Most advice about the pelvic floor is about making it stronger. For a floor that's already holding on too tightly, that advice points the wrong way, because squeezing a muscle that can't let go gives it more of what it already has too much of. Our article on pelvic floor dysfunction explains how a floor can be weak, tense or both.
This article is about the other skill: letting go. It starts with who should not use kegel weights at all for now, then goes through breathing, learning the release, gentle positions and daily habits, and what a pelvic floor physiotherapist does that you can't do at home.
In this article
- First: who should not use kegel weights
- Signs a floor may be holding tension
- Start with the breath
- Learning to let go
- Positions that make letting go easier
- Daily habits that keep tension down
- What a pelvic floor physiotherapist does
- When strengthening comes back in
- Frequently asked questions
First: who should not use kegel weights
Kegel balls and vaginal weights add load to the pelvic floor. That's useful for a floor that relaxes well and needs strength. It's the wrong tool for a floor that's tight or painful, because that floor's trouble is letting go, and a weight trains the squeeze.
Skip kegel weights for now, and see a pelvic floor physiotherapist or a doctor first, if any of these apply to you:
- Sex hurts, or inserting anything hurts, including a tampon, a finger or a toy.
- Your muscles tighten on their own when something goes in. The NHS describes this as vaginismus, an automatic reaction you don't control.
- It's hard to start peeing or to empty your bladder or bowel fully, or you often strain to poop.
- You have ongoing pain in the pelvis, genitals, rectum or low back that hasn't been explained.
- You're pregnant, or you've recently given birth or had pelvic surgery. Weights wait until a healthcare professional has given you the go-ahead, and our guide to the pelvic floor after birth covers that recovery.
- You can't tell whether your floor is weak or tight. An assessment answers that, and guessing can push a tense floor further the wrong way.
Your floor may well be ready for strength work later. Letting go comes first.
Signs a floor may be holding tension
Cleveland Clinic describes pelvic floor dysfunction as a state in which your body keeps tightening these muscles instead of relaxing them. Because those muscles are involved in sex, peeing and pooping, the signs show up in all three.
A review in Mayo Clinic Proceedings on what it calls nonrelaxing pelvic floor dysfunction lists pain and problems with defecation, urination and sexual function as the usual picture. In more detail, the authors describe:
- Sex: pain at entry or with deep penetration, and a pelvic ache after sex
- Bowel: difficulty passing stool, straining, a feeling of not having fully emptied, bloating and constipation
- Bladder: going often, trouble starting, urgency, or pain when peeing
These signs are broad, the review notes, and easy to miss one by one. Many have other causes too, which is why an assessment matters.
Start with the breath
The diaphragm and the pelvic floor move together. A small study using real-time MRI in healthy women showed that both moved down as they breathed in and up as they breathed out. That link is the idea behind slow belly breathing: each breath in gives the floor a chance to lower and soften.
The NHS lists mindfulness, breathing and gentle touching exercises among the ways to learn to relax the vaginal muscles.
Here's a simple way to start.
- Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat, or with a pillow under your knees. Let your shoulders and jaw go slack.
- Put one hand on your chest and one on your belly.
- Breathe in slowly through your nose and let your belly rise under your hand while your chest stays fairly still.
- As you breathe in, picture the space between your sit bones widening and softening, as if the floor of your pelvis is sinking a little toward the bed.
- Breathe out slowly, through your mouth if that's easier, and let the belly fall without pushing.
- Keep going for about five minutes, once or twice a day.
If you notice that you hold your breath or grip your jaw, that's useful to notice, and a cue to let those go as well.
Learning to let go
Some people with a tense floor can squeeze easily but have lost the feel for releasing. One way to find it is to use a squeeze on purpose, then focus on what happens after.
- Squeeze gently, as if stopping wind, at about a third of your full effort. Hold for two or three seconds.
- Let go completely, and keep letting go for a few seconds more. Pay attention to whether the area feels heavier and softer, or whether some of the hold stays.
- Rest for about twice as long as you squeezed, breathing low into your belly.
- Repeat a few times, then stop. This isn't strength training, so you don't need many.
Some people find it easier to feel the release on a breath in, letting the floor drop gently as the belly rises. It should feel like softening, never like pushing down or bearing down hard.
The Mayo Clinic Proceedings review notes that kegels were first designed for urinary incontinence, and that teaching relaxation and how the pelvic floor works together is equally important. For a tense floor, that relaxation part comes first. Our guide to starting with kegel balls says the same from the other side: every contraction needs a full relaxation.
Positions that make letting go easier
Yoga, warm baths and meditation are on Cleveland Clinic's list of relaxation techniques for pelvic floor tension, and its page notes that physical therapists can teach exercises to stretch these muscles. A few gentle positions open the hips and let you breathe low into the belly, which makes the release easier to feel.
| Position | How to do it | Hold | Stop if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Child's pose with wide knees | Kneel, let your knees go wide and your big toes touch, fold forward over a pillow | 1 to 2 minutes of slow breathing | It pinches your knees or back |
| Happy baby | On your back, knees bent toward your armpits, hold your feet or the backs of your thighs | 1 minute | Your lower back lifts off the floor or it hurts |
| Supported deep squat | Feet wide, heels on a folded towel, sit low with your back against a wall or holding a counter | 30 seconds to 1 minute | Your knees or hips hurt |
| Reclined butterfly | On your back, soles of the feet together, knees out and resting on pillows | 2 to 5 minutes | You feel strain in your groin |
| Legs up the wall | Lie with your hips near a wall and your legs resting up it | 2 to 5 minutes | Your legs tingle or go numb |
Breathe slowly in each one, using the belly breath above. If a position brings on pain in the pelvis, leave it out, and mention it to your physiotherapist.
Daily habits that keep tension down
Don't strain on the toilet. Cleveland Clinic lists overusing the pelvic muscles by straining to go among the causes of pelvic floor dysfunction. Give yourself time, and many people find that raising their feet on a small stool makes it easier to go without pushing. If you're often constipated, talk to a pharmacist or doctor, since Cleveland Clinic includes stool softeners among the treatments.
Use warmth. A warm bath is one of the relaxation techniques Cleveland Clinic names.
Notice stress. Anxiety is one of the possible causes of vaginismus the NHS lists, and many people clench without noticing when they're tense. Breathing practice is one way to bring that down through the day.
Change how you have sex for a while. The Mayo Clinic Proceedings review suggests that people with deep pain during sex avoid penetrative sex until the pelvic floor muscles have been rehabilitated. Sex without penetration, more time for arousal and plenty of lubricant can keep intimacy going without adding pain.
Don't do kegels just in case. Squeezing exercises done out of habit can keep a tense floor tense. Save them until someone has checked your floor.
What a pelvic floor physiotherapist does
Home practice helps, and it isn't a replacement for an assessment. The Mayo Clinic Proceedings review calls pelvic floor rehabilitation with neuromuscular education the cornerstone of therapy for a nonrelaxing floor, and it recommends early referral to physical therapy.
A pelvic floor physiotherapist can check, with your consent, whether your floor is tense, weak or both, and whether it relaxes after a squeeze. Treatment may include:
- Biofeedback, which Cleveland Clinic describes as the most common treatment for pelvic floor dysfunction. A sensor shows your muscle activity on a screen, so you can see when you're holding on and practise letting go.
- Stretching and coordination exercises chosen for your body.
- Hands-on release work for tight areas.
- Vaginal trainers, which the NHS describes as tampon-shaped objects in different sizes that help you gradually get used to having something inside the vagina.
If therapy and biofeedback don't help, Cleveland Clinic notes that a specialist may offer trigger point injections into overly tense muscles. To find a physiotherapist, ask your doctor for a referral or look for one who lists pelvic health as a focus.
When strengthening comes back in
Some floors are tight and tired at the same time, and once they've learned to relax, a physiotherapist may decide they also need strength. That's when kegels, and sometimes weights, come back into the plan.
If a physiotherapist tells you that strengthening is right for you, and your floor relaxes fully between contractions, a weighted set can be part of that work.
Ours is Tone. It has four balls, two white at 30 g, one orange at 40 g and one red at 50 g, and two straps (110 mm for one ball, 160 mm for two), which give seven load levels from 30 to 90 g. Each ball is 31 mm across, made of medical-grade silicone over a stainless steel core, with a free-moving inner weight that shifts as you move. Use it with a water-based lubricant only.
The Tone page says it's not for medical use, and not to use it during pregnancy, or after childbirth or surgery without speaking to a healthcare professional first. Start with the lightest ball and follow your physiotherapist's plan over any general advice, including ours. Our guide to choosing a kegel ball weight covers when to move up a step and the signs a weight is too heavy.
Tone is $54 CAD ($41 USD). The full details are on the Tone product page.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if my pelvic floor is too tight?
You can't be sure without an assessment, but some signs point that way: pain with sex or insertion, an ache after sex, trouble starting to pee or emptying fully, straining to poop, or pelvic pain without a clear cause. A pelvic floor physiotherapist can check whether your floor relaxes after a squeeze and tell you whether it's tense, weak or both.
Can kegels make a tight pelvic floor worse?
They can keep it tense. Kegels train the squeeze, and a tense floor already has trouble letting go, so more squeezing works against what it needs. A weight adds load to that squeeze. If sex hurts or you have trouble emptying, hold off on kegels and weights until a physiotherapist has checked your floor.
What is a reverse kegel?
It's a name people use for practising the release instead of the squeeze. On a slow breath in, you let the pelvic floor drop and soften, as the diaphragm and floor naturally move down together. It should feel gentle, never like pushing or bearing down hard. A physiotherapist can check that you're doing it the way your body needs.
Does breathing really help the pelvic floor?
It's a good place to start. An MRI study in healthy women showed the diaphragm and the pelvic floor move down together on a breath in and up on a breath out. Slow belly breathing gives the floor a regular chance to lower and soften. The NHS lists breathing exercises among the ways to learn to relax the vaginal muscles.
Can a tight pelvic floor cause pain during sex?
Yes. A review in Mayo Clinic Proceedings lists pain at entry, pain with deep penetration and a pelvic ache after sex among the common signs of a floor that doesn't relax. Pain during sex has other possible causes too, so it's worth having it looked at by a doctor or a pelvic floor physiotherapist rather than pushing through it.
When can I use kegel balls if my pelvic floor is tight?
Only once a physiotherapist says strengthening is right for you and your floor relaxes fully between squeezes. Start with the lightest weight, keep sessions short, and stop if anything hurts. If you're pregnant, or have recently given birth or had surgery, get a healthcare professional's go-ahead first.
Sources
- Signs and treatment of pelvic floor dysfunction, biofeedback and relaxation techniques: Cleveland Clinic, Pelvic floor dysfunction
- Recognising and managing nonrelaxing pelvic floor dysfunction: Faubion, Shuster and Bharucha, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2012, PubMed 22305030 and full text, PMC3498251
- The diaphragm and pelvic floor moving together during breathing: Talasz and colleagues, International Urogynecology Journal, 2011, PubMed 20809211
- Relaxation techniques and vaginal trainers for vaginismus: NHS, Vaginismus
About this article
Written by the Peach & Cream team, based in Montréal. Published October 15, 2026. Last updated October 15, 2026. Product facts come from the Tone product page; Tone has no customer reviews yet, so none are quoted. This article is general information, not medical advice. Tone does not treat or prevent any condition.