Purpose The aim of this study was to investigate the activation, the onset time, and the duration of the suprahyoid, infrahyoid, and masseter muscle of effortful swallowing with static occlusion in healthy adults. Methods This study was conducted on 30 healthy adults. In this study, four swallowing methods were compared. Normal swallowing (NS) (5 times), normal swallowing with occlusion (NSO) (5 times), effortful swallowing (ES) (5 times), and effortful swallowing with occlusion (ESO) (5 times) were counterbalanced to exclude the order effect. NS (5 times), NSO (5 times), ES (5 times), and ESO (5 times) were counterbalanced to exclude the order effect. The time interval between each swallow was 30 seconds, and a rest of 5 minutes was provided between swallows according to each state. The surface electromyography was used to analyze the activity of the suprahyoid, infrahyoid, and masseter muscles activation, onset time, and duration. Results The activity of the suprahyoid muscle was the highest among the four swallowing methods (p<.05). The activity of masseter muscle was the highest among the four swallowing methods in ESO (p<.05). As a result of onset time analysis, ESO, ES, and NSO appeared significantly faster than NS in the suprahyoid muscle (p<.05), and among them, ESO appeared the fastest. As a result of analyzing the swallowing duration, ESO was the longest in the suprahyoid muscle (p<.05). Conclusion These findings suggest that ESO may be more effective in response time to swallowing than conventional ES or NSO.