If you have pelvic pain, urgency, difficulty emptying, pain with intimacy or a persistent feeling of tightness low in the pelvis, you have almost certainly been told to do Kegels. For a lot of people that advice is not just unhelpful — it makes things worse. A pelvic floor can be weak, but it can also be tight, guarded and overactive, holding on all day without ever fully letting go. A muscle that never relaxes cannot contract well either, so it feels weak even though the real problem is tension. This article is for the second group. The aim is not to strengthen your pelvic floor; it is to teach it to release, using breath, position and gentle movement rather than more squeezing.
Key takeaway: Not everyone needs Kegels. If your pelvic floor is tight, painful or overactive (hypertonic), the priority is down-training: slow diaphragmatic breathing, positions that open the pelvis such as happy baby, child’s pose, supported deep squat and butterfly, and dropping the habits that keep it gripping. Strengthen only once it can fully relax, ideally guided by a pelvic health physiotherapist.
The best exercises to relax the pelvic floor are gentle down-training movements rather than Kegels. Begin with diaphragmatic breathing lying on your back with knees bent, letting the belly and pelvic floor soften on each slow inhale. Then use positions that open the pelvis and lengthen the pelvic floor: happy baby, child’s pose with knees wide, a supported deep squat, supine butterfly, and a gentle figure-four hip stretch. Practise daily for a few minutes, never forcing the range, and avoid breath-holding and clenching. Sophie Mercer, PMA-certified clinical Pilates instructor, designed a 6-week Pelvic Floor Strengthening protocol of 26 exercises that teaches full release before building coordinated strength.
How do you know if your pelvic floor is tight rather than weak?
A hypertonic (overactive) pelvic floor tends to produce a recognisable cluster of symptoms: a dull ache or pressure in the pelvis, tailbone or lower abdomen; urinary urgency or frequency with a slow, hesitant stream; constipation or a sense of incomplete emptying; pain with intercourse or tampon use; and, confusingly, leaking — because a muscle that is already gripping has nowhere left to go when you cough or jump. Many people with this pattern also clench their jaw, hold their breath under stress, or habitually suck their stomach in.
The honest answer is that you cannot always tell from the outside, and neither can I from an article. A pelvic health physiotherapist can assess the muscle tone directly and tell you whether you need release, strength or a mixture. If Kegels have made you feel worse, that is a strong hint that release comes first. I discuss the weak-versus-tight distinction further in Pilates for pelvic floor: what Reddit gets right and wrong.
What is the number one exercise for a tight pelvic floor?
Diaphragmatic breathing. Nothing else comes close, because the diaphragm and pelvic floor move together: as you inhale and the diaphragm descends, a relaxed pelvic floor lowers and lengthens; as you exhale, it gently recoils. If you breathe into your upper chest and hold your belly tight, the pelvic floor never gets that lengthening phase.
Reclined diaphragmatic breathing
- Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat, or with calves resting on a chair. Put one hand on your lower belly.
- Inhale slowly through the nose for four counts. Let the belly rise, the lower ribs widen sideways, and imagine the pelvic floor softening and dropping like a hammock slackening.
- Exhale through soft lips for six counts without pulling the stomach in or squeezing the pelvic floor. Just let the air leave.
- Continue for three to five minutes, once or twice a day. You should feel warmth and heaviness in the pelvis, not effort.
- Avoid actively “pushing” the pelvic floor down. Release is passive; bearing down is not.
Exercises to relax the pelvic floor
Do these after a few minutes of breathing, in a warm room, without forcing any position. Keep breathing into the belly throughout — the position creates the length; the breath does the releasing.
- Happy baby. Lie on your back, draw both knees towards your armpits and hold the outside of your feet or the backs of your thighs. Let the tailbone stay heavy on the floor and the knees open wide. Breathe for 60–90 seconds. You should feel the inner thighs and pelvic floor opening; avoid pulling so hard that the lower back lifts.
- Wide-knee child’s pose. Kneel with big toes together and knees wide, sit back towards the heels and rest your forehead on the floor or a cushion. Breathe into the back of the pelvis for 1–2 minutes. If knees or hips complain, place a bolster under the chest.
- Supported deep squat. Stand with feet a little wider than hips, toes turned out slightly, and lower into a full squat, holding a door frame or table for balance. Put a folded towel under the heels if they lift. Let the pelvis hang and breathe for 30–60 seconds. Stop if you feel knee pain.
- Supine butterfly. Lie on your back, soles of the feet together, knees falling out to the sides with cushions underneath so nothing is straining. Rest here for 2–3 minutes with belly breathing. This is the most passive release position and a good one before sleep.
- Figure-four hip stretch. Lie on your back, cross one ankle over the opposite knee and gently draw that thigh towards you. Hold 45–60 seconds each side. The deep hip rotators share fascial connections with the pelvic floor, so releasing them helps it let go.
- Cat–cow with pelvic focus. On hands and knees, move slowly between rounding and arching the spine. On the arch (cow), inhale and picture the sit bones widening and the pelvic floor softening. 8–10 slow rounds.
- Reverse Kegel. Once you can feel the pelvic floor soften with breath, practise a gentle, deliberate release — the feeling of letting go you have at the start of urination, but without bearing down. Hold the softened state for a few breaths. Never do this while actually urinating.
- Legs up the wall. Lie with your hips near a wall and legs resting up it, knees slightly bent, for 5 minutes with slow breathing. It calms the nervous system and takes gravity out of the equation.
Aim for 10–15 minutes daily. If you feel more pain during or after any position, make it smaller or leave it out.
What aggravates a hypertonic pelvic floor?
Release work is undone quickly by the habits that created the tension. The common culprits:
- Kegels without a full release — squeezing a muscle that cannot let go.
- Breath-holding and stomach-sucking, including “engaging your core” all day.
- Crunches, planks and high-intensity core work done with a clenched pelvic floor.
- Prolonged sitting on hard surfaces, and cycling with a narrow saddle.
- Straining on the toilet; use a footstool and never rush.
- Stress, anxiety and poor sleep — the pelvic floor is one of the first places many people hold tension. If that sounds familiar, the breathing work in breathing exercises for stress and anxiety is the same skill applied more widely.
Gentle walking, by contrast, usually helps: it moves the hips and pelvis rhythmically and lowers overall guarding, provided you are not clenching your glutes with every step.
When should you see someone?
Please see a pelvic health physiotherapist or your GP rather than self-managing if you have blood in urine or stool, new numbness or weakness in the legs or saddle area, a sudden change in bladder or bowel control, pelvic pain with fever, or symptoms that persist beyond a few weeks. Pain during pregnancy or after birth also deserves a proper assessment — this article sits alongside pelvic floor exercises during pregnancy, which covers that context specifically. If you have a prolapse, read pelvic floor exercises for prolapse before adding load.
How the Pelvic Floor Strengthening protocol helps
A pelvic floor that works well can do two things: relax fully and contract when needed. Sophie’s 6-Week Pelvic Floor Strengthening Program is built in that order across 26 exercises — breath and release first, then coordination with the deep abdominals, and only then progressive strength and functional loading. It is designed so that people who have been told to “just do more Kegels” finally learn the release half of the equation, which is what makes the strengthening half work. If you are postpartum, the release-first approach also underpins the early weeks of postpartum core recovery with Pilates.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Pelvic floor symptoms have many possible causes; please consult a pelvic health physiotherapist or doctor for an individual assessment before starting or changing an exercise programme, and seek urgent care for sudden changes in bladder or bowel control, numbness, or pain with fever.