Length work during deconditioning break
Hi guys,
[I am not exactly a newbie anymore, and so this question may not be a newbie question. However, I can only post here at the moment, but mods feel free to move it to where you feel it belongs.]
After some newbie gains followed by a plateau I am currently in my 8th month and focussing on girth because that is by far my biggest priority. I am following a manual routine that I do 4-5 times a week (more is definitely not effective in terms of girth for me): 5 min warmup, 10 min stretching, 20 min jelqing, followed by 20-60 min edging & manual girth work (squeezes, Ulis, horses). Every 5-6 weeks I take a decon break of 2 weeks, which feels like the right thing to do both in terms of physical response (after the last one I suddenly got more expansion during workouts, which I take as a good sign) as well as psychologically. The girth gains are now slow, but I still feel like I am on the right path (0.2 inch gains so far, with additional expansion of 0.1-0.3 inches during and right after workouts), and will continue the current strategy for at least another 1-2 months until I consider throwing in some clamping. However, I realise that my 10 minutes of stretching are barely enough to make sure I do not lose length through the girth work, but I cannot hope for any serious length gains this way. I am a hard length gainer, it seems, or doing something wrong. (Only 0.2 inches gained so far)
Now, here goes my question: As I said, girth is my priority, and I cannot invest more time to additionally stretch longer or go for hanging etc. But would it make any sense to use the decon breaks for some more intense stretching (e.g. 20 minutes daily?). Would that defy the purpose of decon, or are length and girth work independent enough that I could still decondition with respect to girth while doing some length work? And would just 2 weeks (every 6 weeks) of intensified stretching be enough to give me any realistic chance for gains?
Thanks in advance for weighing in!