On this episode, the Cremaster Muscle and Blue Balls.
Hey guys, welcome back to the show. I’m Steven Mathis. Thank you for being here. Let’s talk about a part of our anatomy that you may not be aware of, as well as how it relates to this thing called “blue balls.” Let’s talk about blue balls for a moment. This is a term that you’ve likely heard, you’ve maybe used, you’ve maybe felt something in your body that you would describe this way.
And yet, despite the fact that it is a widely used term, there is no medical consensus as to whether such a thing even exists… by the term blue balls or anything else. So the first thing to understand is that if you search, you read about this online, and even as you listen to me right now, ultimately you’re listening to someone’s opinion or guess. More than likely if you read some random web page, you’re likely reading the regurgitation of something that they have read somewhere else.
We can go deeper than that. We can be smarter than that. Let’s talk about what I think is actually the real root of this. I think by the end of this you may agree with me. Let’s back up for a moment and talk about a part of our anatomy, a part of the way that our body is built, as it relates to our sexuality, as it relates to our testicles, specifically.
Aren’t our bodies amazing things? They’re so amazing. I am so grateful to inhabit this body for this life on earth. Your body likewise is amazing. There is a part of our body called the cremaster muscle. Now let’s back up a little bit. We can get from our spine to our testicles in two steps, two body parts.
Pelvic Area
Two muscles. In fact, let that sink in for just a moment. We can get from our spine to our testicles in two muscles that are directly connected to each other. That seems like an important thing to know, an important thing to understand. So let’s dive a little bit deeper. The first muscle is the psoas, specifically the psoas major.
Psoas major
This is a very important muscle for a number of reasons. And our body connects directly to the spine along a pretty good length of the spine, sort of this vertical length of the spine, the psoas sort of connects all along it. And then from there it goes down, narrows and it goes inside our hip bone and through our pelvis.
Very important muscle. Let’s talk about the cremaster muscle. The cremaster muscle connects directly to the psoas. On each side, these are paired muscles, so we have a left and a right psoas, we have a left and a right cremaster muscle. On each side, the cremaster muscle connects to the psoas, and from there, it goes down, and it surrounds the entirety of what is known as the spermatic cord.
Cremaster muscle connecting to the psoas
Cremaster muscle – isolated
So the spermatic cord is what supports each testicle, it’s the entirety of that structure, which contains individual pieces and components that do certain things, right? But that whole structure is called the spermatic cord. The cremaster muscle connects to the psoas, surrounds that spermatic cord the entire way down, and then wraps around each testicle.
So each Cremaster muscle connects from the psoas, goes down, surrounds the entire structure that supports the testicle, and then wraps around the testicle itself. So this is a very thin, very flexible, very awesome muscle. Let’s talk about some of the ways that it works so we can understand what this is and what it is doing.
You know how your balls will lower if it’s real hot, or if you’re cold, they will come up closer to your body. You know what makes that possible? The cremaster muscle. It contracts when you get colder, when your body gets that signal. It contracts to pull your testicles up closer. Some other times that the cremaster muscle contracts; when you’re aroused during orgasm, during ejaculation, anytime you do a kegel squeeze, a root squeeze, the cremaster muscle contracts to some degree.
This is why when you do a Kegel squeeze, a root squeeze… when you do that, your balls will pull up closer to your body, because the cream master muscle is contracting. Again, this muscle, a single muscle connects to the psoas. And by the way, this is a great time to tell you, look for the link in the show notes starting with this episode.
There will be a blog post on holisticalpha.com on the blog for every episode, a couple of very useful images that will help you understand this. I’ll put in the post for today’s episode. So check out the link in the show notes for that. So a single muscle, the cremaster muscle connects to the psoas, goes down, wraps all the way around the entire structure that supports each testicle and wraps around the testicle itself. And again, when you do a Kegel or a root squeeze, you are engaging this muscle. It is contracting. That’s why your balls will pull up closer to your body when you do that. So let’s go back to blue balls. There are various ideas and theories that float around on the internet.
And depending on what you read, you will read some regurgitated version of one of those ideas. None of them, frankly, make all that much sense. Here’s the one that actually makes sense, and I believe what it actually is. It is muscular tension. It is muscular tension in the cremaster muscle. And just like most muscles, when they get tense, there is often a particular point, either along the muscle, or very often in one of the connection points, sort of one of the end points, and that’s the part that will actually get sore, even though the muscle itself is tense.
Let’s dive into a little bit more detail on that. So again, we have this cream master muscle. It’s contracting every time you do a Kegel. It’s contracting every time you’re edging. It’s contracting every time you’re having sex. Now, for a lot of you guys, you might be saying, Oh, well, when I ejaculate, when I release, I don’t have blue balls.
Well, let me ask you this. When you ejaculate, how relaxed is every muscle in your body? You know that feeling after you release of just like blah, everything is a hundred percent relaxed? That is due primarily to something called prolactin. We get this massive release of prolactin when you ejaculate. That is what is primarily responsible for that relaxed feeling throughout the ejaculation.
Your body. And by the way, one of the reasons that a lot of guys, if you’re ejaculating too often, don’t have the energy, the drive, the confidence, the passion, all those things is because we’re basically living in this prolactin haze if we’re ejaculating too often, but coming back to the point, prolactin is very relaxing.
It’s incredibly relaxing, relaxes everything in your body, including the Cremaster muscle. So just like every other muscle is relaxed. The reason that blue balls quote goes away. When you release, it’s because every muscle in your body gets relaxed. Now for some guys, it doesn’t go away. For some guys, they have tension and discomfort.
That doesn’t go away with release, that hangs around for days, for weeks, sometimes for a very long time. This is the primary reason. There is a muscle, there’s a muscle that is wrapped around the entire structure of the testicle and it goes all the way up and it connects to your psoas and you’re engaging that and you’re contracting it over and over and over again.
And let me ask you this, how often in your life have you stretched it out or massaged it or focused on relaxing it? If you worked your glutes or your hamstrings every day your entire life, and you never once stretched them out, and you never once massaged them, how tight do you think they would be? How much tension do you think they would have?
How much discomfort? Do you think would be there? This is what a lot of guys experience when it comes to their ball. They experience what is in essence muscular tension. So let’s talk about what to do about it. Again, look for the link in the show notes at the image that is there. The couple of images that will be there because it will help you understand this and visualize this.
And when we can understand it and visualize it in our own body, it helps us deal with our own body and relate to our own body in a more effective way. So what can we do? To make blue balls, quote, go away and to bigger picture, really ensure that this very important muscle, obviously very important, is healthy.
Well, we can massage it, we can relax it, we can stretch it out a little bit. Let’s talk about that. Massaging is the basic thing to start with. Here’s the thing, again, these muscles, they wrap around each testicle, they go up in a V kind of shape, and then they connect to the psoas. So if you follow that V shape from the base of your scrotum, kind of, you can tell sort of the upper part of that base of the scrotum, follow that structure in that V shape, and massage all along that.
Massage all along that, massage your testicles, and massage the in between part. Again, remember that this muscle, this muscle, the Cremaster muscle, it doesn’t just surround the testicles, it doesn’t just connect to the psoas, it’s all along the way. So ideally, we would like to be massaging all along the way.
That will help this muscle be relaxed and it will feel better. One of the reasons that testicle massage works so well to relieve blue balls, which by the way it does, that’s something that I’ve talked about before and I’ve had so many guys tell me. How much it relieves this quote discomfort for them when they practice testicle massage on a regular basis now There may be some sexual energy related things where some of that energy is stuck in that area That is contributing to this massage can help with that and that may be part of why it is helpful I think the biggest thing is really that we’re massaging this Cremaster muscle, thus it relaxes, thus there is less tension that is uncomfortable.
So again, look at the link in the show notes, look at the images so you can see what I’m talking about. Understand the structure and then massage it. In addition to massaging it, you can stretch it out. That involves grabbing your balls and gently stretching. The key word, gently, and there is no reason. To go crazy, a very small amount of movement here is all that will be needed.
Some gentle stretching, again on a regular basis, will be very helpful. How helpful is it to do some stretching? Let’s go back to the glutes and hamstrings example. How helpful is it? Bend over and touch your toes, or do downward dog, down dog, whatever it is, on a regular basis. It is very helpful. So a little bit of stretching, very, very helpful.
The last part of that is probably again coming back to that sexual energy piece. So the more that you open up that flow of sexual energy where it’s moving up into the rest of your being, the less this will be an issue. Again, I’ve heard from many guys around this aspect of it. And I felt this in my own body.
The more you open up that flow of energy, the less that energy will tend to get stuck and the less muscular tension that will result. Because muscular tension is Stuck energy, that’s what it is. It’s, I mean, we’re energetic beings. It’s stuck energy, that’s all it is. So the more that we open up that flow, the less this is going to tend to happen.
However, because it is a muscle, it can always happen. So if you ramp up your edging, you edge a bunch more than you have been, you have a really long session, or you engage in other Uh, techniques to strengthen this part of your body. You may have some tension that builds up. Very, very helpful practice to massage this, to stretch it out a little bit with some gentle stretching on a regular basis.
The last thing I’ll say is you can use a massage gun, maybe a very useful tool, on part of this. I would not use a massage gun on your testicles themselves. However, that part of the V part, as those muscle, the cremaster muscle, as it comes up and connects to your psoas, along that part, all the way down to what feels like, in essence, the front of your pubic bone, to sort of the upper base of the scrotum right there, as that structure, as that muscle goes down, that upper part It can be very beneficial to use a massage gun very gently.
There’s no reason to go deep or crazy here, but a massage gun in a very gentle way will help increase blood flow, increase lymphatic flow, which is how our body gets rid of toxins, which is part of what causes inflammation and tension. So massage guns are very useful for stuff like this. Whether it’s massaging with your hands, stretching out a little bit by again, gently stretching your balls in sort of various kind of directions, gently, as well as maybe some gentle massage gun.
A very basic practice of this, a few minutes a day of these things can make a tremendous difference when it comes to how comfortable your balls are, whether you have any kind of discomfort that you would describe as blue balls or anything else, and ultimately the health of this area of our body. So again, look for the link in the show notes, you’ll see a couple images that will help you understand what this muscle is.
And as we understand the way that our body is built, it helps us relate to it better. And also, as we’ll talk about more in some upcoming episodes, the more that we understand how our body is built, the more effectively we can move energy around and really work with it in a powerful way. I hope this helps you.
Again, blue balls is not some mystery. I’m not sure why there seems to be this Mystery in the, you know, medical, whatever community, they talk about things like blood pooling and whatever. It’s all bullshit. What it really is, it’s muscular tension. Put this into practice. That’s the ultimate thing. Put this into practice.
What I’m talking about, massage, a little bit of gentle stretching, do it on a very regular basis. Both that muscle as it comes up and connects to your psoas, as well as around the testicles themselves and everywhere in between, massage that on a regular basis. And let me know if it doesn’t completely eliminate.
Great. Your blue balls. I bet it will. I’d love to hear your feedback. Shoot me a text 801 742 1439. Thanks for being here. Really appreciate you guys have an amazing rest of your day. We’ll talk to you soon.
