Key to Continuing gains?

I was reading Modestomans thread , particularly Hobbys post, as it applies to my situation somewhat. I started pe Aug 2004 and gained 1/4 per month for the first three months. I then sustained an injury during a jelqing session. I was forced to stop stretching and jelqed only over the next month or two produced no results. I quit pe for about 6mos until mid June 2005 when I started hand stretching and jelqing for a few weeks and this brought me back to my best measurement at 6.5”( i had lost 1/8 -1/4 off my best). I then began hanging SD with 12 lbs progressing to 17.5 lbs by the end of July. At that time I had gained an additional 1/4 pushing me to a new best of 6.75. Over the course of the last month I have hung 4-5 days a week and raised the weight to 20 lbs but zero gain.

The gains for me seem to come fairly easily (but with extensive work) or not at all.

Its my contention now as it was before I quit the first time, cycling is the key to continued gains. The longer and thinner you stretch your soft tissue the less giving they become,this is just nature protecting itself. I know hobby has had similar results as have many others. Its perhaps the toughest concept to accept and put into action-do nothing for at least 3 months and you can expect gains when you come back. Why work hard for three months with little or no gains, when allowing tissue to grow back thicker/stronger will give up the easier/quicker gains. Dont get me wrong its not about quick and easy its about continous gains.

Im going to continue hanging for another month and if no more gains Im going to retire again for a few months.

Id like to hear from others who have experienced this phenomena of cycling.

redrooster

rr:

It might be time for you to start working the angles: have you tried OTL/UTL?

GM

Once again, I think there are 2 basic mechanisms for gain;

1 Forcing elongation of the tissues.

2 “Encouraging” growth of the tissues.

Those that have had success seem to fall into these two categories.

Those that forcefully elongate the tissues seem to make fairly good initial gains, then hit a brick wall. I think that at that point the ligaments or whatever have stretched to their max,and begin to respond with thickening and/or strengthening.

At that point a deconditioning break is needed to make any additional progress.

Those that “encourage” growth, seem to find a force level that doesn’t stimulate the adaptation response of thickening/strengthening of the tissues.

They are usually using substantially less force than the 1st category, and seem to be able to make slow, steady progress over long periods of time.

I think skin can be looked at as a tissue that this applies to. If you are getting fat (slow gentle expansion of the skin) the body can produce almost unlimited expansion.

However if the expansion is too fast (as in bodybuilding,or rapid wt gain) the skin gets injured and scars ( as in stretch marks). Scarred skin is nowhere as elastic as healthy skin.

I think this is the type of responses we see in pe, and even though we are dealing with several tissue categories…I think the example is still applicable.

In my personal observations I find that forceful stretching of the tissue that will evoke a strengthening/toughening response, usually causes a rebound contraction after it is applied.

That is to say, the penis will “turtle” or shorten in response. It tends to also decrease the quality and quanity of the erectile response for a period of time.

I’ve been experimenting with careful daily measuring to determine the appropriate amount of time/force needed to get sustained growth.

I have been able to get a pretty good ballpark figure of what is the “right” amount of pe. If I go over it, I find that I get some contraction. If I nail it, I get small daily increases.

I’ve been getting my best results with this approach.

To show you how subtle this can be, I have been using 2 of Monty’s pe wts for ADS and doing well. Yesterday I went to 3. This morning when I measured, I had about 1/4 inch contraction!

Today I went back to 2 and I may take the day off from other pe, then measure either tonite or tomorrow morning and see the results.

Another example is pumping. When I pump at 2-3 in hg, for 3 sets of 5 minutes, I make progress and getting harder and more frequent erections. When I go to 5 in hg…I lose ground!

Who would have thought that so small a change is the difference between sucess and failure? But for me, it does. I suspect for many pe’ers it also applies.

I think this precise approach isn’t needed when using large forces, I think you can “hammer” your penis into lengthening, but you will get limited results before hitting that “wall”, where no amount of force will work. Take you for example…20lbs!!! Jesuzzz, that is a lot of wt, but yet, no further gains.

Like the old saying “you can’t whip a dead horse” well, you can…but he won’t move. I think its the same with the penis. Once you have “forced” as much expansion it has to give, you have to take a break and let it decondition.

Or…you can try the “encouragement” approach.

I think its a lot like learning to target shoot. If you can’t see where your shot lands…how do you improve?

If you shoot a paper target, you can see if you are shooting high, low, right or left and make the correction.

If you don’t carefully, daily observe your unit’s response to pe, I think it makes it harder to know whether you are doing too much, too little or just right.

Good point there sparkyx, I do agree to the fullest however all that measuring would get a lot of people frustrated. But breaks are definitely a good think. I know that penis and muscles are not the same, but after 2 or 3 months of hardcore steady PE work a week break can do only good. You have to be able to stop for a while without being scared of loosing gains. You might loose some but on the other side if you would be loosing too much then what would be the PE point. Then you could never stop. That would be insane.

Its only frustrating when you are going nowhere…but if you see small gains on a steady basis, it has the opposite effect.

My point it that many, many of us do WAY too much, which leads to small or no gains.

I believe that daily measuring can steer you into a routine that will maximize your gains.

Its all about some sort of accurate feedback that will allow you to make intelligent adjustments to your routine…rather than pull and pray.

Good post sparkyx

Pull and pray. You got me with that one. I had a serious laugh and at the same time realised that there is probably a lot of that.
And since I always wanted to improve on effectiveness could you give me a closer insight of what you had in mind as far as measuring every day?

Do you measure EL or flaccid or stretched flaccid. That does seem very interesting. Someone once said I don’t know who it was, but was right : Don’t work harder work smarter

And that is probably what you have in mind. It does apply to a lot of areas of life.

Thanks for feedback

I know I am still a relative newbie, but I have had this idea kicking around in my head for a while that may be worth listening to.

In bodybuilding there is this theory called periodicity, or periodization. The basic theory is that your body will adapt to any given kind of stress over time, and the results you see from that type of stress will taper off, even with increased intensity. In order to prevent this, you should switch up your routine from time to time, use different excersizes, different weight/rep combinations, etc. Later on you will repeat your current routine, but by then your body will have adapted in another direction and this routine will seem fresh again. There is an obvious mental aspect as well, as it prevents boredom.

You could extend this to PE, I think. Perhaps our bodies plateau after some weeks of the same excersize, and we should change up. Try different stretches. Jelq at different intensities. Pump at different pressure, for different times, or different cycles. Hang from a different angle.

Any thoughts?

I have thought about the exact same thing. (I study sports).

Think I will try this.

I will add/take away stretches every 2-3 weeks and measure every month.

A deconditioned penis responds quickly to exercise, you have built-in capacity that requires a hard stimulus (jelqing/stretch) to begin generating increased expansion. This expansion is almost solely in the large chambers; it is a vascular-rich area and will respond like a sponge taking in water. With the additional blood your penis will tumesce to greater girth and some small amount of length (as erectile circulatory system improves it will scope out new length or exposed inner penis).

You have to realize that your optimum size will require an extended period of exercise and not happen in the same time period as muscle gain. It is poor logic to think that applying greater mass will equate to greater size. Continued gains is a matter of improved blood flow characteristics, this is a matter of widening arteriole channels and improving the penis’ threshold for blood volume. As these areas are s-l-o-w-l-y optimized you will maximize your blood intake and ultimate size of your vessel.

It has to be reproducible and accurate. That probably narrows it down to just a few possibilities.

I think flaccid stretched is probably one of the more accurate ones. However, I think it has to be done with some constant force, like a 5 or 3 lb wt.

If you use your hand to generate the stretching force…how do you know you are using the same force each time? You can’t!

If you use a wt, the same one each time, hung on the penis the same way…then the only variable will be your penis length…which is precisely what you want to measure.

I personally use a vacuum tube, at 3 in hg. To eliminate variability I take about 2 minutes to make sure I get an optimum erection.

I jelque the tube TOWARD my body while kegeling. What this does is DECREASE vacuum while expanding my unit.

So lets say I have the vacuum at 3 in hg, I will then jelque the tube toward my body while kegeling…what this will do is pump up my erection even more and lower the vacuum to 2 in hg.

I will then use my pump and increase the vacuum back up to 3 in hg, and repeat the process until I can no longer drop the vacuum below 3 in hg, and I feel a very strong erection.

( By the way, this is also a very effective technique to use DURING pumping)

With this technique I find I can be accurate down to 1/16”.

So for example, last nite I did my 3X5min @ 2 in hg, but also added in 5min of hanging @ 5 lbs.

This morning I measured, and had decreased by 1/16 “…. so today will be a light day. Either very light pe or not at all.

Usually when I do this, I regain the 1/16” and sometimes go beyond it.

Before, I’d just wing it…and there were times I would find I lost a 1/2” for up to 3 weeks because of some intense routine I decided to try (can you say clamped pumping kids?).

I find with daily careful measurements it has confirmed how fine of a line it takes for me to progress…and how easy it is to go over it.

Now, with this approach, I can stay in the “growth zone” more frequently and when I make a change, I get accurate, fast feedback as to what it is doing.

Great posts all, and great ideas. :thumbs:

Shilow,

Improving blood flow will do nothing if your tunica isn’t any larger. The arteries and veins are not a limiting factor for erect size.

I think once you have set up an accurate measuring system, a good experiment to run, is to see how long you can go with NO pe and see how long it takes to LOSE from too LITTLE PE!

Of course, I’m not going to do this, because I suffer from the same mental illness as the rest of you. I start getting nervous from laying off one day!

But, someone who is going on a deconditioning break…it would be interesting.

I think for a lot of you that aren’t making progress while hanging 200 lbs off your dicks and jelqing for 10 hrs a day…might find you will grow for about 3 wk of LAYING OFF PE!

BETCHA’, BETCHA’ BETCHA!!!

Sparkyx,

I know that I had about a two week break a few weeks ago. When I measured at the end of it, I did find that I had gained.

I have trouble with accurate BPFSL measurements for the reasons you stated above, inconsistent force and grip techniques. For some reason, I find it much more painful to press to the bone while flaccid than while erect, and I know that I am not applying consistent force, so I don’t see any value and give up.

I did persevere and take one the other night, though. I had gotten a really good measurement BPEL, and I was so curious I decided to do a BPFSL the next morning. They were pretty close to the same measurement, BPFSL was slightly longer.