Clamping: Advanced Empirical Discussion

Hello,

Note to moderators: I have been browsing/PE’ing for over 2 years, but due to a low post count cannot open this thread in the Main Member Forum where I believe it should be. If it could be moved there, I would be very grateful.

We could divide active research into two broad disciplines: empirical and theoretical. The theoretical, as everyone knows, seeks to make assumptions about a phenomenon and then, based on those assumptions, develop an understanding of the phenomenon. After the theorizing is done, people usually test the theory’s assumptions through empirical research - collecting data and analyzing it, from the real world. Admittedly, our discussion will not be as rigorous as collecting statistical data, but we have a great way of spreading knowledge and experience here that may be helpful. Additionally, if we can reach common ground and find similarities in experiences, and possibly develop recommend strategies over time, through experience, we may heavily aid the theoretical discussions through a re-assessment of the assumptions made there.

In this wonderful forum, we have the opportunity to read through the following primarily theoretical, and often highly abstract, thread: Girth theory: Pumping vs. clamping

We also have a great many "how do I clamp" threads, I would recommend the instructional: CLAMPING Everything You Ever Wanted To Know

With that out of the way, my intention here is to develop a thread to discuss empirical questions and experiences regarding advanced clamping - posters who have heavy experience clamping, from a variety of backgrounds (including hybrid pumping/clamping types) are very welcome to join. Those who have not clamped should be referred above to BG’s thread: there are enough instructions there to satisfy beginner’s curiosity.

Finally, lets get this out of the way so we don’t have to repeat it (it gets annoying, even for readers I think):

CLAMPING IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A STEEL COCK, IT WILL EXPLODE. YOU MIGHT DIE. JELQ FOR A YEAR AND THEN VISIT THIS THREAD.

I hope that was extreme enough for everyone, so let’s feel free to discuss our most extreme experiences knowing the readers have seen this warning.

1. Frequency: Consistency is not the question, let’s take it as a given. For consistent clampers, how often do you clamp (how many "sets")? Why and why not? BG for example says that he often clamped almost all day on weekends. I can’t physically do that. I clamp up to about 7 sets per day, sometimes a few more, but cannot physically handle more. Drilla on the other hand did 4 sets and experienced results.

——-> the question here would help theoretical discussion heavily: we don’t really know why the penis grows. Is it something that needs rest to grow? Is it plastic deformation? We have no real conclusive theoretical assumption. What works best in people’s experiences would shed a lot of light here.

2. Set times: What do you guys use, and why? Have you tried lower/higher times for extended periods, and what were the results? I use between 10-12 minutes usually, because of fear of alternative effects - I feel a lack of normal body heat after that point, in my penis of course, and that scared me. But I wonder whether the marginal benefit after 10 minutes might be worth the risk? Is it? When do you get decreasing marginal returns exactly, from experience? For example, Big Girtha seems to have settled on 10 minutes, Drilla maintained 15 throughout his brief clamping phase, Kaan used 10 minutes if I remember correctly. But do we really know the difference between 10 and 15 at a given intensity - is it larger than 5 to 10? It could be that working at above 15 might bring huge marginal returns - I don’t know, and that’s why I want to discuss it.

3. Intensity: I am EXTREMELY intense. If anyone is interested in how I do this with one clamp, ask. But to draw the discussion out, how intense are your clamping sessions? A good way to tell is by how hard your head is if you are not erect throughout. Mine is rock hard, unless it is filled with "lymph" fluid. Kaan tried a similar thing, based on aristocane’s claimed process. I wonder about BG: if he is clamping at lower intensity, I could understand his heavy frequency - BG I hope you’d let us know what you’ve been doing. Drilla used unusually low intensity on the other hand, but his reasoning seems to be simply to avoid injury.

4. Base growth: This is one REALLY mysterious topic to me. Why does my base grow from clamping? BG’s doesn’t. Is it technique? And even if we are using different techniques, what is making mine grow? Is it some sort of blood flow being blocked at the area of clamping, or is it the stress of my intense squeeze on the penis at that area (the girl there, while clamped, is approximately 1/2 of flaccid girth!). If we can figure out why this grows for some and not for others, we may be able to modify clamping to use this to grow other parts. I am planning to begin clamping a bit higher to try to see the effects - but I am suspicious that the effects will be less visible. If it is due to blood being blocked (not sure if this is possible, but then again - a lot of what we are doing here has not been studied medically), the blood would have less pressure if I was clamped farther from the base.

I’ll cover some topics quickly to reach the point of my current beliefs based on personal empirical study (these are surely debatable):

Discoloration: I don’t care about this at all. In fact, the temporary discoloration has always been a very helpful way for me to know how well I’ve abused my tool - I see it as a positive indicator. I also noticed (off-hand), that those who avoid discoloration usually don’t gain as much (due to low-intensity? low-frequency? God knows).

Erect clamping: I do not see the point of this, nor do I even know how to do it. Due to the intensity that I use, I simply cannot edge to maintain an erection. Additionally, although the erection subsides and I loose light length (primarily from the area that is clamped actually), my girth grows much past erection levels (usually an inch) while clamped. So I couldn’t care less, unless somebody has tried both and can honestly say erect clamping is better.

Confusing EQ with gains: I hear a lot of clampers saying that moving to less sets or days per week helped them. And then they mention rock-hard erections. EQ has nothing to do with clamping gains - lets separate these two things in our minds until we can establish some empirical connection. And by the way, most of you that say this worked end up not gaining very much from clamping, from my extensive long-term forum spying (lol). Try not to confuse morning wood and fun erections with girth gains. Two inch BG gains are what we are after.

Alright guys,

I hope this might turn into a fun and helpful thread. Please offer your experiences and insights, particularly when you have tried BOTH sides of an issue - the more we share and discuss the more we will learn. I hope that we could also use this thread to try out new ideas and report back on the thread, to aid discussion. Also, I realize I have missed many topics - bring them up as you see fit :) .

Another issue which has been bugging me lately:

Pumping used in conjunction with clamping has been discussed thoroughly through the forums. However, I have not come to any clear discussion regarding empirical tests of minimal pumping used to assist a clamping based lifestyle. Does anybody have any clear beliefs about this issue, through experience? Can anyone say that 1 short/long pumping “set” in a day, along with a focus of clamping, was better than another clamping set for gains (not for EQ, not for pleasure, not for a night out, for long-term gains). A lot of members had ideas about this, but there seems to be little backed by trial and error. Is the marginal benefit of a pumping session (low pressure, short - I’d expect), after say, 8 clamped sets, better than a 9th clamp set? Does this make sense theoretically, and have there been any empirical results?

I have worked for years on transforming my body, and I have a general opinion that nothing is absolute. Clamping may produce better or larger long-term gains, but a bit of pumping may beat an extra bit of clamping, and I think if we are going to be efficient girth growers we need to determine this. There are tons of experienced pumpers here (I have never pumped), and some hybrids: tell us, what are you opinions/experiences?

Hard questions. The basic mistery is: how our penis grows? As you said, we don’t know for sure. First point, what do we mean for ‘growth’?

Connective tissue can be stretched to a longer length without growth: this is what studies on the subject suggest, and it should be true for TA. This kind of elongation is called elastic deformation; but once the TA is elongated, to reach a bigger volume in erect state it needs to be filled with blood. We shoud remember that ‘elastic’ doesn’t implies necessarily that this elongation lasts for brief amount of times - elastic dumped deformation can last for months.

Filling is a job that pertains to smooth muscle : Iguana and Remek, as many of you know, think that to fill this augmented volume growth of smooth muscle is required.
Others suppose that smooth muscle is so elastic that it isn’t required growth : the more blood is pushed in smooth muscle, the more it expands, and what is limiting size of your penis is TA.

The real growth of CT happens as a consequence of repairing damages caused by high tensions: when CT is stretched above is max length, micro-tears are caused, and when these tears are healed a stable growth is reached.

If one is causing elastic deformation, the idea is: time x stretch = elongation. If one wants to cause micro-tears, then the higher possible tension (without causing a major injury) is the means. The time the tension should be exerted has to be therefore short, because you want to avoid a major injury.

So, and this is the first question we are trying to answer: what kind of deformation are we chasing when clamping? Expert clampers, give your educated guess.

If serious damnage is caused, I don’t think clamping everyday would be the best option.

Gains through clamping could come by growth of smooth muscle, also: if the smooth muscle grows, it stretch continously the CT, causing deformation of TA. How smooth muscle is stimulated to grow? Basically, in the same way the CT is stimulated to grow, I think.

But I have an additional hypothesis here: I think lack of oxygenation can cause smooth muscle and vessels growth. It makes sense to me: smooth muscle and veins have the role to carry and store the blood in the penis; if the blood is blocked systematically, the body activate an adaptation that makes these tissues able to survive longer without supply of fresh blood - so, storing more blood, so becoming larger. As always, I can just hope this is clear enough, since my English isnt’ that good.

For now, I would stop here.

Just want to point out, there is also bib and his experience with Clamping/Extreme Uli’s, which I believe is very important to note aswell.

Dont do HEAVY length work while doing HEAVY girth work. Concentrate one thing at the time, AFTER you get your desired length, cement your gains, and over the course of months slowly decrease length work while increasing the girth work.

When cementing length do not try to reach fatigue and deform your tissues. Because when you do you might deform both the lateral and longitudenal layers of the tunica which may heal back together, causing Peyronies disease.

Many more reasons why not to do heavy length and girth work at the same time. Im not going to adress them.

The Device
bib used something else than cable clamps, own made ULI device, “Uli Thing”

Amount of sets, frequency etc.
Now when you believe you are conditioned enough for EXTREME ULI’s, you can start out with 2-3 sets a day then add another set each week. He would limit sets to 10 min with FULL ENGORGEMENT and with about ~10 min break in between (Until circulation was back to normal), no exercises inbetween sets. The maximum number of sets depends on the kind of fatigue you get, if it gets too uncomfortable best is to stop. But you have to slowly work your way to those kind of levels. Dont RUSH things, take it slow. And as with any collagenous tissue deformation (hanging), you need to do them every day.

bib cannot recall how much sets he did everyday, but that is because he would reach total fatigue generally early in the afternoon, then he would stop.

Fatigue
What does fatigue feel like?

Riding the fatigue…

The red bumps are a stage where the head is being expanded. It would occur usually during the first or second set.

Erections
Do not get an actual erection during Extreme Uli’s, that does no good. If you get too much blood in the shaft before tightening, you cannot cut off the backflow and the super engorgement cannot occur. It is the last few turns of the Uli thing that provide the super engorgement.

Never get a true erection when clamping off with the Uli Device. Wrap, let the shaft fill, perhaps a bit of stimulation, attach the Uli thing, tighten slowly, continue to let blood enter. When it gets fairly full, continue to tighten the Uli thing. Which completely cuts off outgoing blood, and most if not all incoming blood.

It takes practice both in wrapping tightness, and amount of blood in the shaft. But it does not take long to get it down.

bibs EQ did suffer in the short term while he was doing Extreme Uli’s.

Discoloration
During sets it would get really DARK. After stopping alltogether, it must have lightened up more but its still darker than before.

~This all is bib’s experience and has not been my experience, simply because I myself have no experience with clamping…. yet.

I can offer a little experience to this thread. I am far from a newbie, however I did take almost 4 years off PE at one point. I have 7 years experience with PE in some form or another.

A note on clamping, I’ve been at it for almost a year now. It was not part of my original routine (the first 2 years). I slowly worked into it, not jumping right in. I use the Air Clamp. I’ve recently experimented, and discovered something which has led me to change up my routine slightly. I’ve quit pumping (for now anyway). My routine (read it in the PE database if you wish) once consisted of a warmup, jelq sessions, pump session(s), then clamp sessions, then warmdown and cockring worn for several hours afterward. The routine has yielded me slow and steady gains, but they recently slowed to a plateau. That reminds me, I should update my stats, but I always seem to be slow to do it as I worry if the gains are “cemented” for sure.

My recent observation: I would jelq for about 15-20 minutes as the first part of the routine. Then pump for a set or two of 10-15 minutes each at about 5hg pressure. I would usually already be pretty plump when I began my clamping sets. Clamping at this stage in the routine would really get me expanded. I would expand to at least 1/2 or more inches more than my normal girth, and even more by second set. I have now REMOVED the pumping. This was began as an experiment to “switch it up” keep the dick guessing. I still do the jelq sets before clamping. I have noticed I am not getting as much expansion while clamped to the max now. It seems to be at least 1/4 to 1/3 inch less expansion with clamping, compared with doing it following pumping. There is definitely something to this…

More recent observations following this change: Dick much harder during the clamp sessions, I mean rock hard like it could explode. That, with less overall expansion. Much more veins/expansion of veins. More head expansion/head much harder. Length and girth hang is better/bigger all day even long after the cock ring has been removed. No noticable fluid buildup after session. And one more, better EQ! (at least for now) I know my dick, so I had NOT been overworking or anything. The change-up has definitely done something, and I wonder if this is what I should have been doing all along…

Other notes: Clamping has NOT given me more base girth, rather it has slightly given me the “baseball bat effect”. I’m ok with it, just that my base girth used to always be uniform with my MSEG. I will keep going, I’m well on my way to 5.5MSEG, which is my goal. That is all that can be hoped for, I began my PE career at 4.375 MSEG! Clamping is the shit. In my opinion the sure-fire way to break through the barrier for those harder girth gainers. Of course once well conditioned, and all newbie gains have been exhausted using manual exercises.

No one can say you didn’t warn them. ;)

I think this is a great thread, and I am interested to see where it will go.

Too pretentious for me. Them five dollar words are hiding the meat and potatoes. Not a real fan of that.

It’s not just that.

I don’t know if you guys know what I mean, but I have been viewing these forums as a silent reader for almost 3 years now. Reading through a 50 page clamping thread, where the poster spends 3 or 4 sentences on each post warning newbies, really gets tiring after a while. So I just wanted to get rid of the newbies so we can discuss things, including the merits of BG’s clampathons, without worrying about some guy destroying his tool :) .

Ah, again. I apologize for this…it is completely unintended. I think its my scientific background that makes me try to be precise and deliberate in my word choice. I’ll try to lessen it Thunder :) . Again, unintended.

On a side note: I notice that you consistently ask about pumping in a variety of old threads, so I assume you’ve been pumping for a while right? I’ve never read you discuss your own empirical experience, but I think you’d be able to help us out a lot due to your extensive experience. Particularly the marginal benefits of pumping in addition to clamping - this is really interesting me.

Precise and deliberate is cool. Using big words to impress people is not. ;)

Excellent!

1. Just wanted to catch this: the suggestion not to pump everyday is a theoretical one based on an assumption that is not confirmed. We could try out the suggestion for a few months and test the results, but I have a suggestion. Instead of going from the top down (this discussion is good and should continue though), we take the empirical results first and use them to make assumptions to insert into our theory. For example, I do not know of any massive gaining clamper, who solely clamped, who did not clamp at least 5 days a week. We are talking Big Girtha, Aristocane, Kaan (Kaan specified in his thread that he believed the major difference that made him gain was daily clamping - how can we explain this?), etc. All daily. Drilla did it 5 days a week, but his gains aren’t comparable to the former three (Kaan gained approximately 0.4 in a month if I remember correctly). So the empirical evidence so far would lead me to say that we should do some more research on this and try to confirm the experience. IF this is the case, then we have to figure out why it works better everyday, so we can know how to manipulate it.

——Joke (not funny, but relevant): An economist, an engineer, and a physicist are marooned on a deserted island. One day they find a can of food washed up on the beach and contrive to open it. The engineer said: “let’s hammer the can open between these rocks”. The physicist said: “that’s pretty crude. We can just use the force of gravity by dropping a rock on the can from that tall tree over there”. The economist is somewhat disgusted at these deliberations, and says: “I’ve got a much more elegant solution. All we have to do is assume a can-opener.” Damn economists and their assumptions - this is why we have financial systems that don’t work. Lets seek to build a theory that is concrete by building it up on what empirical evidence we have.

2. Your last comment about the lack of oxygenation has been my #1 suspicion so far. It makes sense to me too, and it’s the only thing that makes enough sense to cause the level of gains we are having. I don’t think any other reasoning could explain such (a) fast gains (b) large gains - both of these qualities make me suspicious that we are not causing deformation…the method of gaining doesn’t seem to match. God knows. Do we have any research on this topic? Not penile, but generally. What would this entail biologically?

I’m glad you joined the discussion marinera. I hope we can get enough practicing clampers in here so that we can collect some sort of empirical evidence to begin discussing a basic model of what we are doing.

By the way, how can we make sense of Big Girtha’s clampathons causing gains? He seems to have made large gains through clamping at approximately 16 sets of 10 minutes (3 hours with no oxygen) a few times a week, while clamping moderately at other times or doing other things. I would expect that reducing his free-flow time to 21 hours on those days and yet gaining larger gains should help up deduce the cause here. There’s actually another guy that posted in his thread that did something similar, I think his name was Red something.

Welcome Pillars :)

1. Bib is a very interesting character. I have spoken to him on his independent forums several times, about a year ago, when I was still trying to gain length. From my understanding (at least on his forum), he attributed a large part of his girth gains to hanging. ThunderSS, do you know if this is the case?

2. “Cementing gains” scares me a bit. I’m not sure where the term came from, but I have a suspicion that it came from pumping, because there cementing gains actually means something. What does cementing gains mean when you’re clamping? And what does it mean if gains are retractable, ie why would we need to cement gains?

——-> Has anyone lost clamping gains? I’m not talking about engorgement, I mean losing gains that remained for over two weeks of no clamping. Has this happened?

Edit: we also need to figure out what the red bumps are. I’ve read BG once say that the large bumps could be small blood vessels that had burst. My intuitive feeling for the past few months (and I get these regularly, even now) was that even the tiny bumps were small burst blood vessels. Does anyone think to the contrary?

1. I honestly don’t remember LV.

ThunderSS, while we’ve got you here:

I wouldn’t want to ask normally, but since the Aristocane character might be important in our deliberations (I almost tried a 20 minute set to find out if it made a difference), could you tell us if he was a troll or not? I know he was banned…should we consider any of his results?

I wouldn’t. The guy was scamming to start a PE paysite.