Should I make my routine longer or more intense

Hi guys,

I’ve been following the newbie routine (or at least a linear version of it) for the past three months, and have been very consistent I gained 0.2 inch length and 0.1 inch girth during my first 5 weeks, but nothing after that. I have a routine of roughly 30 minutes, which I can fit easily in my daily schedule. As I haven’t gained anything the last two months, I want to amend my current routine, but I can’t figure out whether I should stick to my current exercises but do them a bit longer (EG 40 min), or whether I should replace certain exercises with more intense ones. Any best practices here?

What did I do so far?

The first 5 weeks I did:

5 min warm up
2 x 5 direction stretches of 30 sec with intermediate helicopter shakes
15-20min jelking

As I am primarily length focussed, after 5 weeks, I changed this to:

5 min warm up
5 min BTC stretching (only as from week 7)
4 x 5 direction stretches of 30 sec with intermediate helicopter shakes
10 min jelking

I’m keen to try Mem’s routine, but want to be sure that I don’t skip any recommended steps before doing so.

Do the newbie routine first(which takes 3 months not 5 weeks) then jump to something else.

You had a routine that was giving you gains!

Why did you change it?

I would say you should start over and try to undo the over conditioning you have done and find your sweet spot again, or you can continue increasing exersises and intensity and become just like a lot of guys here who have turned themselves into “hard gainers”.

This is a classic example of what NOT to do.

If you are gaining, change nothing!

Yea seriously man I wouldnt change a thing if I ever saw gains from a exercise. I’m in 3.5 months and saw nothing so I can mix it up a little bit but keep doing what you were doing before. Maybe take a couple days of rest before you get back to it and start over like before.

Well, I believe my gains are probably related to better EQ, more than anything else. Does that change your advice?

To be honest, to cut back on my routine was not the advice I had expected to receive, and I’m extremely confused by it. I thought my routine was still fairly light - too light even. My routine was based on advice I got here and all the things I read (and I’ve read a lot on this forum the past months.), and yet I seem to be doing it wrong. I actually believed I started to understand how PE works, but clearly I don’t :-(

You shouldn’t think of the first 1/4 inch as a gain. I’ve been doing PE for 2 months now and I’ve seen a 1/4 inch increase in length, except I don’t see this as a gain. For me, gains will only really begin when I see a 0.75” increase in length, that way I’ll know my dick is not just being stretched and temporarily swollen. Just for the record, I jelq at 8 o’clock using an alternating overhand grip for 20 minutes with a 30% - 40% erection. This is followed by a 1 hr continuous stretch with a 6kg pulling force, then another 10 min jelq to finish off. I do this routine 5 days on 2 days off. I’ll stick with it for six months in total and if I don’t see a .5 inch gain I’ll rethink my strategy.

Bumping up the intensity is what a lot of guys might suggest, and obviously what you want to hear. This is a more is better mentality which is great for bodybuilding but not necessarily the best way to go about PE.

My advice was try something, if it works, keep doing it, if it doesn’t work, and you are sure you’ve given it a fair shot, only then would I change it.

The only way I learned from any of this was by accurately tracking what I did and what the results were from what I did.

You tried something, you got a result yet you decided it was just improved EQ and not real gains so you disregarded that result and changed it up and now you have stopped gaining. Now because you changed things so soon you can’t tell why you stopped gaining, or if you were actually gaining or just improving EQ. In my opinion you are back to square one.

I just don’t understand. If you are gaining, why change anything? Whether you want to call it a gain or increased EQ or whatever, if you are growing, for whatever reason, keep growing!

Well, I didn’t have the impression I was bumping up the intensity of my routine. Just doing it slightly differently. I hadn’t gained anything during my first month, and then some members suggested that I was jelqing too much and did not do enough stretching. So I did as was told, and one week later those gains appeared. That’s why I thought I was on the right track. But nothing after that.

Linear routine starts with 40 jelqs, then you add 10 each week, not 20 minutes, that is like 400 jelqs!

That is why I do not measure my “progress”, I would consider a success 1/2-1 inch and when it is obvious, not something like 0,1 or 0,2 inches.

The newbie routine states to build up to 10 min of stretching and 30 min of jelqing over a period of 6 weeks. That’s what I did. I changed my routine when I reached 20 min jelqing in week 5 as I didn’t see any gains and some people suggested this was too intense already (although I was strictly doing as described in the Newbie Routine).

My interpretation of the newbie routine is that you slowly build up to those numbers in the first 6 weeks then stay at that level for the next 6 weeks after that.

I didn’t get the impression that is quite what you did from your first post, yet the more you defend yourself the more details are coming out.

I don’t think I can offer anything else that will be of any help to you other than what I already suggested. Consistency.

Best of luck. :)

Should I simply start all over again, or is it better to stop PE for a while before restarting? In that case, is a couple of weeks enough or should I take a month or more? Any PIs that could indicate I’m ready for a new start?

The devil is in the details! You posted much more of a history than many guys asking advice do. Bet you thought you had covered everything. =[]

I would switch back to what ever it was you were doing back when you were gaining. Maybe it was just EQ and maybe not. Give it a month and if nothing happens consider it a semi-deconditioning break so no time lost.

Edit:

Bit of a total break might not be a bad strategy. Plenty of guys get jumps in growth when they unexpectedly miss a few sessions and take a mini break. If that happens then, whilst still overtraining, you probably don’t need a total rework of your routine.