Gathering Info on how to work up a productive routine for Hard Gainers

This is from my post on Gators Thread;

sparkyx - Gator’s Pumping Log

you will need to read my EQ and PI threads to understand this Thread, linked at the bottom of this post. If you don’t read the first page of the EQ thread, you will have critical misunderstandings that will render THIS thread worthless for you.

How Hardgainers can work up a productive routine

Just for the record, there are two concepts, 1) less is more 2) more is more. Both work, but they rarely work for the same guy. You have to find out if you are #1 guy or a #2 guy.

IF you are a less is more guy, more than that will NEVER work for you. IF you are a more is more guy, minimal routines will NEVER get you gains.

The trick is to find out what type you are, then tune it to work for you. Its a lot trickier if you are a less is more guy, because 2 minutes difference can mean the difference between gains or not. The good news is you have to put in far less time than a more is more guy.

The good news for a more is more guy, the “window” of growth is much bigger and generally the more you do (with good EQ) the better you do. These are the guys that can pump for an hour daily and get great gains. The bad news is you might NEED to put in an hour a day at minimum.

This is why for a hard gainer I usually recommend either pumping (with a gauge) or hanging. Both of these can use definite objective force perimeters, not a guess like with manual methods. I suggest start with a ridiculously small amount of time and force, and gradually work up while keeping good records of EQ and PIs.

IF you do this, you WILL find out if you are a more is more or less is more guy, based on EQ. Too much will crash your EQ, and rest will restore it. Too little can crash your EQ, and rest won’t help. Ideally, you want to start low and work up and see EQ rise to levels WAY above your untrained levels. This high EQ becomes a reference point. If it drops, you need to adjust your PE (either up or down). If it continues to rise, keep going with adding time or force (I recommend not to exceed 5 in hg). Once it begins to drop, you know you have reached apx your STARTING point for PE. Once it drops from too much force/time (confirmed), then drop back to the level that gave you your HIGHEST EQ level.

Once you confirm this, now you have a BASELINE. At this point you begin to experiment from this baseline. Good example is for Gator, 10 minutes @ 5 in hg. He then found 3-4 days on and 1-2 off started to show gains. He can now do experiments with more or less and always come back to his baseline if he gets “lost”. Less is more guys ESPECIALLY need this baseline or else we can get hopelessly confused when working up a productive routine.

[More is more guys usually don’t need this as much…just pump the hell out of your dick and it starts to grow.]

The confusion can come in (for less is more guys) if you do WAY too much (from a BIG jump in time or force), it might take a week or more of rest to restore your EQ. You can prevent this confusion by GRADUAL increases, so you will see gradual changes in EQ. If you are just a bit over trained, a day or two is enough to recover and see EQ rise.

Once you find this out, the trick is to find what routine gives consistently high EQ (and some may NEED a drop towards the end of the mini cycle). Once you find that, you are usually pretty close to your “growth window” and you just fine tune your perimeters until you start to see gains.

As Gator mentioned, when fine tuning it may take up to a week to see if you are a little too high or low. Stress can accumulate or reduce gradually when you are just a bit too high or low.

Good luck and pm me with questions if I don’t answer within a few days here.

Great post Sparkyx

I only wish I’d taken this approach right from the beginning but it’s never too late :)

Its only too late when your dick falls off, or you die! :)

Haha last year one of those was a distinct possibility !

I was always a “more is more” guy. But since I’ve become very conditioned over the years, I’ve had to take a further step to continue gains. I push it to the point where my EQ is very poor for a couple of days afterwards, followed by a few days of lighter sessions to bring the EQ back up again. Then when it’s back to full, doing another ‘total destruction’ session. I wouldn’t recommend it to many people, as it will quickly toughen your dick to anything but extreme PE, but that’s the way I’m built. I also take extended decon breaks a couple of times a year, otherwise I would not gain at all. My ‘conditioning’ comes back quickly these days, even after a break.

Different folks… different strokes! :D

I’m actually glad you brought this up, and thank you for it. Actually Firegoat was kind enough to PM me first and as a result I made a correction in the thread from;

(with possibly a small drop towards the end of your mini cycle) to

(and some may NEED a drop towards the end of the mini cycle).

because it is correct, some guys have reported that they have to drop their EQ towards the end of their cycle (whatever length it is) and then recover to see gains. Some find a small drop works good, and as FG reports, he needed a big drop. However, what is the same for all of them, is they then need to allow EQ to rebound to its high level again before repeating the cycle.

The basic premise is the same that you need to find your high EQ as a baseline and then experiment from there, whether you find you do best keeping it very high, dropping it slightly or crashing it before you repeat the cycle or allowing it to return to a high level again.

What I have NEVER heard is a guy that gains from keeping EQ crashed all the time. As I have stated in the past, a “beat to shit dick doesn’t grow!” So some of you may need to push deep into over training, BUT you must let it recover before you stress it again.

At least that is my best understanding at this point. If someone has an experience of keeping EQ at very low levels constantly, and makes gains…please let me know!

Thanks Firegoat for that very important contribution!

Me. Sorry I know I am a pain in the ass, but as far as length gains, I had them mostly when my EQ was very low. I think EQ counts for girth gains, but for pure length gains, well not that much. I have read of many people who go through periods of low EQ when they are searching for length gains - prolonged stretching seems per se to lower EQ.

“The basic premise is the same that you need to find your high EQ as a baseline and then experiment from there, whether you find you do best keeping it very high, dropping it slightly or crashing it before you repeat the cycle or allowing it to return to a high level again.”

Cool ! this just answered my first question.

Do you think that there’s an optimum length of mini cycle if that’s the way you end up going ?

“If someone has an experience of keeping EQ at very low levels constantly, and makes gains…please let me know!”

Here!

Marinera and Mister007 since you are both finding that you gain with low EQ I’m interested to know if either of you consider yourselves to be Hardgainers since that’s what this approach is geared towards ?

capernicus1,

Yes. I am a hard gainer. I have been here since 2005 and I’m not even close to my goals. I have had some long breaks but still it’s a long time. I have tried many routines and seems like hanging is the only way to gain for me.

I have tried pumping, clamping, manuals, ADS, and god knows what. I can’t even remember all.

It’s always the same: I have break, I start PE again, I pick a little gain, then it seems to get very hard to gain. Then I usually quit and come back later.

This time I’m going to try hang for a whole year 2012. I like hanging because it’s so easy to change angles or add weight if you are stuck. If I don’t gain anymore, I will probably have deacon break again.

One summer I did vac-hanging (with lower weights than now) and ADS routine. My EQ was unreal(very good) but I was stuck with gains again.

So for me it seems that deacon breaks really work.. I guess perfect PE cycle for me is something like 4-6 months PE, 2-3 months off.

I have been hanging for many months now and I usually have low EQ, then it gets better and this is time to add weights for me and I usually measure a gain when this happens.

Now I’m just going to add weights every time I don’t feel the stretch and see what happens. In my previous hanging times I never went over 15lbs, who knows what happens when I have reached 30lbs(over time) for an example?

I’m a normal gainer, I guess. Beside anecdotal evidence, there are other things that make me think that EQ and size gains aren’t that directly related, but I won’t post here because I don’t want to hijack this thread or kinda.

I’d love to hear why you think EQ is not related to size gains.

Because for two and a half years I gained absolutely nothing. Once I started carefully watching my EQ, I’ve gained quite well.

I seem to be the walking example of how pertinent EQ is to size gains.

This is Sparkyx’ thread. If he want to hear what I think about, then I’ll say. Otherwise I could make it clear in another thread. I said what I think about before, anyway, in other threads, a little search should yeld results.

It may well be that can happen with pure length gains applications like hanging or stretching. Already there are two of you stating that is your experience, so there must be some validity to it. If there are major flaws in this concept, I will pull it and rework it. Lets get more feedback and see where it goes.

I know some guys need to drop their EQ down and then recover, but I had never heard of guys gaining WHILE they kept a constant low EQ level. However, I really haven’t had a lot of feedback from pure hangers and stretcher on this, so I’m interested in hearing your experiences. I have heard hangers say at first their EQ is very low, but then it comes up significantly and they see gains. But this is interesting!

If you could, give a bit more details on how low your Eq drops on a 1-10 scale, with zero being complete impotence, and 10 raging erections easily and frequently.

Do you find that gains occur WHILE it is low, or when it rebounds? Or right after returning from a break?