From Sit Ups to Cialis: The Ultimate Guide to Strengthening Your Erections

It's time to take your bedroom skills up a notch.

Beginning to experience occasional difficulty in getting an erection strong enough for sexual activity? Or perhaps you're finding that while getting an erection poses no problem, its firmness is not what you've been accustomed to in the past.

Such problems are not at all unusual, and in many cases they may prove to be fleeting and simply a reflection of stress, anxiety, or too much to drink. However, if you find that the strength of your erection continues to be less firm than it has been, there are a number of steps you can take to remedy the situation.

Erection Reflects Overall Health

The quality of your erection Is Your Erection Up to Par? is in many ways a reflection of your overall health. For some men, erection problems serve as an early warning that more serious health consequences may lie ahead. The vast majority of erectile dysfunction can be traced to an insufficient flow of blood to the penis.

If the smaller arteries carrying blood to the penis have become clogged or constricted in some form or fashion, it's a fair assumption that similar problems may eventually develop in the larger blood vessels feeding the heart and brain. If you take measures now to reverse or minimize this vascular damage, you'll not only regain more robust erectile function, but you'll also take positive steps to avoid a heart attack or stroke in the future.

What to Do?

At this point, you're probably asking what you can do to stave off more serious deterioration of erectile function while at the same time improving your overall health. The first line of attack is lifestyle modification, which includes a wide array of behavioral changes, including getting regular exercise, eating a healthy diet, quitting smoking, and losing excess pounds.

When it comes to exercise, almost any form of rigorous physical activity can help improve erectile function, but to get started you might try two major forms of exercise: aerobic for overall cardiovascular function and pelvic floor exercises to strengthen the muscles that are directly involved in sexual activity.

Walking a Good Way to Start

Among the most basic of aerobic exercises is walking, which is an excellent way to get started if your previous exercise routine has been pretty much limited to frequent trips to the kitchen for snacks. A study published in the August 2000 issue of "Urology" showed that men who regularly walked two miles a day significantly reduced their risk of developing erectile dysfunction.

Also known as cardio or cardiovascular exercise, aerobic exercise is any activity that requires the heart to pump oxygen-filled blood to the muscles that are being used. This form of exercise increases both the heart and breathing rates in a way that can be sustained for the duration of physical activity.

Swimming, cycling, jogging, and aerobic dance can all help to bolster overall health and improve erectile function.

Other Aerobic Exercises

Acceptable forms of aerobic exercise include not only walking but also jogging, cycling, swimming, and aerobic dance. If you regularly visit a gym or fitness center, you can get your aerobic exercise on ellipticals, ski machines, stair climbers, step machines, and treadmills. According to the Cleveland Clinic, your aerobic exercise should have the following four goals:
1. You perform it for 30 to 60 minutes three to five times a week.
2. It uses large muscle groups repetitively for a sustained period of time.
3. It is something that you can enjoy doing for extended periods of time.
4. It meets the cardiovascular goals prescribed by your doctor or exercise physiologist.

Pelvic Floor Exercises

Pelvic floor exercises are designed to strengthen the pubococcygeus muscle, also known as the PC muscle. It is a hammock-like muscle that extends from the pubic bone to the tailbone, or coccyx, thus forming the floor of the pelvic cavity and supporting the pelvic organs. It is present in both males and females. This is the muscle you contract to stop your flow of urine in midstream. It is also contracted to hold urine in when you feel an urgent need to pee but can't get to a bathroom as quickly as you'd like.

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To correctly identify the PC muscle, you should repeatedly attempt to stop your flow of urine midstream. The muscle you're contracting to accomplish this task is the one you want to target with pelvic floor exercises, also known as Kegels. A study conducted at the United Kingdom's University of the West of England found that these pelvic exercises helped 40 percent of the impotent men in their tests to regain normal erectile function. An additional 33.5 percent of the study's participants found that the exercises significantly improved their erectile function.

How to Get Started

To take advantage of the benefits of pelvic floor exercises, you can get started by finding a comfortable position. These might include lying down on a firm surface with your knees up, sitting, or standing. A single rep of this exercise involves clenching the PC muscle for a period of five seconds and then relaxing. Ideally, you should perform 10 to 20 reps of this exercise three times a day. At first, you'll probably find it difficult to complete a single set of 10 reps, but keep at it. Practice makes perfect.

For optimal erectile function, the Mediterranean diet is highly recommended.

And the benefits of pelvic floor exercises extend well beyond strengthening erectile function. They also reduce urinary or bowel incontinence, stop the dribble that often occurs after urination, and improve overall sexual function and experience.

Certain foods contain nutrients or phytochemicals that support and can improve erectile function if they are eaten on a regular basis. If you're not already familiar with phytochemicals, don't be put off by their somewhat ominous sounding name. These are simply plant-based compounds that have proved beneficial to human health.

Oysters: Nature's Aphrodisiac

You've probably already heard others refer to the aphrodisiac-like qualities of oysters, and eating them regularly supplies your body with plenty of zinc and vitamin B-6, both of which are essential for the production of testosterone. While testosterone doesn't figure directly in erectile function, it plays a key role in sex drive. And without a sex drive, an erection doesn't really have a whole lot of use.

The caffeine in coffee accelerates your metabolic rate and tends to stimulate blood flow, which as you've already seen is essential to the erection process. Another food that supports strong blood flow is the spicy chili pepper. The capsaicin in those peppers provide the heat, and it also tends to dilate blood vessels, which promotes strong blood flow throughout the body, including the pelvic region.

Bananas, oranges, and potato skins are all rich in potassium, which promotes strong circulation. This nutrient also helps to keep your body's sodium levels under control, prevents dangerously high blood pressure levels, and reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease.

Red Wine Rich in Resveratrol

If you enjoy a glass or two of red wine on occasion, you'll also be getting the benefits of resveratrol, a potent antioxidant that boosts circulation by promoting your body's production of nitric oxide, which helps blood vessels expand to carry more blood. While this is an important health benefit, drink anything more than a glass or two, and you'll find that benefits of resveratrol are soon outweighed by the drawbacks of excessive alcohol consumption.

Onions and garlic both contain a phytochemical known as allicin, which tends to thin the blood and thus promote better circulation. If you're already being treated with a blood-thinning drug, eating more onions and garlic is probably superfluous and may, in fact, be unhealthy, so check with your doctor. For those who do love their onions and garlic, be sure to follow up with a mouthwash or breath freshener.

Adopt Healthy Eating Plan

While eating the foods we've already cited can be beneficial to erectile and sexual function in specific ways, it should go without saying that for overall health, it's essential to eat a healthy diet. A heart-healthy diet goes heavy on fresh fruits and vegetables and generally opts for fish, poultry, beans, or lentils to provide the protein your body needs to function properly. Red meat should be eaten in moderation and in servings that approximate the size of a deck of cards. Steer clear of saturated fats, as well as processed sugar and grain products.

One of the most widely-touted eating plans for overall health, including erectile function, is the Mediterranean diet, which is based on the traditional foods consumed by people living in the Mediterranean basin. It includes plenty of fish and other seafood, healthy fats such as olive oil, loads of fresh produce, and minimal amounts of red meat, which is high in saturated fats.

Cialis Can Provide Added Boost

If exercise, healthy eating, kicking the smoking habit, or losing excess pounds have failed to make your erection as firm and long-lasting as you'd like, you might want to consider getting a little outside help. One of the most popular erectile dysfunction drugs on the market today is Cialis, part of a family of drugs known as PDE5 inhibitors, so called because they temporarily disable the phosphodiesterase-5 enzyme that can interfere with erectile function.

Cialis is the only PDE5 inhibitor on the market that's available in two different formulations -- one that's taken daily and another to be taken as needed. The latter differs from all other ED drugs on the market in that its effects last for up to 36 hours, far behind the four to six hours the others drug claim.

Cialis for Daily Use

Cialis for daily use is available only in 5-milligram tablets that must be taken daily to ensure that you can get and maintain an erection when the need and desire arise. For those who prefer to be prepared at all times, Cialis for daily use is probably the drug for you.

The longer-lasting Cialis for use as needed has been nicknamed the "weekend drug," because a 10- or 20-milligram dose taken at 9 p.m. Friday will likely still be effective until mid-morning on Sunday.

This 20-milligram Cialis tablet boasts the longest duration of action of all the ED medications.

The active ingredient in both formulations of Cialis is tadalafil, which is one of the drugs known collectively as PDE5 inhibitors. Other ED drugs in this family include Viagra, Cialis vs. Viagra: What Are the Differences? Levitra, Staxyn, and Stendra. Although all are similar in chemical composition, there are enough variations from one to another that some men find one of them preferable. There is no way to accurately predict how well any one of these medications will work for you, so it's a good idea to give them all a try before deciding which one suits you best.

7 Things Men Using Cialis Should Know to learn the 7 Things Men Using Cialis Should Know

How Erection Process Works

To understand how they work, it's important to know just a bit about the mechanics of erection, which start when the brain detects feelings of sexual desire or physical stimuli of one of the body's erogenous zones. The brain reacts to such triggers by sending great quantities of nitric oxide coursing toward the pelvic region. The nitric oxide triggers secondary chemical reactions, one of which produces a substance known as cyclic guanosine monophosphate, or cGMP.

It is cGMP that relaxes the smooth muscles lining the arteries that supply the penis, thus increasing the blood flow into that organ. As that blood fills the spongy erectile tissue of the penis, an erection occurs. At the same time, the veins that carry blood away from the penis temporarily contract, thus holding the blood inside the penis until sexual activity is complete.

How Cialis Works

It is the ability of Cialis and the other PDE5 inhibitors to temporarily deactivate the PDE5 enzyme, which promotes erectile function in men whose vascular health has been compromised to some degree. The primary function of the PDE5 enzyme is to break down cGMP, which is not a serious problem for men with normal vascular function because new cGMP is produced to replace that which the PDE5 enzyme has degraded.

In men whose vascular health is challenged, the PDE5 enzyme, left to do its thing, can so deplete the blood levels of cGMP that it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to get and keep an erection strong enough for intercourse.

Give eDrugstore a Try

A number of men today order Cialis and other PDE5 inhibitors online, which can pose a problem if they are uncertain of the online vendor's reputation and reliability. One of the Internet's most reliable suppliers is eDrugstore, which is part of the Secure Medical family of online drugstores. We sell only FDA-approved medications, all of which are sourced exclusively from licensed U.S. pharmacies.

As an added bonus, our Tempe, Arizona-based organization can arrange a complimentary online consultation with a licensed U.S. physician. To facilitate this consultation, you'll be asked to fill out a questionnaire detailing your medical history, the current drugs you're taking, and the reason you want to obtain Cialis or another such drug. After reviewing your questionnaire, the doctor will prescribe the drug for you if he or she deems it appropriate. If you already have a prescription from your doctor, you can fax or scan and email it along with your order to eDrugstore.

To learn more about erection problems and the medications that are available to treat them, browse through our ED medication guide.