Loading, lengthening, healing.

Hope this helps, Monty:

"
Similar experiments using rat tail tendons have been conducted by Warren et al (1976) regarding permanent elongation of connective tissue at various temperatures.16 The data showed that the application of low force over a long duration was very effective in producing slow elongation in the viscous elements, resulting in increased residual elongation. Furthermore, elevating tissue temperature and maintaining it prior to applying force was found to cause significantly less tissue damage. Lastly, the lower loads applied at elevated temperatures for prolonged periods were found to produce significantly greater residual elongation.16
There are definite advantages to applying superficial heat to remodel connective tissue.
………………………………………….. ……….
Lastly, there is an increase in the extensibility of collagen tissue, a major component of connective tissue, through changes in its viscoelastic properties following the application of heat. This is an important effect of heat due to the long-term remodelling of connective tissue.7,9"

"Connective tissue response

Heat therapy is used to treat joint stiffness and contracture. Temperature elevation combined with stretching the contracted tissue alters the viscoelastic properties of connective tissues.8,26-28 Pre-treatment with heat followed by application of stretch to the contracted connective tissue causes residual elongation of the tissue taking advantage of its viscous properties. This residual lengthening of connective tissue is called plastic deformation.29

Raising the tissue temperature to therapeutic levels between 40˚c and 45˚c (104˚F to 113˚F) results in greater residual connective tissue elongation with less tissue damage.30,31 Similarly, application of stretch with lower loads for longer duration produces greater increases in joint range of motion with less tissue damage.7,29,31,32 "

http://www.join theat.com/heati … ical.study.html

Yes you’ve made my point heat doesn’t work.

I recently started using a rice sock during clamping sessions. I can tell I’m getting much better expansion. No massive gains to report yet, but it feels good at least.

Marinara, the reason I attach weights to my dick and hang for as long and often as I can is so that I can take the collagenous tissues that constrain my erection beyond the elastic and into the plastic region.

Plastic deformation is micro-tears, is remodeling of collagenous tissue, and is the permanent elongation or ‘damage’ that I seek.

I believe that the feeling of fatigue is the tissues being stretched beyond the elastic and into the plastic region. My dick isn’t a dissected rat tail and can’t be put into a machine and stretched to the point where remodeling occurs. I have to work up on it slowly and methodically. That’s why rest days are counterproductive. I’ve found that for every day I rest it takes another two in order to again begin riding fatigue – and making progress.

Contained within your links you’ll find that heat is utilized to hasten remodeling or plastic deformation and cooling while maintaining the stretch is important for the remodeling or reorganization to take place.

For these reasons many hangers apply heat during their sessions and then utilize an extender for a cool down afterwards.

Me, personally I cool down while under tension during my last set and don’t utilize an extender.

When hangers talk about ‘Healing in the extended state’ they are referring to the cool down period where part of the molecular remodeling takes place.

I think it’s great that you’ve posted the articles that you have. The information contained within may help you to understand the philosophies behind a hanging routine. Who knows, maybe you’ll toss aside your extender and take up hanging.

I’m so damned confused! I started doing the newbie routine and gained about a half an inch the first two months. Gains stopped then. I kept trying for another month or two with no gains, so I took a deconditioning break. I lost a quarter of an inch. For the last three months I have been doing the newbie but also using an ADS with pretty high weight. I have gained back the quarter inch that I lost, but just cant seem to move past it. What am I doing wrong? Should I stretch more? Maybe two sessions a day with no breaks? I do notice when I take a break from this routine I do tend to shrink up. I need some direction. I sure would appreciate any input!

Thank for your input, Dick Builder, your post is a good one.

If you don’t mind, I’m quoting the periods that can summarize your thought :

I can see the first is the reason why theory of hanging that we could call, just to make simple, “non-stop” exists. I think studies on the subject “tendons”, that we are supposing pretty similar to TA, shows that after a given time of good stretch, there is no benefit on repeating the loading. If you continue hanging for 20 min., then 10 min. rest, then again hanging and so on, the elastic reponse of your penis will not be altered - and the plastic adaptation neither; now, if you go beyond that, your penis will likely start contracting. That’s what this studies are suggesting.

Contractions is the sign that some injury is produced, I think; fatigue, to me, means that you have to stop - no studies are suggesting different, no experience of sport-/healing/enhaning experts; and I think they know well collagenous tissue reactions and linked damages.

If what you said on your 2) sentence is true (and I believe it is), then I think this is the moment when microtears are produced. Now you go in the healing phase: that phase, studies suggest, require rest and time. If you are imposing new stress on that tissue, you are making it both: more prone to injuries (in example : tendinitis) and more hard to deform. A gentle, natural extension every day (like could be, I guess, nocturnal erections, added with some gentle piss-pull) is all what is needed to avoid “turtling”.

The your 3) sentence is consequence of this ambiguity, I think: forgetting that plastic deformation is not a product of sole collagenous rearrangement - at a given point, microtears (or creeps, or damnages or whatever you would to call them) are producing, and you should avoid to apply additional load to that bodypart.

So, doing many hours a day of hanging with a medium/high weight is both: unuseful and more risking. Not recovering adequately from fatiguing will cause some kind of “injury” in the late sense, and will make your penis over-resistant to future deformations.

That’s where the error of the “non stop working” theory is, in my humile opinion.

Yes, when training you are essentially building up small elastic elongation/gains, each and every session, up to a point where you reach the plastic zone. That’s in the end of the elastic spectrum where micro-tears start to come into play and the elongation/gains becomes permanent. Depending on how much work you put in this can take a week or more. Yes, when you’ve reached this state of micro-tears the training phase is over and it’s time to rest.

I think most people who’s not gaining creates temporary elastic gains, however small, but instead of stacking every sessions small temporary gains on top of each other they unknowingly let a sessions gain completely revert back by resting to much in between the sessions and then they do it all over again. The result is that every session they are back at square one and no progress is made because the last sessions progress have already faded away.

Again, good post Dicko7x5.

The way we see the things is pretty similar. I agree with you that the first “gain” “no-rest” PEer’s are seeing is elastic gains. What is different is this: you think that, repeating sets of hanging/stretching enhance the temporarily deformability of TA, and that there is a proportionate adaptations to this elastic elongation.

Both my personal experience and readings suggests it’s not the case. It seem that, one has done X time of stretching/hanging (most studies says 4-5x30”“), no better elastic reponse is reached, no faster plastic adaptation is going on.

So, the illusion of fast length gains when using repetead sets, if I had to guess, is something analogus to doing clamping again and again - your penis is always temporarily enlarged, but the permanent deformation at the end of a given amount of time will be the same or less than you could have doing a fraction of the work you did (uhm..doesn’t sound clear to me, I hope you can get what I mean); in the mean time, you’ve raised the risks of injury and made your tissue thougher and thougher, so future gains will be more unlikely.

Again: this only apply to medium/high tensions, with very low tensions constant and prolonged stretch could be the optimal pathway.

The rat tail study, that you posted, repeatedly loaded the tendon within the elasticity range and showed that recovery from that stretch took about ten minutes. There intention wasn’t to permanently lengthen the tendon. However, they did point out that permanent elongation did take place at around a 4% stretch. I do not remember reading anything about contraction as you have pointed out. Contraction would be more of a soft tissue response.

Again, plastic deformed tendons retain a portion of their elongation, they do not contract. If they did, as you are suggesting, they would have become shorter, not longer.

I’m not sure what study you’re referring to when you state ‘healing phase’. I’ve been through physical therapy to increase range of motion. It was both rigorous and painful. I was never prescribed ‘rest days’ for the ‘healing phase’. I’m also not sure what turtling has to do with collagenous tissue. Turtling is more of a soft tissue response. My dick turtles when it’s cold.

Repeated loading is necessary to slowly build up to and enter into the plastic region. To pile on weight sufficient to do so in one session would be dangerous. That is one of the reasons hangers perform multiple back to back sessions. The amount of weight is inconsequential; you shouldn’t place so much value on it. It’s personal to the individual hanger, and is whatever necessary to reach fatigue.

I agree with you that recovery is necessary. That’s why it is a general rule not to hang more than 4 hours a day. Most hangers generally hang about 1 to 2 hours daily. That gives over twenty hours a day for recovery.

The Mechanical Properties of Rat Tail Tendon
BERNARD J. RIGBY, NISHIO HIRAI, JOHN D. SPIKES,
and HENRY EYRING
ABSTRACT The load-strain and stress-relaxation behavior of wet rat tail
tendon has been examined with respect to the parameters strain, rate of straining,
and temperature. It is found that this mechanical behavior is reproducible
after resting tile tendon for a few minutes after each extension so long as the
strain does not exceed about 4 per cent. If this strain is exceeded, the tendon
becomes progressively easier to extend but its length still returns to the original
value after each extension.

The point is that plastic deformation is not accomplished instantaneously. That’s why the "cementing" is needed.
And yes, collagenous tissue does shortening if an improper load is applied.

See here (my post #1)

2. Repair and Remodelling:
Healing of the most connective tissue except bone, epithelium and endothelium occur by tissue repair. This is often accompanied by fibrous scar, which is the typical patching material for wound repair. Repair responses vary considerably in different injured tissues. After an injury, the healed tissue is never same as it was before. Tissue repair starts at 48 hours after injury and lasts up to 6 to 8 weeks, fibroblasts begin wound repair and collagen synthesis. Collagen has the property of gradually shortening when it is truly formed. This contracture occurs from the third week to the sixth month. New scar tissue will always shorten unless it is repeatedly stretched..Remodelling, also known as maturation, involves increased collagen density and organization, resulting in increased tensile strength. This process begins as early as 3 weeks following injury and continues for a year or longer.

"Taylor et al.4 experimented with rabbit muscle/tendons and felt that the main response to stretch could be explained by viscoelastic properties alone, exclusive of reflex effects. They found that denervated muscles responded similarly to the innervated muscles in flexibility testing. Interestingly, they found that most of the stress relaxation took place within 12 to 18 seconds of stretch and there was insignificant relaxation afterwards. They also found that in static stretching, 80 percent of the stretch occurred after the first four stretches and stretching afterwards improved elongation very little. Of course we are dealing with rabbit tendons — are there any human volunteers in the audience?"

http://www.chir oweb.com/archiv … s/11/04/27.html

As I said, repeated high tensions stretches, for hours a day, are, readings at litherature, not only unuseful, but also raising risks of injuries.

More generally, Dick Builder, before arguing you should read what has been already posted, links allowed, references cited etc. etc..

The penis is a robust organ and very resistant to any elongation that could occur through stresses put upon it by excessive weights or stretching. This fact is seen by the non-linear increases in length by the various exercises performed on it, if actual elongation were occurring through permanent deformation, we could in theory extend to very long lengths. Improvement of the penis’ ability to optimize through erectile pressure and exposure of hidden length are the real goals of PE. Over working the penis only leads to a very sore penis.

Beavercreek I am not sure if your new to PE but you should know guys who hang weight use extenders and do no manual PE have gain more then guys who just do manuals. There are a chosen few that manuals work for but I believe they are a small number.

I also have had more injury’s from jelqing and pumping then hanging a matter a fact I never had an injury from hang but I have jelq to hard and had blood come from the tip of the penis.

Increased pressure on the penis can cause loss of erection level (negative PI) you see it all the time on here guy saying they got negative PI from a manual routine but I have never heard of any one talk about negative PI when it comes to stretching or hanging.

Lets remember old school PE was hang weight from your cock this has been documented to give the greats gains.

Ask Monty if he agrees with you since he has gained over 2 inch’s from hanging over the last 4 years. You have to look at real world experience’s here. Hangers gain it’s a fact. We might all be disusing how it works and if rest is a factor but no one ever said hanging or extender work doesn’t work it’s just the opposite.

I don’t use any manuals and have gained 1.5 from my start of PE with extenders and just recently started to hanging from right under 6 to 7.5.
The main reason we all PE is to get a bigger cock, how you do it is up to you if manuals are your thing cool and your growing stick with it but to say the main focus of PE is increasing erectile pressure and that should be the focus is a very narrow view point.

These two excerpts are from the same article that you’ve posted. However, you pulled the first paragraph on healing of damaged tissue and related it to plastic deformation. Sorry, but the two aren’t related. Heat and stretching are used therapeutically to elongate collagenous tissue that may have been shortened do to the healing process. Or, by those that want a bigger dick

1) “Healing of the most connective tissue except bone, epithelium and endothelium occur by tissue repair. This is often accompanied by fibrous scar, which is the typical patching material for wound repair. Repair responses vary considerably in different injured tissues. After an injury, the healed tissue is never same as it was before. Tissue repair starts at 48 hours after injury and lasts up to 6 to 8 weeks, fibroblasts begin wound repair and collagen synthesis. Collagen has the property of gradually shortening when it is truly formed. This contracture occurs from the third week to the sixth month. New scar tissue will always shorten unless it is repeatedly stretched”.

Now, this second paragraph concerns the elongation of collagenous tissues that may have been shortened from the healing process described above and that you’ve so conveniently confused with plastic deformation.

2) “Treatment aimed at increasing the length of the capsule and ligament must elongate into the plastic range. The forces needed to gain the elongation may be excessive, producing pain and potential damage to other articular structures. Forces should be applied slowly over a longer period of time to gain permanent deformation by allowing creep to occur. Heating articular connective tissue should permit greater elongation of capsule and ligament with less force application.”

Now, here’s another paragraph from one of the articles you’ve posted that yet again describes the process of elongation through plastic deformation.

”Heat therapy is used to treat joint stiffness and contracture. Temperature elevation combined with stretching the contracted tissue alters the viscoelastic properties of connective tissues.8,26-28 Pre-treatment with heat followed by application of stretch to the contracted connective tissue causes residual elongation of the tissue taking advantage of its viscous properties. This residual lengthening of connective tissue is called plastic deformation.29”
http://www.join theat.com/heati … ical.study.html

I really don’t understand why you continue this attempt at discrediting hanging as a safe and effective method for elongating ones dick. Hanging doesn’t create macro-tears that necessitate the healing process and creating scar tissue. It’s called micro-tears, plastic deformation, remodeling tissue, and creep. Hanging involves heat, tension and time. The same methods utilized therapeutically to elongate other connective tissues in the body.

Ok, I see we have to go back to basic things:

"Tension Under Stretch
Elastic fibers are barely existent in human tendons, making up about 2% of a tendon's dry mass, and being mostly elastin. Elastin contributes primarily to the recovery of the wavy collagen fiber configuration after muscle contraction and tendon stretch. However, if elongation exceeds approximately 4% of its original length, minor damage to the tendon tissue could occur. "

4%+ elongation..does this remember us something?

"Moreover, acute stress resulting in an 8%+ elongation may cause tendon rupture. Injury to a tendon results in inflammation, edema, and pain. The consequence is tendinitis, tendinous bursitis, insertitis, peritendinitis, or any combination. If the damage progresses, without adequate recovery and proper rehabilitation, tendinosis, partial tears, and complete ruptures may ensue."

……..

"Cumulative Microtrauma
It is estimated that as much as half of sports injuries are due to overuse, with musculotendinous units being the most commonly affected. The cause of overuse injury is repetitive strain of the affected tendon so that the tendon is unable to remodel during recovery. Consequently, the tendon is unable to endure further stress, and its structure begins to fail, resulting in inflammation, edema, and pain."
……..

"Tendon Strains
A strain injury occurs when a tendon has been stretched and microscopically damaged, with macroscopic disruption of the tendon fiber bundles. Within four hours of a tendon strain, fibronectin and fibrin permeate the damaged area. Within 24 hours, there occurs inflammation with hemorrhage, edema, muscle cell necrosis, and proliferation of leukocytes. Tendon fibers also break down, with macrophage phagocytosis, and continued inflammation."

http://www.i-a- … les/tendon.html

So, its quite clear to me that repetead stretching/hanging with high loads can cause some sort of damage; this damage can have different degrees; what is most common with repetead stretching is the "cumulative microtrauma". How you can exclude that microtrauma is produced after having hanged 3+ hours/day, 7/7?

If you have caused a trauma to your penis, an healing process start:

"Tendon healing process
Tendon healing can be largely divided into 3 overlapping phases, inflammatory repairing and remodelling phases:

The initial inflammatory phase, which lasts about 24 hours, erythrocytes, platelets and inflammatory cells (eg: neutrophils, monocytes and macrophages) migrate to the wound site and clean the site of necrotic materials by phagocytosis. In the meantime, these cells release phaso active and chemo tactic factors which recruit tendon fibroblast to begin collegan synthesis and deposition.

A few days after the injury, the repairing phase begins. In this phase, which lasts a few weeks, tendon fibroblast synthesise abundant collegan and other extra cellular matrix components such as proteoglycans and deposit them at the wound site.

After about 6 weeks, the remodelling phase starts. This phase is characterised by decreased cellularity and decreased collagen and glycosaminoglycan synthesis. During this period, the repair tissue changes to fibrous tissue, this again changes to scar like tendon tissue after 10 weeks. During the later remodelling phase covalent bonding between the collagen fibres increases resulting in repaired tissue with highest stiffness and tense our strength. Also, both the metabolism of tenocytes and tendon vascularity decline."

http://www.shou lderdoc.co.uk/a … sp?article=1029

Those who are supposing that definitive elongation happens only by collagen rearrangement, without production of new cells, are leaving out a "piece" of the adaptation to stress of connective tissue.

Defenders of the "continuative work" thesis started supposing that healing happens while loading - at the same time.
When this thesis has shown to be hard to defend, they came supposing that healing is not needed at all.
But this is even harder.

We have seen that repeating the stretch many times has no real more benefits: after the first times, elongation does not augment; cumulative microtrauma are augmenting. Micro-tears, healing, fibroplasia, definitive elongation on the long run.

The "connective tissue elongation process" has been treated many times on this site.

Also, firegoat explained how this process likely happens, in a clear way: see the thread he linked here, and the link you can find there. And read.

Now, specifically to you, Dick Builder: I haven’t nothing against hanging. What I’m saying does apply to stretching, pumping, clamping etc. etc..

Micro-tears, that you are supposing are caused by repeated strethcing/hanging, call for a repairing process: yuo can call it "healing phase", "repairing phase" or whatever else.You can suppose that that phase requires 6 h, 12 h, 48 h or whatever you think is more likely.Things doesn’t changes.
Connective tissue is living tissue. Long-term alterations are a result of adaptation, not of simple mechanic deformations.

This simply is not true. Many big gainers did just manuals, and hanging did not worked for many guys -in example, try asking to ModestoMan, you can trust him.