I want to share my view point based on what I’ve read and studied, and to some degree what I have seen personally about stimulating cell growth. I want to provide this information in the hopes that it will help eventually resolve the ‘masturbation hinders gains’ debate once and for all, and why people on both sides of the fence are partly wrong and partly right. I tackle other ideas regarding stretchings’ role, and if supplementation could aid in faster recovery of penile tissue. I also want to stimulate discussion and see if I can learn anything from the ‘thinkers’ on this board to maybe gaining some more scientific understanding of PE. If this has been mentioned before, I apologize in advance. I also want to say that this article is a theory of mine based on quite a bit of reading from various muscle building articles, cell growth, etc. Do not read it as scientific fact, but instead thoughts of mine based on scientific articles. Without further ado…I’ve become much more committed to building muscle and have looked into the science of what it takes to build muscle effectively. I know that muscle tissue is different than penile tissue, but I postulate the fundamentals still apply:
“New cell growth occurs, whether penile or muscle cells, when the cells experience trauma under a specific intensity. This intensity must be strong enough that it sparks the reason for growth, but not so traumatic that the damage done is not fully recoverable.”
When you go to the gym and your goal is to build muscle, you need to understand very specific principles in order to succeed, otherwise you will not see great gains, and in some cases, no gain at all. In order to build new muscle quickly and consistently with minimal plateau, you need to find the correct intensity at which to lift. I believe PE has a specific intensity as well, albeit the type of intensity would be different than muscle since it is a different type of tissue with different functionality. But what they do share in similarity is that they must be challenged in new and greater ways in order to keep the growth response going and not reaching a plateau.
Cells will NOT grow if the intensity does not increase. If you maintain the same intensity, the body will become used to the same level of trauma and will not be motivated to adapt. Intensity can be measured as “Time under tension”. Muscle growth requires a type of intensity that is very high weight, under a moderate amount of time, say a muscle group exercise set between 40-70 seconds. It is that specific, if you alter that formula, you alter the effectiveness of how well you will stimulate new muscle growth. PE intensity would have a different formula, but still measurable. There are a lot of theories out there, but lets just say it is low to moderate weight over a long period of time, say 30 minutes. The point is that measuring the intensity of the tissue you are trying to grow, and constantly working to increase intensity for each new workout as your tissue grows and becomes accustomed to, is vital.
A critical muscle building rule that many gym goers do not realize, including myself for a long time, is that once peak intensity has been reached, any further work done on the muscle is wasted energy. I used to be in the camp that more sets = more muscle, but I now know that is false. The reasoning behind this is that it is the intensity, the measurable “time under tension” that your cells are subjected to within a small window of time, that create the growth response. Basically, all it takes is one set per muscle group to accomplish this. Any sets after this “balls to the wall, all-out” set are meaningless, if your goal is muscle growth. The goal of that one set is to recruit every single muscle fiber of the muscle you intend to grow, and traumatize it completely. Of course, it would be completely foolish to do this set without warming up first. After all, you know cold rubber bands break, but warm rubber bands can stretch much farther. That is why you start with your warm-up set (warm-up wrap for PE), stack the weight higher on the 2nd set to prepare for the all-out set (build to increase intensity in PE), and the 3rd set you load up, and push yourself to the limit, heaviest weight you can do to complete exhaustion (PE doesn’t end so intense since it’s a different fiber, and I don’t want you guys injuring your penis, but you do want to end with stronger strokes, and should feel like your penis is tired). If you bother to do another set after this all-out set, you will already be fatigued, and you will not be able to match it in intensity. All it will accomplish is breaking down your muscle fiber even more and maybe give you a a little muscular endurance, but because the intensity is less will do nothing to stimulate new muscle growth. If you are trying to build muscle, growth is what your are after anyway, not endurance. Your all out set already accomplished that spark for growth, any sets afterwards will do nothing for your growth.
Here is where it all ties together, and why I think people are confusing masturbation with hindering gains. When your cells break down, they need a recovery period. When it comes to muscle growth, less is more. You don’t work out your muscles when you are sore do you? Muscle fibers take time to build, if you are sore, it means the rebuilding is not complete. If you lift a muscle group that is already sore, you are drastically reducing your growth potential, because you are breaking down muscle before it has a chance to rebuild bigger and stronger. If you break muscle down before it gets bigger and stronger, then you will not have bigger and stronger muscles to push your intensity even further than your last workout, which means you get no gains. Remember, intensity must always increase within a few workouts, or your cells will NOT grow. Of course there is a 3rd variable for increasing growth when you plateau, and that is inducing new unaccustomed stress through different range of motion, but intensity is still required. That means the time, or the tension, must be increased, thats what increasing intensity means. I believe your penile cells work the same way, why wouldn’t they? They are cells after all. When your penis is sore, it is still in the recovery phase. If you do a PE workout and your penis is still sore, then you are breaking down the penis tissue even more, causing shrinkage or turtling. A clear sign that you need to stop, let it fully recover before doing any PE or masturbation for that matter. When you masturbate, it is much less intensity, but don’t kid yourself, it’s still breaking down the tissue, depending on the length of your masturbation session, and the tension. Again, the intensity.
Think of masturbation like lifting light weights, your still breaking down tissue but will gain no mass. You’ll still tear your muscle tissue up with light weights, but you have to lift for a longer period of time. And unfortunately light tension under long period of time is not the formula for new muscle growth. Neither is that the case with PE. If it were, masturbation would build your dick. Unfortunately it takes more intensity than masturbation to cause your dick to grow. When you lift light weights, you will develop a completely different type of muscle fiber called “slow-twitch”. It is not meant to accumulate in massive amounts of cells because it is an endurance fiber. Endurance fiber is all about expending energy over long periods of time. Having a ton of muscle means packing a lot of weight, completely counterproductive to the role of endurance fiber, hence you will not bulk up when lifting light weight. This is why your penis will not grow by masturbation, you are not applying enough intensity to the penis by masturbation alone, and remember, only proper intensity sparks muscle growth, and penis growth for that matter. When you masturbate though, you are still breaking down tissue. This means your recovery period will be longer. This means you need more rest before PE’ing again. You should only PE when your cells are FULLY RECOVERED, because only then will your cells be revived enough to be pushed to a new level of intensity required to grow. This rule is unquestionable for muscle building, I believe penis cells adhere to it as well. This is the reason why masturbation will, to some degree hinder gains, because you are essentially breaking down your tissue, which means your recovery time will be lengthened before the optimal time is available once again to start your next PE session. This is completely variable based on the intensity of your masturbation session. Very little recovery is necessary if you are jerking off for 10 minutes. But if you have a 2 hour wank session, prepare for a long recovery, and don’t expect to make gains if you start up your PE session the next morning and are still sore from your wank marathon the night before. You need complete recovery before exercising in order to outdo your previous exercises intensity. Will a tired and sore dick be able to beat the previous exercises intensity? No, only a fully recovered dick ready to put in a serious session will accomplish this critical goal. That being said, masturbation will not undo the growth response of your PE workout, because the growth response is ONLY tied to obtaining the correct intensity from your PE workout. All Masturbation will do is lengthen the recovery period necessary between workouts. So you see…both sides of the fence are in essence, right. Where people get confused is that they don’t allow enough recovery period and are starting their next PE session the next day, when they aren’t fully recovered. If you didn’t masturbate for 30 minutes after last nights PE workout, would you not be sore? Maybe, but if you are sore, just take a little more time to recover until fully healed, then hit the next PE session with vigor. You are only backtracking when breaking down tissue that hasn’t fully healed.
As I mentioned above, I’m not throwing the stretching exercises into this thought process because stretching attacks the cells differently, in that it is not forcing blood into the penis, which is critical for penile growth(ie jelq etc). However, I do believe stretching is vital for optimal penis growth, but that you really won’t have growth unless you are incorporating exercises that force blood into the penis. Think of stretching as an amplifier to your PE routine, but on it’s own it won’t do much. Stretching will increase your muscle growth response by maximizing range of motion of cells, and creating more surface area for new cell growth to occur. If you stretch your arms before doing bicep curls, then lift with full range of motion, you are recruiting maximal surface area of fibers to undergo the stress, which mean maximal muscle growth. If you cut out stretching, you’ll still grow muscle, just not as much. Yes, you can get huge by not stretching at all, but science has shown that stretching will increase cell growth at a faster rate when weightlifting. I believe this applies to PE as well. If you stretch your penis in all directions for a decent amount of time before jelqing, you are maximizing the cell surface area to be engaged in the exercise, promoting more cells to be involved in the exercise, which promotes greater growth.
Finally, I’d like to consider supplementation to aid in the quick recovery of depleted penile tissue. For the successful weightlifters out there, you all know that a protein shake immediately after a workout is vital for quick cell recovery. The sugars taxi the nutrients to the destroyed tissue for immediate rebuilding. Time is important, if you do not intake nutrients within a max of 2 hours after experiencing muscular trauma, the body will miss it’s effective window of opportunity to heal the damaged tissue in optimal fashion. Does this mean you miss your opportunity to grow? No, but you do considerably lengthen the window of recovery, which means you get less workouts in, which mean slower growth. You are also convincing your body that it is not in an optimal nutrient-rich environment for growth, and will limit it’s ability to grow. Animals tend to grow within the limits of the resources around them, your body will not grow if you aren’t constantly feeding it too. That said, I wonder if there are nutrients that are specific to penile tissue, and penile health in general? You have food that is good for the heart, eyes, liver, skin, muscles,etc…why not the penis? Wouldn’t it make sense to eat something good for penile tissues right after a PE session? It sure makes a lot of sense to me! I think this could be an idea that would become a big factor in quick recovery and PE gains in general. It is critical in muscle building, why not PE? Someone should look into this stat! If I find out anything, rest assured I’ll start intaking nutrients after a PE session and evaluating my recovery period.
Anyway, just some thoughts, I’d like to know what you guys think and if you see flaws, or things that appear accurate and can build on for further understanding. I also understand that I’m going to have people saying you can’t compare the penis with muscles, but they are all cells, and cells grow and operate under similar guidelines, so hopefully people can provide scientific evidence if they intend to refute it. To conclude, I want to thank Thunders for providing the best forum on the net for the gathering of positive minds IMHO.
-miltonic
