Possible reason for PE induced growth

Careful with that “ligament pop” stuff. I really don’t think the popping has anything to do with breaking any part of your dick.

Thanks, I stand corrected. Not sure what this pop is. I have never done any hanging.

Oh, no! Thank to you for your precious work and for avoiding that dogmatic attitude that affect often (I hate to say that, but it’s true) the guys with medical background.

This thread is going to be one of the best ever started on this site. Only on TP can be found such high-level debates.

I hope that others science-educated members (Iguana and ttt, are you listening :-) ?) will look at you as an example and put reasearches related to this topic (the core PE topic), explicating them the way you have done.

Sure we are listening..

I just printed the first post of this thread and will do some homework.

Next, I will try to remember not to be too dogmatic :) .

Then, I will write some lines, so much already: complements for your work, pudendum.

Of course, I wasn’t speaking of you (or anybody else on this forum, for this regard).

Very interesting. The thing that always gets me is that there have been so many biological or physiological or whatever you would call it pointers to long duration, lower intensity stretch being the best approach to permanent elongation. Yet, my perception is, if there’s a single “routine” that seems to most frequently get positive response it’s the Mem’s Momentous one. You could kind of say the Mem’s Momentous routine, however, is on the other end of the spectrum on this though — stretching-wise it’s just 20 minutes of high force per workout day.

I don’t think the mechanism of fibroblast stimulation with fiber remodeling that these studies described excludes any of the many elongation/girth routines presented in this forum. The differences in routines, in essence, is the degree of tension. Lower tension elongation vs high tension microinjury with IPR. The studies on connective tissue remodeling suggest that the mechanism is the same (just more inflammatory cells with injury).

If Mem’s Momentous routine works for you, then use it. I started this thread to let you better understand what’s going on on the inside.

Ok - two points regarding the interpretation of medical studies:

1. The purpose of medical studies to elongate joint capsules, ligaments and/or tendons is to elongate when shrinkage had occurred before, so to say in order to reestablish the normal working condition.

2. Physiologic adaptation joint capsules, ligaments and/or tendons to increased stress (sports etc.) results in strengthening and possibly thickening of these structures - not lengthening. This may be part of the reasons why hanging may produce quite impressive base increase.

In fact, in PE, we have to be tricky enough to overcome the adaptation process of thickening and strengthening. Theoretically, slow and steady should win the race (quoting one thread, I don’t remember the author right now, sorry).

Practically, I like the tougher routines like hanging or clamping. Despite the theory. And they work, too. Thanks to the microtear theory. May be.

I think that your post is good enough to be posted to Science of PE thread. Kudos

I agree that the clinical application of the basic science studies presented here is generally by doctors (particularly orthopedic surgeons and rheumatologists; both who work with ligament, tendon, and cartilage problems) who treat patients with injuries, diseases or disuse problems of ligaments, tendons and cartilage.

Many medically-related basic science studies (also known as “bench top” research) are performed to investigate problems that doctors see in patients. They attempt to model these problems in animals or in cells (or ligaments or tendons in this case) taken from humans. The byproduct of the information gained may be applicable to others who don’t necessarily have the problem that the researchers were originally trying to study.

I believe that connective tissue lengthening is probably explained by this mechanism. Anyone who has done any body stretches (legs, arms, shoulders, back) has seen that tendon and ligament lengthening is possible resulting in increased flexibility. ttt, I agree that this may represent the correction of the shortening of connective tissue lost since we were rough and tumble kids. But I do believe that since collagen fiber elongation is possible for these connective tissues, the same is possible (and likely) for connective tissue in the penis.

Totally agree. The goal of this mechanism is to counter stresses (particularly in tendons) from increased muscle tension. It keeps muscles attached to bones and keeps them the tendons (or ligaments) from rupturing.

But again, guys who do intense muscle bulking exercises know that muscle stretching, which in reality is tendon stretching, can continue to increase flexibility through stretch.

Collagen has limited elastic properties. The subunits of collagen have a fixed length. Therefore to get longer collagen fibers, more subunits must be inserted. I believe this is the explanation and the mechanism we see in penis elongation and girth as well.

Again, great point. Plateaus may very well be explained by these studies as well. The fibroblast deformation theory and the evidence of collagen fiber “thickening in stressed tendons and ligaments unfortunately suggest that plateaus are the rule and not the exception.

One might take these results to mean the slow, but steady PE is the only productive method. Results by many using intense routines would suggest otherwise. It’s possible that intense PEers might reach a plateau faster.

The disuse studies I presented (in a later post on this thread) suggest that deconditioning might decrease collagen fiber thickness and allow further gains to the next plateau.

The phrase “slow and steady” could be better used to say that PE will take time and that patience and continued motivation is necessary.

And like ttt, I use tough routines as well.

ttt - Thanks for your input.

It certainly is a great pleasure to discuss with you and the other guys.

Since both of us (and so many others) like the tougher routines, I would like to reflect on how one can overcome the counterproductive effect of strengthening ligs and tunica.

A year ago or so I tried to hang as much weight as I could.

Now, after a lot of reading and discussions, I am starting a “cycle” at a rather low weight (2,5”) and slowly increase that weight until I start experiencing negatives PI’s. Then, I take a little break, deconditioning, and start again at the lower end of my weight collection.

I am hoping that this approach is tricky enough to overcome the adaptation process (which tends to be too weak for every given weight, since the weight is soon to be increased. So I am hoping to be always a little ahead of the adaptation process.

I have been PEing for a total of 6 months.

I was on for about 6 weeks when gains slowed and I decided to take a month off.

I was back on for about 6 weeks when gains slowed again, so I took a month off.

I have been back on for about 3 weeks and the gains are slower, but have not stopped as I have scaled back the intensity of my workouts.

Each time I started back, I have had noob type gains and I lost zero in length during the breaks and only a total of 1/8 in girth during each break,
which I gained back in the first week of resuming.

Your experience would tend to support the effectiveness of decon breaks. I believe the fiber length reduction is the mechanism that allow you to move onward after plateaus.

Your shared experience is appreciated. Hope your cycling (as ttt calls it) brings you continued success.

Of course, it’s similar to weight-lifting systematic training. In the east countries (URSS, Bulgaria, Oriental Germany etc.) was developed, at least 60 years ago, a training model to avoid plateaus and achieving great strength time after time. Before that, lifter were training simply attempting, in a monotonous way, higher personal records, time after time; when they weren’t able to reach a new record, stopped training for a couple of days or weeks and then restarted exactly with their previous record (note that I’m generalizating a little).

The finding of the communist trainers/scientists was that effort has to have an ondulatory regimen, the way ttt was explicating. This approach could seem obvious to us nowaday, but it isn’t at all. Another topic of those findings was that maximum effort has to be accomplished only one-two times per year, because it cause stalling of adaptive reponse for 6-12 weeks (average value), and less results on year-term.

After that, those guys have found that the variation has also to regard, for better results, the volume of work - total amount under tension in a given time. The best approach was believed to be a 3:1 - for three weeks volume and intensity had to go higer, then, for a week, the volume of work had to be cutted at about 55% where the intensity had to remain high.

Now I don’t want to go further on that subject, because it is off-topic. What I think is interesting is that ttt spoked of cyclic PE work, and I said elsewhere on this forum (don’t remember exactly where) that the weigth-lifting approach (that became later the approach to anykind of athletic skills) could apply, despite the differences we all know, in some similar way to PE.

Now I want to come to the point: weigth-training cyclization has evolved later, and is called nowaday periodization. This approach is based on the fact that a given kind of adaptive reponse (and correlative muscular components) has to be trained for at least 8 weeks and no more than 24 weeks. After that, another adaptive reponse has to be trained for 4-8 weeks, and after that one could restart the previous cycle. Details of that models are much more complex, believe me, but, shortly said, not a full recovery has to be done, but a different work, because the exausted mechanisms (and body’s components) can recovery while another work is done (and others body’s components are affected), and better than by absolute rest.

A pindaric jump: the ondulatory walk of adaptation of athletic qualities is surpisingly similar to what is observed in many different humans activities’ emprovement: just for example, in intellectual abilities.

Traduced in PE terms, this suggest the idea of doing, in example, low-tension/long-time PE work (extenders) [plastic reponse] for about 2-6 months, than high-intensity/short-time PE work (manual stretching/hanging) [structural weakening] for about 1-2 months, than again repeat.

Of course, this is just an arbitrary transposition of methods from athletic training to PE; we could say that we are moving on phylosophic-basis : there are adaptation-cycles, that the body has devoloped in the course of evolution, that could make sense being of similar structure in any kind of activity. Just an imaginative paradigma.

But the approach that many suggest, doing stretch/hanging and then using an ADS/extender for a given period, all in the same cycle, then taking a decon-break, could be not optimal, because we don’t know how the two kind of stress could esplicate interactive effects: maybe the adaptive reponse of tissue is less functional (too many taks at the same time) and/or the structure-trauma can’t properly heal because adding tension, even low, is an obstacle, and so on.

On the other side, I have to recognize that make also some sense weakening the structure and let it healing while a low tension is favouring remodelation in an enlarged state.

Sorry for the long post.
As I said, I know that this post is off-topic, so, Moderator, feel free to move in another thread.

I took a lot of fitness/nutrition type classes. I’m curious what is your diet. I believe you must be in good to excellent health from a nutrition standpoint to have good PE success.