New suppositions about the growing mechanisms

Site statistics and many “How much size can I gain?” threads show that an average successful PE-er can achieve in around one year (add, or take 6 month) approximately 1” length and 0.5” girth gain. These numbers are not accurate, I know, but it doesn’t matter too much for what I’m going to say. The important thing, which I’d like you to agree, is that in a certain amount of time an average successful PE-er will gain relatively easily a certain amount of size. After that, any further gain will be very slow.

I think this particularity of PE can be linked with the structural characteristics of the ligament/tendon structure.
We can assume that the penis size is limited by the Tunica Albuginea, consisting of ligament-like tissue. This kind of tissue has a hierarchical structure: Tendon > Fascicles > Fibrils > Sub-fibrils > …
This is the link to the source article for the ligament/tendon structure:

Quote from the article:
“There is a structural characteristic at this level that plays a significant role in the mechanics of ligaments and tendons: the crimp of the fibril. The crimp is the waviness of the fibril; we will see that this contributes significantly to the nonlinear stress strain relationship for ligaments and tendons and indeed for bascially all soft collagenous tissues.”

In layman terms, this crimp means the following: a guy with a 5” long tunica has inside his tunica some longitudinal fibrils that are normally folded and measure more than 5” (let’s say 6”) when unfolded under stress. When stretching the tunica, these fibrils “un-crimp” under moderate force. When they are straightened out, the force to further stretch the tunica increases more and the tunica enters the elastic region. After the stretch is over, everything comes back to the original state, including the crimp of the fibrils.

What I’m postulating is that after many cycles of stretching for sufficiently long time, the fibrils won’t go back to the crimped state, but stay more straightly. When all the crimp is eliminated, so the fibrils are completely straightened out even in resting state, the rate of PE gains will drop steeply. For further gains, there should be other mechanisms (like plastic deformation, or cell growth) which I won’t discuss here beyond noticing that this unknown mechanism is much slower than the un-crimping process.
If this un-crimping really takes place, this explains why gaining around 1” is relatively frequent, but further gains are rare, or slow. This also explains flaccid gains from stretching.

Comments are welcome!

Continuation

Similar considerations may apply to girth gains, but there is a more complex mechanics involved. I’m also not too sure that the average 0.5” claimed gain is a fast gain limit, or not…

I have seen a rapid (six month) growth in length of one full inch, from 5 7/8” to 6 7/8” bpel.

I attained this growth from a stretching device I made which I continue to use to this day even though I`ve not seen a length gain in about three months.

When using the device I can usually stretch out my penis to around 7 1/2” flaccid and maybe as much as 7 3/4” on a good day.

I`m wondering why I can still stretch out almost another inch of uncrimping length but my erect length has plateaued for the last three months or so?

This is what I’ve been thinking as well but you explained it really well. I think jelqing and simple stretches can get the inch but beyond that you may need either hanging or fulcrum stretches. I like fulcrum stretches because when you are trying to stretch those fibrils as you call them, all at once, I think it is too much force that is required. With fulcrum stretches you can target one area of tunica at a time to stretch just a few and apply all the force there. To me this is like trying to pull a stick apart versus bending it back and forth to apply stress to the outer edges which weakens it first. The same principle applies to any kind of bends for girth. Granted you apply a lot of force easily so they carry increased risk.

what about girth gains, the same principle is applied?.

I’m not absolutely certain but I think for me my early gains have been due to part of my inner penis coming out. Is that not another possibility for early length and base girth gains?

Uncrimping is the just part of achievable elongation. Even after the the fibrils are straightened out (explaining plateauing), there is the elastic elongation which explains the other inch you can temporarily stretch out. I guess it needs more time to get to plastic deformation (or other permanent effect).

@avantasia: see post #2

@bohm: The inner penis coming out is a debatable topic. I’m not sure this is real at all and if it takes place indeed, I don’t think it’s that fast… While I don’t want to argue about the inner penis’ availability, I’d like to mention only why I’m skeptical about this:
Shortly after finding Thunders, I did a sort of experiment. I made transverse marks along my visible penis and gradually stretched it. As
expected, the marks shifted more at the tip, less towards the base and not at all (at least not visibly) right at the base. I tried to feel the inner penis (with my fingers) while stretching, but of course, no detectable shifting there… I came to the conclusion that stretching puts stress mainly on the outer penis and the pulling force is unloaded where the outer shaft joins the body.

I kinda suspected it was something further back for me because of the visible effect in my testicles which my wife also noticed. My balls moved backwards along my shaft. Another poster here also noted that effect. They look very different than before and because of this backward movement of my testicles, my penis looks different particularly from below and from the side. It looks longer from those 2 views. This effect occurred during my first month or so of PEing. You’re right though. I have no hard evidence that it was my inner penis coming out. I do, however try not to just stretch the end. I put my hand around my shaft using the back of my glans as leverage but also try to use a firm grip with my small finger so I get more pull at the base, if that makes sense.

Cervixhunter, - your assumptions makes sense. What I am missing is a theory on overcoming the limitation for growth.

I think that would be much more interesting and potentially of practical value to all those who have reached or are approaching their limit.

A consistent theory explaining PE gains will have practical value for sure! A first step could be to admit that there are more mechanisms for PE, each of them being dominant at a given stage.
1. I think the early gains can be explained by the straightening (un-crimp) of the collagen fibers. This mechanism gives those newbie gains and the, almost instant (but temporary), flaccid gains. If PE is abandoned at an early stage, the crimp is reinstalled and the gains are lost. Longer PE practice makes the un-crimping become more permanent, “cementing” the gains.
2. After the crimp is exhausted, no more gains can be obtained that way. Other gaining mechanisms have to be targeted. For the moment, we simply can’t tell which are the valid options. We don’t know for sure if cell growth really takes place! Plastic deformation of the collagen tissue very likely happens in suspensory ligaments and the tunica, but is that enough to explain further gains? Hidden penis contribution is also an alternative that has to be clarified. Better blood supply translates also in apparent gains. Which one is dominant? Are there more mechanisms acting together?

If we admit there are more growing mechanisms, it’s easier to understand the confusion we experience now in PE. When one successful guy swears for a given method and other people may, or may not be successful doing the same routine, we hide our frustration under the “each is different” cliche. Actually, our penis is undergoing a transformation with PE and the structure of our tool evolves in time. A given routine will have different impact on penises being in different stages. An example:
I you are a newbie, you’ll benefit mostly of a mild routine targeting length (stretching and low erection jelqing = newbie routine). This is good for un-crimp. It won’t work well for one that has already exhausted un-crimping (conditioned, advanced PE-er) which by now has a different tissue structure.

Great thread. I does make sense when you think about it a bit, there are plenty of people who managed to gain a full inch, but how many are there who actually gained 2 full inches? What’s preventing all the people who gained a full inch (and obviously know what they’re doing) from gaining another inch? I guess we have an answer now. :)

cervixhunter, thanks for posting this. I have always wondered about newbie gains and how that might correlate to our physiology. Maybe you’re on your way to a new theory.

That`s a good point cervixhunter.
I`m still somewhat doubting that length increase simply gained from stretching really is permanent. Talking creep effect here.
However no matter whether length gains from stretching are permanent or not they do exhaust as you rightfully mentioned “once the crimp is exhausted no more gains can be obtained that way”, that is why we have to focus on other ways to increase length.

Coming from a bodybuilding background the only thing I could think of leading to further growth are micro injuries. Yet since neither the corpora, nor the tunica, nor the ligs consists of muscle cells it`s actually hard to imagine how growth in fact should take place. So far I have found no evidence that the repair of soft tissue leads to any growth whatsoever. The result of the repairing process of soft tissue in particular conjunctive tissue is stronger tissue having more cross links but I found nothing saying that this kind of new tissue is somewhat bigger, larger or anything like that. At best I can imagine the replaced tissue being bigger due to micro scars but I found nothing to prove that and I`m not even sure whether the scarred tissue isn`t fully replaced itself either after several months.

Talking the different branches of PE. Manual stretching at best gets you the kind of gains you mentioned cervixhunter. Jelqing imo doesn`t work at all if you are really just pushing more blood into the corpora. It`s highly unlikely that the blood could ever put on enough pressure to deform the corpora permanently. Actually the gains from jelqing are either from stretching the unit while performing the jelq (which is why you will not get further gains from light jelqing after a while. Relating to your post here cervixhunter) or from micro injuries although as I said I got no evidence for that theory so far. Also causing the right micro injuries from jelqing is pretty hard to obtain since you would have to increase the pressure over and over again which will more likely damage the blood vessels in particular the valves of the veins which at worst will get you one of those obscure vein leakage but definitely no gains.
Hanging is the only thing imo that actually could work beyond newbie gains. However the problem with hanging is that I don`t think that it`s possible at all to cause micro injuries within the ligs and get them into a fatigue state since the cock itself will always go down first. In particular the tunica. Consisting mainly of close to non stretchable collagen, the tunica is most likely the first to get injured getting the cock into a dull, fatigue state way before the ligs pass out. Even though I think the corpora still could take the load it is the tunica that strikes out the whole cock. So it`s always the cock that prevents putting enough stress on the ligs. I`m not saying there isn’t any stretch on the ligs I`m just saying that it`s pretty impossible to micro injury it not to mention to get it into a fatigue state. So all one could hope for are mostly gains from the damaged tunica and the maybe slightly damaged corpora. The ligs will not get injured and once they are fully stretched out, as you mentioned cervixhunter, no more gains.

I`m not doubting PE in general obviously for some guys PE works beyond the first stretching although since anyone has different genetics even more than 2 inch gains might still come from stretching and the guy getting it just is a lucky dude for having such good genetics in this sense. However I`m also not doubting that there are guys who actually not just gain from stretching so I guess there is some kind of evidence that there must be mechanisms going on that lead to further growth beyond the stretching phase. However I for my part don`t know where those gains come from despite the very vague ideas I mentioned related to micro injuries and the process of tissue repair.

If anyone has any scientific! Proof that the new build soft tissue at the end of the repairing process is bigger or larger than the original damaged tissue and not just stronger, please bring it up. No it`s not about proving that PE works it`s about proving that the repairing of damaged soft tissue especially conjunctive tissue and in particular collagen leads to bigger or larger, or however they might wanna call it, tissue which means growth and subsequently gains.

Let’s go from body building to the art of contorsionism:

These people stretch their muscles, tendons, ligaments and joint capsules incredibly. It works for sure, they do it in public.

Interesting comparison, ticktickticker, and I’m tempted to extend it one step further.

I would suggest that not everyone has it in them to be equally capable as a contortionist.

I would suggest that not everyone has it in them to be equally capable of achieving gains via PE.