Stretching Fascia--Another BB analogy

As we know, fascia can be stretched. The “tunica” that we so often mention consists of fascia (“Buck’s fascia”).

Apparently, even the world outside the PE community knows fascia can be stretched. Here’s another interesting analogy to bodybuilding. Stretching your fascia gives your muscles room to grow, just like stretching your tunica gives your penis room to grow.

Check out the article:

How Stretching Can Explode Your Muscle Growth.

Not only is stretching important for flexibility, it is CRITICAL for massive, rapid muscle growth.

When you think about gaining muscle, stretching is probably not the first thing that pops into your head. But did you know that stretching plays a critical role in building muscle?

Every muscle in your body is enclosed in a bag of tough connective tissue known as fascia. Fascia is important for holding your muscles in their proper place in your body.

But your fascia may also be holding back your muscle growth. Think for a moment about your muscles. You train them and feed them properly. They want to grow and will grow but something is holding them back. They have no room to grow!

Because fascia is so tough, it doesn't allow the muscle room to expand. It is like stuffing a large pillow into a small pillowcase. The size of the muscle won't change regardless of how hard you train or how well you eat because the connective tissue around your muscles is constricting the muscles within.

The best example of this is the calf muscle. The lower leg is riddled with fascia because of its tremendous weight-bearing duties in the body. It is because of this fascia that many trainers have great difficulty developing their calves.

The solution: stretching.

Using the pillowcase example from above, imagine you can expand the size of the pillowcase by stretching it. Suddenly, the pillow within has more room and will expand to fill that new space.

By stretching your muscles under specific conditions, you can actually stretch your fascia and give your muscles more room to grow.

The key to effective fascial stretching is the pump. The best time to stretch to expand the bags that are holding in your muscles is when your muscles are pumped up full of blood.

When your muscles are fully pumped up, they are pressing against the fascia. By stretching hard at that time, you increase that pressure on the fascia greatly, which can lead to expansion of the fascia.

One of the major reasons Arnold Schwarzenegger had such incredible chest development was that he finished his chest workouts with dumbell flyes, an exercise that emphasizes the stretched position of the pectoral muscles. He would pump his chest up full of blood during the workout then do flyes, holding the stretch at the bottom of the flye. This gave his chest room to grow to amazing proportions.

Fascial stretching is more rigorous than regular stretching but the results can be amazing. When you stretch hard enough to cause the fascia to expand, you will really feel it! When you are stretching the fascia, you should feel a powerful pulling sensation and pressure as the muscle works against the fascia to expand it.

Be sure you do not stretch so hard that you cause the muscle to tear or cause injury to yourself. You will rapidly learn to distinguish the difference between a good stretch and a bad stretch. You should not feel any sharp pain, just a steady pull.

Hold each stretch for at least 20 to 30 seconds as you must give your fascia time to be affected by the stretch. Stretch hard like this only when you have a fully pumped muscle as you must give your fascia a reason to expand. If your muscles aren't pumped, just stretch normally.

You can find instructions for stretching at:

One set of hard stretching after each set you do for a muscle group, besides the obvious benefits of increased flexibility, can have an incredible effect on the size of your muscles and their further ability to grow.

I have to head out the door just now so I’ll read up properly tomorrow.

Just one little factoid though: BB’ers use Caverject (PGE-1) to inject inside the muscle fascia which creates swelling. Interesting Huh?

Just to clarify: Buck’s fascia and the tunica albuginea are different tissues. A tunica surrounds each erectile chamber (the two corpora cavernosa and the corpus spongiosum). Buck’s fascia covers all three (except the glans) and separates the two CC from the CS. It also extends to the ends of the crura and covers the bulb of the penis. The fascia is adhered to the outer layer of the tunica all along the shaft and fuses with the tunica at the end (under the glans).

West,

Thanks for clarifying. I believe I’ve never seen the tunica albuginea specifically called a "fascia." Have you? I have seen it described as a dense band of collagen fibers, which I think is essentially the same thing. But maybe not.

BTW, here’s a very clear drawing of the structures—one that I haven’t seen before on this site:

https://www.hea lthpress.co.uk/ … dysfunction.pdf

West,

Never mind. Found one here:

The tunica albuginea apparently is a “fascia.”

Very interesting. From what I remember the tunica collagen are arranged around the circumference of each chamber thus limiting expansion of width. The collagen in Buck’s fascia are arranged along the length of the penis thus limiting expansion in length. This is all from memory though. The tunica is essentially a fascia though I seem to remember that it had slightly different ratios of collagen to elastin. Nonetheless, keep up the good work modesto. :up:

I’ll bet it helps them maintain and enhance their pump.

On a slightly different note, this sort of makes me wonder whether Caverject alone would be an effective form of PE. A 4-hour erection from Caverject might be equivalent to 30 minutes of clamping?

But when the penis is fully engorged (erect) there isn’t much you can do with it - except, perhaps, some dangerous erect bends. And, regarding simple stretching, that’s basically what we do anyway.

And, I might add, the “reason” that Arnold developed such an amazing chest is the same reason that his arms, delts and back were also freakish: astounding genetics, brought out by intense training & roids.

I never stretched, but developed some rather impressive (drug-free) muscles myself. Expanded chest 54+, arms 20+, thighs 33, etc.

And the reason I never stretched is because the trainers all around me never did either, explaining to me that excess flexibility can result in instability around the joints for guys handling very heavy weights.

What is this caverject supposed to swell? Just muscle cells? And how does it swell them?

MM - One site, one man’s writing. Obviously anatomists think they’re two different things or they’d be using the same term.

Here’s what Dorland’s Medical Dictionary says:

tunica (tu·ni·ca) (too¢n[ibreve]-k[schwa]) [TA] pl. tu¢nicae [L.] a general term in anatomical nomenclature for a membrane or other structure covering or lining a body part or organ. Called also coat and tunic.

fascia (fas·cia) (fash¢e-[schwa]) [TA] gen. and pl. fas¢ciae [L. “band”] a sheet or band of fibrous tissue such as lies deep to the skin or forms an investment for muscles and various other organs of the body.

For our purposes, we need to remember that Buck’s fascia is adhered to the outer layer of the tunica albuginea and must be stretched and expanded along with it for growth to occur.

Cut and pasted:
“Esiclene (Caverject) is a steroid that is somewhat different from the others. The substance formebolone is available in various forms of administration. For athletes only the injectable version is of interest.
Because of its anabolic effect, Esiclene is not well suited as a steroid for athletes. In bodybuilding, however, it is a highly valued and commonly used compound since it has the unusual characteristic of allowing any muscle to increase in diameter and size within the shortest period. How is this possible? Esiclene stimulates the muscle tissue located at the point of injection. The tissue defends itself or shall we say, reacts with a local inflammation. This is manifested by an accumulation of tissue fluid from the lymph system which is the cause for the swelling or enlargement of the injected muscle. In order to avoid any misunderstandings we want to explicitly emphasize once more that the liquid is not accumulating in the skin but actually in the muscle tissue. Now it should also be clear why all other forms of administration of the compound will bring no results for bodybuilders. Since an inflammation is normally painful, each Esiclene ampule also in-cludes 20 mg lidocaine, a mild painkiller. The injection itself is not painful but an unpleasant feeling at the point of injection is noted for about a day. Since the substance dissolves in water, Esiclene’s duration of effect is limited so that the swelling begins to decrease after about one day, and after at most 4-5 days the muscle is back to its normal size. For this reason, bodybuilders use Esiclene only during the last 7-14 days before a competition to shape up less-developed muscle groups. In order to compen-sate for the decrease in swelling, the compound is usually in-jected daily. Smaller muscle groups such as biceps, triceps, del-toid muscles and calves are especially suitable and thus preferred over others. Over a period of 1-2 weeks a temporary growth gain of 1-1,5 inches on arms and calves can be obtained. At most, two or three different muscles are usually injected at the same time. Often the athlete starts with a 1 ml injection; during the following days it is increased to 2 ml = 1 ampule per muscle. Esiclene, for this purpose, is injected with insulin needles. Esiclene is also popular among women since it is highly effective. It has also been proven that Esiclene, as is com-mon for water-dissolved steroids, helps the athlete to achieve a bet-ter muscle hardness over the entire body during the course of his preparation for a competition. Some bodybuilders use Esiclene over a longer period in regular intervals, usually 2 ml every 5-7 days, in order to stimulate the growth of an extremely obstinate arm or calf muscle. Apart from the pain at the point of injection and, in some cases, a somewhat awkward-looking muscle, Esiclene has no sig-nificant negative side effects.”

Funny how the PGE-1 part of this formulation when supplied for ED purposes is megabucks, but when BB’ers find something new to stick in a pin they can supply for about 5-10% of the price Gotta love ‘em :)

Thanks West. Band or sheet (fascia) versus covering (tunica). The distinction appears to be structural rather than compositional.

The reason I’m interested in this is to know whether I can generalize from techniques I’ve read for growing fascia to include techniques for growing the tunica.

MM - The other distinction is that a tunica is confined to one organ, while a fascia can cover many things including bones, muscles, etc.

Shiver - can we get a link for your cut and paste please?

Westla, It is pasted from the product description of a roid dealers page. I’m not sure I should post that kind of information here(?). There is no additional information other than what is pasted abouve, but if you still want the link then PM me.

Maybe so. The reason for my interest is to try to stir up some new ideas about how to grow the fascia and tunica. The muscle guys come at it from a slightly different angle. I’m hoping to maybe learn something.

For example, if there’s a supplement that helps grow the fascia, wouldn’t that be interesting?