Wow, missed a lot of discussion here. I’ve been away, but I just got back.
OK, so some commentary:
That old stress relaxation thread spakyx posted: I have always loved this dude’s extender design. It is a shame he never spoke more about HOW to make it. It is do damned stealth and the dude was wearing it for three days straight sometimes and claimed pretty amazing results with it.
Cyclic stretching: this is not what we want. Cyclic stretching of connective tissue actually causes it to grow in thickness, not in length. If you look at the tendons and ligaments in the knees of an Olympic weightlifter or the same structures in the hands of a boxer or martial artist, you will find some very thick, strong connective tissue.
Collagen crimp: this could be responsible for a bit of newbie gains, but generally the loss of crimp is described as connective tissue laxity and in other connective tissues of the body it is not a very good thing. I’m not sure if this would complicate penile function, but it is not desirable when it is found elsewhere. I think a greater portion of newbie gains could come from connective tissues beginning to synthesize more elastin and in essence becoming more stretchy. I know firegoat has a good post about this somewhere, I will try and find it.
Stretching threshold to stimulate growth: Marinera is correct that this probably doesn’t really exist in actuality, but below a certain level of strain collagen synthesis will be only elevated minimally. It’s rate of synthesis is strain dependent, in other words. Well it is to a point anyway, once the “yield” region on the stress-strain curve is reached, you will actually begin experiencing a net collagen loss as the fibroblasts actually shut down their collagen gene transcription at that point. But that point would require some VERY high force length work.
Roots