The Muscle Group Behind Better Sex (That Almost Nobody Trains)

Guest post by Erica Aborlleile, OTR/L, pelvic floor occupational therapist and founder of The Pelvic Floor OT.

Here’s something I wish more people knew: every orgasm you’ve ever had was your pelvic floor working.

That wave of rhythmic contractions at the peak? That’s a muscle group firing. The buildup of arousal before it? Your pelvic floor is involved there too, helping pump blood into all the tissue that makes sex feel good. If it’s happening below your belt, your pelvic floor has a hand in it.

And yet most of us have never trained these muscles. We’ll spend years on glutes and abs and never once think about the sling of muscle that sits at the bottom of the pelvis — quietly managing bladder control, core stability, and yes, sex.

As a pelvic floor occupational therapist, I spend all day with these muscles. I’ve seen what happens when they get the attention they deserve. So let’s talk about what your pelvic floor actually does for your sex life, how to train it properly, and the mistake almost everyone makes when they try.

Note: This educational article does not constitute medical advice. Please consult with a physician regarding any medical issue.

Meet Your Pelvic Floor

Your pelvic floor is a group of muscles that stretches like a hammock from your pubic bone to your tailbone. Everyone has one, regardless of anatomy. It holds up your organs, keeps you continent, stabilizes your core, and plays a starring role in sexual function.

During sex, these muscles are busy. They help drive blood flow to the clitoris or penis during arousal. They contract reflexively with orgasm, and the strength of those contractions is a big part of how intense an orgasm feels. In men, the pelvic floor helps maintain erections by keeping blood where you want it, and it’s the muscle group that fires during ejaculation.

Research has linked pelvic floor muscle training to improvements in arousal and orgasm in women, and to improvements in erectile function and ejaculatory control in men. This isn’t fringe stuff. Pelvic floor muscle training is a first-line, well-studied intervention. It’s just that most people only hear about it after something goes wrong, usually in a pamphlet about leaking.

I’d love for you to hear about it before that.

Stronger Muscles, Better Signal

So why does strength matter for sensation?

A few reasons. First, blood flow. Stronger, better-coordinated muscles are better at that pumping action, which supports engorgement. More engorgement generally means more sensation and more responsive tissue.

Second, the orgasm itself. An orgasm is, mechanically speaking, a series of involuntary pelvic floor contractions. A muscle with more capacity contracts harder. People who build pelvic floor strength often describe orgasms as stronger, longer, or easier to reach.

Third, awareness. This one gets overlooked constantly. When you train a muscle, you build the brain-muscle connection along with the tissue. A lot of people are almost completely disconnected from their pelvic floor. They can’t feel whether it’s tense or relaxed, working or resting. Training builds that awareness, and awareness during sex is worth a lot. It’s hard to enjoy sensation from muscles you can’t feel.

The Catch: Tight Is Not the Same as Strong

Before you sprint off to do a thousand kegels, I need you to hear the most important part of this article.

A pelvic floor that’s clenched all the time is not a strong pelvic floor — it’s an exhausted one. Think about your shoulders on a stressful day, up by your ears for eight hours. Are they strong? No. They’re tight, tired, and sore. Pelvic floors do the exact same thing: Stress, anxiety, heavy training, pain, and old habits can leave these muscles chronically gripping. A gripping muscle can’t contract well because it never starts from rest, and it definitely can’t relax on command.

This matters for sex specifically, because muscles that can’t relax can make penetration painful or impossible, and muscles stuck at half-effort produce weaker orgasms.

So the real goal isn’t just strength, it’s range. A healthy pelvic floor can fully relax, fully contract, and move smoothly between the two. If you have pain with sex, a constant sense of pelvic tension, or you’ve been doing kegels for months with nothing to show for it, more squeezing is probably not your answer, and a pelvic floor therapist can tell you what’s actually going on.

How to Actually Train It

If your pelvic floor is on the weaker, underactive side, here’s how I’d have you start:

1. Find the right muscles. The classic cue: gently lift as if you’re stopping gas and urine at the same time. You should feel a lift and squeeze around your openings, not your butt cheeks clenching, not your abs bracing, not you holding your breath. (Stopping your pee midstream is fine as a one-time way to identify the muscles, but don’t make a habit of it.)

2. Breathe with it. Your pelvic floor and your diaphragm are partners. Inhale, let your belly and pelvic floor soften and expand. Exhale, then lift. Training the contraction with your exhale keeps the whole system coordinated.

3. Train the release too. Every contraction should end in a full, deliberate letting go. The relax is half the rep. If you skip it, you’re building the shoulders-by-your-ears problem on purpose.

4. Add progressive resistance. This is where most home kegel routines stall out. Muscles adapt to load, and squeezing around nothing stops being a challenge fast. This is exactly what kegel weights are for.

Peepshow Toys carries the Wellness 3-Step Progressive Kegel Training Kit, which is the format I like for beginners: a graduated set, so you start with the easiest = lightest weight; and then you progress as you get stronger – similar to how you wouldn’t start barbell training with a 50-pound weight!

Insert one with good lube, and your pelvic floor has to actively hold it while you go about your day for ten minutes or so. That’s a real training stimulus with built-in feedback. If it starts slipping, your muscles are done for the day, and that’s useful information.

5. Let pleasure do some of the work. I’m a clinician, so I’ll say it clinically: orgasms are involuntary pelvic floor contractions, and regular orgasms mean regular reflexive activity and blood flow for these muscles. However you get there counts, including with a vibrator. A body-safe vibrator plus a good lubricant isn’t cheating on your training program, it’s participating in it.

What Results Look Like

Give it time. Muscles change on muscle timelines, so think weeks, not days. Consistency at a few minutes a day beats a heroic session once a week.

What people tend to notice first is awareness: actually feeling their pelvic floor during sex, sometimes for the first time. Then come the functional changes:

• Stronger or more reachable orgasms.
• Better arousal response.
• For men, firmer erections and more control.
• Fewer leaks when you sneeze, which isn’t sexy by itself — but not worrying about it is.

When to Get Help

If you have pain with sex, leaking, pressure or heaviness in your pelvis, or you simply can’t tell whether you’re doing any of this right, that’s precisely what pelvic floor therapists are for. We assess what your muscles are actually doing and build the plan that fits, whether that’s strengthening, relaxing, or both. Many of us, myself included, work virtually, so this care is more reachable than most people think.

Your pelvic floor has been showing up for you your entire life. Training it might be the highest-return work you’re not doing.

Erica Aborlleile, OTR/L, is a pelvic floor occupational therapist and the founder of The Pelvic Floor OT. She works with clients virtually across the U.S. and in person in New Jersey, treating pelvic pain, painful sex, incontinence, and sexual health concerns in all genders. Her motto: turning “TMI” into clarity.