Question
What are the benefits of Kegel exercises for men?
Answer
Kegel exercises are named after Arnold Kegel, an American gynaecologist who developed exercises for women to treat pelvic floor weakness caused by childbirth. However, pelvic floor exercises can also be beneficial for men.
There are lots of clinical studies demonstrating that pelvic floor exercises can help with urinary incontinence in men after prostate surgery, and there’s some evidence they can also be effective for treating fecal incontinence in men.
Pelvic floor exercises can also be effective for treatment of erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation in men.
Pelvic floor exercises can be a good first choice of treatment for some men with urinary problems or sexual dysfunction.
The Healthy Male website has information about how to do pelvic floor exercises and how they work.
Tim Moss
Biomedical research scientist
Associate Professor Tim Moss has PhD in physiology and more than 20 years’ experience as a biomedical research scientist. Tim stepped away from his successful academic career at the end of 2019, to apply his skills in turning complicated scientific and medical knowledge into information that all people can use to improve their health and wellbeing. Tim has written for crikey.com and Scientific American’s Observations blog, which is far more interesting than his authorship of over 150 academic publications. He has studied science communication at the Alan Alda Centre for Communicating Science in New York, and at the Department of Biological Engineering Communication Lab at MIT in Boston.
