How to Strengthen the Ischiocavernosus Muscle

Strengthening the ischiocavernosus muscle comes down to targeted pelvic floor contractions, essentially the same family of exercises often called Kegels, but performed with deliberate focus on the muscles at the base of the penis or clitoris rather than the ones you’d squeeze to stop urinating. In randomized trials, structured pelvic floor training has helped roughly 40% of men with erectile difficulties regain normal function, with another third seeing measurable improvement. The muscle itself is small and deep, so training it feels less like working a bicep and more like learning to activate something you never knew you had.

What the Ischiocavernosus Actually Does

The ischiocavernosus muscle (often abbreviated IC) wraps around the base of each crus, the internal root of the erectile tissue. Anatomically, it covers a substantial portion of the corpus cavernosum, somewhere between about 36% and 56% of the length depending on the individual.¹ Its job during arousal is to contract rhythmically and compress blood inside the erectile tissue, generating pressures above what your cardiovascular system alone can produce. This is what creates full rigidity, the difference between tumescence (the penis filling with blood) and an erection firm enough for penetration.² Think of it as a hydraulic pump: blood flows into the erectile chambers, and the IC muscles squeeze the chambers shut to trap and pressurize it.

The muscle is innervated by the pudendal nerve, which exits the lower spine and travels a winding path through the pelvis.³ That nerve also carries the signals for voluntary contraction, which is why you can learn to squeeze these muscles on command once you know how to find them. In women, the IC muscle plays a parallel role, contributing to clitoral engorgement. Both the bulbocavernosus and ischiocavernosus muscles contract reflexively during vaginal stimulation, and the strength of that contraction scales with the intensity of arousal.⁴

How to Find and Contract the Right Muscles

The simplest cue most people start with is imagining you’re trying to stop the flow of urine midstream and simultaneously pull your anus upward. That combined squeeze engages several pelvic floor muscles at once, including the IC. A more targeted approach is to focus on the sensation at the base of the penis (or clitoris) and try to make the shaft lift or retract slightly. If you can see or feel a visible upward twitch of the penis when you contract, you’re engaging the IC.

Research using a spring-balance device found that men with normal erectile function produced significantly stronger IC contractions than men with erectile dysfunction, both in force and in how long they could sustain the squeeze.⁵ This doesn’t prove that weakness caused their dysfunction, but it tells us that the muscle’s contractile output is measurably different between these groups, and that voluntary contraction can be assessed and trained. The study also found that men with dysfunction had a shorter “stroke length,” meaning the muscle didn’t travel through as much of its range of motion. That detail matters for training: full-range contractions, squeezing as hard as you can and then fully releasing, likely matter more than half-hearted pulses.

A Practical Exercise Routine

Most clinical trials that produced positive results used a similar general protocol, and you don’t need special equipment to follow it. The basic framework involves two types of contractions done daily:

• Maximal holds: Contract the pelvic floor as hard as you can and hold for 5 to 10 seconds, then fully relax for the same duration. Work up to 10 repetitions per set.
• Quick flicks: Contract and release rapidly, aiming for 1-second on, 1-second off, for 10 to 20 repetitions. These train the fast-twitch fibers that fire during the IC’s reflexive compression.

Do two to three sets of each type, at least once a day. The trials that showed the strongest results typically ran for 12 weeks before assessing outcomes, so expect to commit for at least three months before judging progress. Positions matter early on. Lying on your back with knees bent makes it easiest to isolate the pelvic floor without recruiting the glutes or abdominals. As you get better at isolating the contraction, progress to sitting, then standing, then doing the exercises during everyday activities. This progression matters because the IC muscle ultimately needs to work during upright sexual activity, not while you’re lying in bed doing homework.

One common mistake is bearing down instead of lifting up. If your abdomen pushes outward or you feel pressure in your rectum, you’re straining rather than contracting the pelvic floor. The correct movement should feel like an inward lift, as though you’re drawing the perineum up toward your navel.

What the Clinical Trials Show

The strongest evidence for pelvic floor training comes from a randomized controlled trial of 55 men with erectile dysfunction. The group assigned to structured pelvic floor exercises showed a significant jump in erectile function scores compared to controls after three months. By six months, 40% of participants had regained normal erectile function, about 35% had improved but weren’t fully normal, and roughly 25% didn’t improve.⁶ When the control group was switched to the active treatment, they saw similar gains, which strengthens the case that the exercises themselves were responsible.⁷

A separate study that combined pelvic floor exercises with electromyographic biofeedback and mild electrical stimulation reported even higher success: 47% of 51 men regained a normal erection and another 24% improved. The best outcomes were seen in men whose erectile problems were related to poor venous trapping, which is exactly the mechanism the IC muscle governs.⁸

For premature ejaculation, the evidence is more recent but promising. One study found that after a 12-week rehabilitation program, over 80% of men with lifelong premature ejaculation gained meaningful control over their ejaculatory reflex, with average time to ejaculation climbing from about 40 seconds to nearly two and a half minutes.⁹ An eight-week study comparing men with acquired versus lifelong premature ejaculation found improvements in both groups, along with reductions in associated anxiety and depression scores.¹⁰ However, reviews of the broader literature note that the evidence for premature ejaculation is harder to evaluate than for erectile dysfunction, partly because trials in this area are trickier to design well.¹¹

Biofeedback and Electrical Stimulation

If you can’t tell whether you’re contracting the right muscles, biofeedback can help. In a clinical setting, a surface electromyography sensor or an anorectal pressure probe gives real-time feedback on how strongly and correctly you’re squeezing. This turns a vague internal sensation into a visible signal on a screen, which accelerates the learning curve for people who can’t feel the contraction at first. Studies that combined exercises with biofeedback generally saw strong outcomes, and the trial that reported 47% of men regaining normal function used biofeedback as part of the protocol.⁸

Electrical stimulation is sometimes added as a third component. A small probe delivers mild electrical pulses to the perineal region, causing the pelvic floor muscles to contract passively. The idea is that this teaches the nervous system the correct motor pattern, especially in people whose voluntary contraction is weak or absent. The evidence suggests it may help when combined with active exercise, though it’s hard to separate its contribution from the exercises and biofeedback done alongside it. Biofeedback tools designed for home use, including pressure-based devices and wearable EMG sensors, are becoming more available, though scoping reviews note that the measurement approaches vary enough across studies that comparing results remains difficult.¹²

How the Rest of Your Body Fits In

The ischiocavernosus doesn’t work in isolation. It’s part of a network of muscles in the pelvis, and its neighbors get recruited during whole-body movement. Research on female runners found that the pelvic floor and gluteus medius muscles co-activate during walking and running, but the relationship isn’t proportional: at running speed, the gluteal muscles tripled their output while the pelvic floor only reached about half of its maximum.¹³ This suggests that heavy cardio and lower-body exercise create some pelvic floor engagement, but not enough to substitute for targeted training. Running won’t max out your IC muscle the way deliberate contractions will.

That said, general fitness likely supports pelvic floor health indirectly. Stronger glutes and core muscles share stabilization duties with the pelvic floor, meaning a well-conditioned body may take load off the IC rather than overloading it. Compound lower-body exercises like squats and deadlifts probably contribute modest background stimulus, but the evidence for their direct effect on IC muscle strength is nonexistent. They’re complementary, not a replacement.

Testosterone and Muscle Growth

Like every other skeletal muscle in your body, the ischiocavernosus responds to testosterone. A dose-response study in healthy young men found that testosterone administration led to measurable increases in IC muscle area, with about a 0.08 square centimeter increase per 100 mg of testosterone enanthate.¹⁴ That’s a small absolute number, but remember this is a tiny muscle. The finding that the IC is hormonally responsive at all is the important takeaway: men with clinically low testosterone may have weaker pelvic floor muscles as part of a broader pattern, and addressing the hormonal deficit could make the training more effective.

This doesn’t mean testosterone supplementation is a shortcut to a stronger IC. The exercise evidence stands on its own, and most trials didn’t select participants based on hormonal status. But if you’re doing the work and making no progress, a hormone panel is a reasonable thing to discuss with a doctor, especially if you have other symptoms of low testosterone like fatigue, reduced libido, or loss of muscle mass elsewhere.

Keeping the Gains Long-Term

One of the less-discussed realities of pelvic floor training is that the gains fade if you stop entirely. Systematic reviews of pelvic floor training for urinary incontinence, a closely related area that uses identical muscles, show that short-term improvements can persist for a while after structured training ends, but the effect diminishes over years.¹⁵ One study that followed women five years after they stopped organized training found that pelvic floor strength had decreased, though the decline wasn’t statistically significant, suggesting a slow erosion rather than a cliff.¹⁶

A meta-analysis looking even further out found that by seven years after training, there was no meaningful difference in incontinence rates between people who had trained and those who hadn’t, highlighting what the authors called a “critical drop-off in behavioral adherence.”¹⁷ The lesson is simple and unsurprising: pelvic floor muscles behave like any other muscle. You don’t do a 12-week lifting program and then expect your arms to stay big forever. A reduced maintenance routine, even a few minutes a day a few times a week, is likely necessary to hold onto gains. The premature ejaculation study that reported strong initial results also found that at six-month follow-up, men who continued were still meaningfully improved, but their numbers had drifted downward from the peak.⁹

When the Problem Isn’t Muscle Weakness

Not every issue with erection quality or ejaculatory control traces back to a weak IC muscle. The pudendal nerve, which carries motor signals to the IC, can itself become damaged or compressed. Pudendal neuralgia produces pain in the perineum and can impair the muscle’s ability to contract properly, regardless of how strong it might otherwise be.³ Prolonged cycling, pelvic surgery, childbirth, and chronic sitting can all contribute to pudendal nerve irritation. If you’re experiencing perineal pain alongside sexual dysfunction, pelvic floor exercises could actually make things worse by repeatedly compressing an already irritated nerve. This scenario calls for evaluation by a pelvic floor physiotherapist, not more Kegels.

Similarly, in some men with chronic pelvic pain, the pelvic floor muscles are already chronically tight rather than weak. Biofeedback research has found that resting pelvic floor tone can differ between men with and without chronic pelvic pain, though the measurements vary enough across studies that no single test is definitive.¹² In those cases, the treatment often involves learning to relax and lengthen the pelvic floor, the exact opposite of strengthening exercises. Trying to strengthen an already hypertonic muscle is like trying to fix a cramp by flexing harder.

The IC Muscle Across Species

If you want a sense of how fundamental this muscle is, consider that the ischiocavernosus appears across virtually all placental mammals. In humans and other placental species, the paired IC muscles anchor the erectile tissue firmly to the ischium, the bony part of the pelvis you sit on. Marsupials, interestingly, have a completely different arrangement: their equivalent muscles are bulbous, globular, and have no bony attachment at all, suggesting their penile mechanics work through different mechanisms entirely, possibly including the dramatic penile flipping motions documented in some species.¹⁸ The fact that placental mammals evolved a consistent design, one that anchors the IC to the skeleton and uses it as a hydraulic compressor, underscores how central this muscle is to the rigid-erection model that humans share with most other mammals. It has been doing the same job for tens of millions of years, and training it is really just making sure it does that job as well as it can.