Known scientifically as an ‘exercise-induced orgasm’, the term describes the phenomenon where a person has an orgasm while exercising (especially, but not limited to, exercise involving the core abdominal muscles).

Where it started

The concept of exercise-induced orgasm was first recorded in the 1953 book ‘Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female’ by sexologist Alfred Kinsey. (If that name rings a bell, it’s probably because you’ve heard of the Kinsey scale, the rating method used to describe a person’s sexual orientation). 

Kinsey observed that “some boys and girls react to the point of orgasm when they climb a pole or a rope, or chin themselves on a bar or some other support”. Some, he reported, “engage in exercise with the deliberate intention of securing this sort of satisfaction”. 

In 2012, researchers at the University of Indiana reignited interest in the coregasm. A first-of-its-kind study which confirmed that exercise alone – without sex or fantasies – can lead to orgasm. The study’s authors, Debby Herbenick and J. Dennis Fortenberry, sought out and surveyed cis-women who had experienced exercise-induced orgasm to learn more about it, including its causes.

Coregasm Causes

Of the survey’s 530 respondents, 45% of respondents had enjoyed an orgasm during abdominal exercises. Many of them singled out a gym machine called the ‘captain’s chair’, a rack with padded armrests used for leg raises. 

However, the study showed that it’s not just crunches that can culminate in orgasm. 26.5% of respondents experienced them during weight-lifting, 20% attributed it to yoga and 15.8% held bicycling responsible. A few women said they even had sexual feelings during low-intensity tasks, like walking or even mopping.

Multiple Coregasms

Exercise-induced orgasms happen more often than you’d think. A whopping 40% of those surveyed had experienced a coregasm on more than ten occasions. 

The study didn’t determine how common it is for people to experience coregasms. However, the researchers noted that it only took them five weeks to locate 370 women who had experienced sexual pleasure while exercising.

Coregasm mechanics

While the mechanism of the coregasm hasn’t been studied, there is a solid working theory. Alison Sadowy, a pelvic floor physical therapist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, hypothesises, “When you squeeze your abs, you’re probably unknowingly also contracting your pelvic floor muscles to stabilize your core… Orgasm is a pleasure contraction of the pelvic floor muscles, so by contracting them, they just do what they do best.” 

Coregasms for every body 

If you happen to be without vagina, never fear! There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that penises, too, can experience the sensory delight of the coregasm. Personal trainers, Bret Contreas and Dean Somerset (also a trained kinesiologist) say they seem to experience the same sensation, and at the same incidence. Somerset supposes that it occurs through prostate stimulation, although research hasn’t confirmed this. 

Scientific or anecdotal, there is plenty of evidence that coregasms are real, and happen for people of every gender. If you need another reason to get your body moving, this could very well be it.

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