Originally Posted by Twelvegauge
As a newbie I want to measure because I want to know if my routine is working or not to know if I should change it up or not.
That’s fine. If measuring isn’t demotivating you then measure.
There’s no reason other than it possibly demotivating you for you not to measure.
Obviously it’s probably not worth measuring every day, because gains happen so slowly over time. Measuring every day would probably be like using a stop watch to time a snail over 800 meters, very boring and very demotivating.
But yes, if you can measure without it demotivating you then definitely measure. The more feedback you can get from your exercises the better informed your decisions will be.
Two things to be mindful of:
1. You will get fluctuating results: Sometimes you’ll measure longer, sometimes shorter. Don’t let it discourage you. What you need to look for is the trend over time. I used to measure frequently to try and reduce the noise I was getting from fluctuating results.
2. Be careful how you measure, you could condition yourself to experience erectile dysfunction: I measure with a metal ruler but what I found was that I was pressing so hard to measure it was causing me pain. Eventually, after measuring that way very frequently for a period of a few months, every time I reached for my metal rule I’d loose my erection, I think probably because of the pain response I was anticipating.
So yes, measure, but not too often, and don’t cause yourself pain to try and get further up the ruler, it can hurt your erectile quality. Once a week is probably as often as you need to and might actually be too frequent. Once every two weeks is probably good but might not be enough to reduce the noise from the fluctuating measurements.
For instance: You should see a huge increase in gain rate if you pump, not because you’ve made significant permanent gains but because it saturates the penis with fluids and causing swelling. On another day the weather might be very very cold, which might affect the tissues of the penis in such a way that you measure a little shorter. This is all noise, and it’s only over time that the trend will reveal itself. The more often you measure, the more you can reduce the noise and so the more accurate an idea you can get of your progress.
But, as I say, be careful how you measure, if you do it as I did, causing yourself pain, you can potentially condition yourself out of achieving full erections.
Something else to consider are P.I.’s (physiological indicators). If you run a search for that term you should be able to find plenty of information on those.
If you’re confident in your P.I.’s, it’s potentially possible to reduce the amount you need to measure as you won’t necessarily need the measurements to know if your routine is still working, but that’s just a theory. Also, that would be something that comes with time and experience, and as I say might not be wholly reliable. The best thing is to use both P.I.’s and consistent measuring.