How much of a gain can I expect to see with just manual stretches and warming up

Hey guys, I’m 18 and being that I’m still a senior in high school I have a lot of responsibilities to look out for so the whole Newbie Routine consumes too much of my time. I found Thunder PE about a month ago and I was on and off with the routine (surprisingly making VERY small “gains”). Anyway, I was just wondering what you guys think of me just warming up for 5 minutes in a hot shower after I get home and just doing some manual stretches while I’m showering (up, down, sides, rotate, and BTC stretch) ? I’ve read somewhere that manual stretches is where some of the “initial” gains come from, so I was just curious. Eventually I’ll find time to do the entire routine but lets just say I stuck with stretches for now, how much of a gain could I expect?

And could this be something I could do daily or is it advised for me to take rest days on this too? Oh and one more thing, would it be better if I warmed up in a hot bath or is warming up in a hot shower basically the same thing?

Thanks in advance I appreciate it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing a light routine. You can always do more later, but there is more risk to overdoing than to doing too little. The risk to doing "too little" is that you may not gain, or may not gain as much or as quickly as you might’ve otherwise. Overdo, and you run the risk of toughening the tissues as your body reacts to the excessive force.

As for rest days, I think the consensus is that they are generally a good idea. In a practical sense, and with a busy schedule, there will be days that PE will not fit gracefully into your day. There’s a rest day for you.

Here are two threads about good gains from light routines:
Amazement!
Are my gains from the stretching, jelqing, or both?

Thanks Lampwick. Yeah I feel that a light routine is best for me, is there one that you/any of you could specifically recommend for me? I come home and always take a hot shower so anything that would take me around 10 minutes to do while I’m showering should be good.

I think you’re on the right track with your thoughts on stretching. The light routine threads I referenced included a limited amount of jelqing; on the order of 50 strokes. At two seconds a stroke, that’s only 100 seconds; just over a minute and a half. Just don’t jelq with soap or shampoo or conditioner; some members have tried that, to their regret.

50 strokes doesn’t sound too bad, I would use vaseline most likely right? Also, how long should I do these manual stretches for? In the newbie routine it says 30 seconds a stretch so do you think 2 sets of 30 second stretches in each direction would be good?

On a lubricant, there are a variety of ways you can go. It depends on what you have available to you. Vaseline would likely work. Baby oil/mineral oil may work. A combination of a very light coat of vaseline and then a very sparing amount of mineral oil may be good. Some swear by more organic oils such as vegetable oil or olive oil. It may be more difficult with limited privacy to use those, though. Hand lotion may work.

In terms of the stretches, the Newbie Routine of two sets of stretches is not bad.

One set would be:
30 seconds right
30 seconds left
30 second up
30 seconds down
30 seconds straight out

That’s two and a half minutes. Do that twice, and it’s five minutes.