How important is REST ?

Yes, that is a good point. The key is knowing when the body has fully recovered. Since we have no way of peering inside our tissue

we have to just go off our body’s feedback system (PIs.)

I’ve noticed the same thing.

I’ve been doing PE on and off for about 3 years now and I’ve logged detailed information about my progress/routines in a text file on my computer. The log tells me, and I also remember, that most of my gains come after a break just like you described it. This pattern is obvious.

This is why I now measure after breaks and not before the break. I’ve measured before breaks and thought “Oh well, this routine didn’t work, next.”, only to find out I gained during the the break, meaning the routine actually did produce results but the gains took some time to manifest themselves. It can get confusing and you might end up contributing the gains to the wrong routine. So let that be a lesson to you, measure after breaks before you begin a new routine and not before the break right after the training phase.

Also, maybe it only looks like your growing during the break but what’s actually happened is that you’ve grown all along but during the training phase the erection quality wasn’t 100% due to the stresses of the training and when you finally take a break you get the erection quality back to 100% and you see the gains making it look like it only grew during the break. Of course, a BPFSL might rule that idea out, but I’ve never bothered with that particular measurement I’m afraid. :(

Or the penis actually grows during the break and not during the training phase. If so, I guess that would rule out the plastic deformation theory since plastic deformation has instant and permanent effect, as far as I understand.

I have been advocating a different “mind set” for about a year now. I recommend guys, who are having trouble gaining to aim for a “super healthy dick” instead of a bigger one.

By that I mean really excellent EQ (erectile quality)…great, easy and frequent erections…rock hard and greatly increased nite and morning wood.

Why shoot for this instead of a bigger dick? Because by trying for a bigger dick, many guys end up not really paying attention to their PI’s and their EQ starts to decrease. Many times its a slight decrease, or progressively slow loss of EQ that you can justify away and ignore.

As your EQ deteriorates…so does your chances of growing!!! I have nearly never heard of someone who is gaining that doesn’t also have great EQ! Why? Because a beat up dick doesn’t grow!!!

Great EQ indicates that your recovery is greater than your stress ( to your dick) and in that sense, it is very much like wt training. If you lift wts again before you have recovered, you are just heaping more tissue damage on top of tissue damage, and have pushed the time needed for full recovery and supercompensation back. Great way to get weaker instead of stronger…and forget about getting bigger!

Most of you guys that report that after you took a break, you got gains and far better erections are doing exactly that…too much PE!

If you learn to first GET great EQ, then KEEP it, you will find you will have a much better chance at growing.

I think you should never let yourself be more than 1 day away from full recovery and great EQ…if you need more than that…cut down your PE until you are fully recovered within a 24 hour period.

Try that, and I think you will all find growth is much easier to achieve.

Iguana makes a good point about bone lengthening. I’m now thinking more on the lines of using an ADS 1 day on, 3 days rest. I can’t believe I didnt think of this before. When I was weight lifting I know the more rest you got the better. Maybe this is why some newbies make such great gains in the first few weeks?

Interesting theory sparkyx.

First thing that I have noticed during my PE break was better erection. During PE phase it happened to me 2 times(at the end of that period) that even with Viagra my erection was not that good!(in comparison to erection on viagra 2-3 months earlier). During my rest period I was taking L-arginine for 3 days(I was left of Viagra and my GF was coming to me) and my erections were as good as on Viagra during PE phase! :)

Also…I have started new I phase few days ago. Yesterday I was hanging…what I have noticed during the night(when I was ‘doing pee’) was big erection(still) but my dick was bent left….My penis always was bent in left a bit…but today it was more than during rest period. I was always sure that ligs on my left side of penis make my penis go in that direction…Tonight after hanging(I was ‘attacking’ mostly ligs) my penis was bent left more than usual as I said…What does it mean? In my opinion it may mean that due to the fact that I put stress on my ligs earlier they reacted in opposite way…at least on left side of my penis where they are stronger as I suspect…If I am correct this may be interesting observation…it could be another argument for a theory that more we pull the more resistance penis will produce…(in this case in micro-scale of few days because it was just halve of day after hanging)

Check out this guys…it comes from bodybuilding theory. And although PE is not exactly the same(especially as they are talking there about rest for ‘internal organs’ like liver) it may give us some insight on how it works like:

I found those guys on one of Tony Robbins old tapes. It is very interesting as they claims there to train their muscles once a week or even once every second week! Isn’t is ‘less is more’ ?

I too have noticed that all of my gains have showed up either during an extended break or after a short break soon after I have gotten back into my routine. Although I have been into PE for a while my actual schedule is fairly disorganized. I am away from home around six months a year but not six months at a time, a month here, two there, etc. During the times I am away from home I have up to 4 or 5 hours a day to dedicate to PE if I was up to it and the old unit could handle it, and really do put in a fairly serious amount of workout time. The ruler never shows any progress during these periods and that does make it easy to loose faith and get discouraged, but I always try to remind myself of how my first gains appeared…After a three day weekend when I did absolutely no PE I suddenly had an extra 1/4 inch length. I must have measured six times thinking that I must have made a mistake or must not be measuring the same as before.

When I am home I dedicate almost no time to PE, too many other things going on, wife, kids, job, etc. I do however make it a point to take a measurement one or two weeks after returning home to see if any of those magic rest gains have appeared, and I can almost always count on the ruler showing some length gains. The rest period may go on for a month or two, sometimes even up to five or six, but I never loose more that 1/8Th inch from the gains that showed right at the beginning of the break (we won’t get into girth, it seems nearly an impossibility for me).

So I have two theories on my gains, first of course is that your body needs rest to recover and regenerate, the harder you work the longer the rest period needs to be to fully recover.

The second theory I have may seem kind of silly sounding at first, but it is honestly how I feel. I am a perpetual “newbie” and keep getting newbie gains. I start back up after a several month break with a unit that is deconditioned and just waiting to have some jelqs or clamps sprung on it. I work it hard for a month or two before a break and more often than not show at least a small gain within the first week or two of a break.

I’ve just read this post from start to finish and it’s been a bit of an eye opener. It’s inspired me to take a long decon and then start a routine based on IPR principles. My gains have basically dried up, I’ve gained next to nothing in the past 2 weeks after initially gaining a magic 1/2 inch about 6 weeks ago, but instead of stopping while I was ahead and giving my dick a chance to recover I’ve been greedy and ploughed on with other routines and variations and I think I’m just fatigued now. I’ve been bogged down with the flu, and stressed out with finding a job, so I think my EQ has been suffering due to psychological reasons aswell as over training. I need a full month off, and a fresh start. I might lose all my gains and shrink back down to 6.75inches BPEL, or judging by what’s been said in this thread my EQ might shoot up and I might even gain length, who knows. It’s all a learning curv. Very interesting thread though.