when the pelvic floor does not relax properly. Afyouni 2025 covers the same territory from a urology angle. Both describe patterns where the problem is coordination and relaxation rather than weakness, and where more strengthening is the wrong intervention. Clemens 2000 found that biofeedback, pelvic floor re-education and bladder training helped men with chronic pelvic pain, a group for whom the work is down-training, not building strength.
That is the honest risk with a Kegel app. Handed a program that only knows how to squeeze, a man whose pelvic floor is already too tight will make himself worse while diligently following instructions. Ending every session with a release is our answer to that, and no trial we drew on prescribes relaxation this early. We chose it on risk asymmetry: for a user who needs strength, an extra minute of release costs almost nothing. For a user who does not, it is protective.
How to do a reverse kegel
The movement is a gentle, deliberate letting-go and softening downward. It is not the reverse of a heavy squeeze, and it is emphatically not a strain.
- Get comfortable in whatever position your level is using. Jaw loose, shoulders down.
- Breathe in low and slow, into the belly rather than the chest. Let the belly expand.
- As you inhale, let the whole pelvic floor soften and widen. Think of the area between the sit bones spreading slightly, and the perineum settling downward under its own weight.
- Stay there for a few seconds. Do not add force. If you are working at it, you are doing too much.
- Exhale and return to neutral. Not a contraction, just neutral.
The whole thing should feel like an unclenching, similar to letting your shoulders drop after a long day. If it feels like effort, you are pushing rather than releasing, and pushing is the wrong direction.
What it should not feel like
No bearing down. Do not push as if you were straining on the toilet. Sustained downward strain is not a relaxation exercise and it is not part of this program.
No pain, ever. Discomfort during a release means stop. Pelvic floor training should never hurt, and pain during a session is a reason to end it and get advice, not a sign of progress.
No breath-holding. The whole exercise is built on the inhale. If you are holding your breath during a reverse kegel, you have lost the thread entirely.
Signs your floor needs more release than load
Pay attention to these. They are the warning lights:
- You cannot feel the muscle release between repetitions
- New pelvic aching or a feeling of heaviness after sessions
- Symptoms getting worse as your training volume goes up
- A sense that you are always slightly clenched, even at rest
Any of these means back off the strengthening work and get an assessment. They are the signature of over-training a pelvic floor that needs relaxation rather than strengthening. KegelPro also asks about pain and related symptoms during onboarding, and routes anyone reporting them to a relaxation-only track rather than the strengthening ladder, for exactly this reason.
The everyday version
Release work is not only a session block. Most people carry low-grade pelvic tension through the day without noticing: in traffic, at a desk, mid-argument, during a hard set at the gym.
A few times a day, do a five-second audit. Jaw, shoulders, glutes, pelvic floor. Anything gripping, let it go. This costs nothing and it is arguably more useful than adding reps.
When to talk to a professional
See a doctor or a pelvic health physiotherapist promptly if you have new, worsening or persistent pain in the pelvis, genitals, perineum or rectum, pain during or after pelvic floor exercises, painful ejaculation or a new change in ejaculation, or difficulty starting urination, a weak stream or a sense of incomplete emptying.
Seek urgent, same-day care if you cannot pass urine at all or have a painful, distended bladder; if you have fever or chills alongside urinary, pelvic or back symptoms; if you develop new numbness in the saddle area, new leg weakness, or sudden loss of bladder or bowel control; or if you have sudden severe testicular pain or swelling.