What this resource is
This printable guide gives adults with male pelvic anatomy a concise way to record an appropriate pelvic-floor exercise plan. It covers urinary, bowel, prostate-treatment, and sexual-health contexts without assuming that strengthening is suitable or that one programme fits every symptom.
Print this page from the browser when a paper copy is useful. Navigation, advertising spaces, and promotional calls to action are hidden in print, while the instructions, blank fields, related context, and sources remain.
Review the on-screen version again if the page shows a newer update date.
How to use the handout
Use the sheet to preserve instructions already judged appropriate for you. It is especially important to record timing given by a surgeon or treatment team. Do not use a general handout to decide when to exercise with a catheter, after surgery, during cancer treatment, or when new pain or emptying difficulty is present.
Read every safety boundary before completing the fields. Keep a completed copy private because bladder, bowel, sexual-health, pregnancy, surgery, or symptom notes can be sensitive. This resource is educational and does not establish a clinician–patient relationship.
Finding the intended action
A male pelvic-floor contraction is commonly cued as closing around the anus and gently lifting inward, sometimes with a subtle shortening at the base of the penis or lift of the scrotum. Those observations are cues, not diagnostic tests. NIDDK guidance explains the public-facing squeeze-and-release concept, while clinical assessment may examine timing, release, substitutions, and symptoms in more detail.
Match the plan to the goal
Leakage after prostate treatment, post-micturition dribble, bowel control, erection-related goals, pain, and difficulty relaxing are not interchangeable problems. The same person may also have more than one concern. Record the goal explicitly and avoid adding extra contractions for a different outcome unless the treating professional confirms that the plans are compatible.
Prostate-treatment boundary
Before or after prostate surgery, the operation type, catheter status, healing, continence pattern, and surgeon’s instructions affect timing. current EAU male incontinence guidance and Prostate Cancer UK patient guidance support condition-specific advice rather than a universal calendar. Never practise by repeatedly stopping urine flow.
Strength is not always the answer
Pelvic pain, painful ejaculation, urgency, constipation, straining, or a persistent sense of clenching can coexist with an overactive or poorly coordinated pelvic floor. In those situations, repeated forceful squeezing may miss the problem. A pelvic-health physiotherapist, urologist, colorectal clinician, or other qualified professional can assess the relevant system and coordinate referral.
Personal or clinician-supplied fields
Leave any item blank when it has not been assessed or agreed. Blank space means “not supplied”; it is not an invitation to invent a dose, diagnosis, treatment date, or clearance decision.
Primary goal and relevant treatment
Approved start date and catheter instruction
Position, cue, effort, hold, release, rest, and repetitions
Follow-up date and questions for the treating team
Safety and review boundaries
Pause an exercise that causes pain or clearly worsens symptoms.
Seek a qualified pelvic-health physiotherapist or other appropriate clinician when technique is uncertain, symptoms are complex, emptying is difficult, a programme is not helping, or treatment and recovery affect exercise choice.
New or severe symptoms may require medical assessment rather than an exercise review.
The page cannot examine tissue healing, muscle activity, sensation, coordination, prolapse, retention, infection, neurological function, or the reason for leakage. A completed form records observations and instructions; it does not convert them into a diagnosis or prove that the exercise was performed correctly.
Review before reusing
Date the printed copy and replace it when professional instructions, symptoms, medicines, pregnancy stage, catheter status, treatment, or functional goals change. Do not keep progressing an old plan because it is convenient.
If the resource is shared by a clinician, that clinician remains responsible for checking that the written variables and safety route fit the individual.
Related guides
Continue with Male pelvic-floor anatomy, Pelvic-floor muscle training before prostate surgery, and when to start kegels after prostatectomy.
Sources
- Cardozo L, Rovner E, Wagg A, Wein A, Abrams P, eds. Incontinence. 7th ed. International Consultation on Incontinence and International Continence Society; 2023. Chapter 8, Pelvic Floor Muscle Training in Men and pre- and peri-operative PFMT sections. Official or indexed source.
- Dorey G. Pelvic Dysfunction in Men: Diagnosis and Treatment of Male Incontinence and Erectile Dysfunction. Wiley; 2006. Official or indexed source.
- European Association of Urology. Guidelines on the Management of Non-neurogenic Male Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms: Disease Management, conservative treatment for post-prostatectomy incontinence. Current online edition. Official or indexed source.
- Prostate Cancer UK. Pelvic floor muscle exercises. Current online patient guidance. Official or indexed source.
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Kegel Exercises. National Institutes of Health. Official or indexed source.