Hugeness,
>My question is: when is hanging not the besst route to PE for someone? <
What a good but tough question. The whole thing has to do with the amount of total stress. I would define this as the amount of tension or weight placed against the tissues and the amount of time that tension or weight is applied. The same can be said for girth gains as blood pressure forced against the lateral bonds.
It matters not the type of work that is done. Whether it is manual stretching, hanging, or device stretching, or jelqing or squeezes, the amount of force and time are the keys. In order to make gains, you must supply enough force to break through the next limiting factors.
The choice of what is used depends on the individual. Hanging supplies a known weight for a known amount of time. You have to go solely by feel with manual exercises, and have the ability (strength and stamina) to increase the stresses over time.
>It seems pretty well extablished that you can get gains (mostly girth) by doing less than one hour of jelq/squeezes. <
As you said, it seems usually after some point, most gains doing only jelqing/squeezing are girth (if any). The amount of stress required to continue length gains are not supplied easily by the hands. The early easy gains require less stress which can be supplied by the hands. If you can supply more and more stress with the hands as time goes on, you will continue to see gains. Usually, guys reach a plateau within six months to a year with only manual exercises. The advantage to manual exercises is if anything does not feel right, you can stop immediately.
>My thoughts are that at some point you really are not getting any chance at growth doing hanging is you do not get some minimum hang time. I do not know your thoughts on this. <
This depends solely on the individual. Many guys have much tougher tissues than other guys. Some, after breaking through a tough initial barrier(s) find gains much easier. In general, it seems if a guy has a tough time gaining initially with manual exercises, he will have a tough time gaining hanging and vice versa.
With a limit to the amount of time spent, the intensity becomes key. If you use more force with manual exercises or hanging during the limited time, you will have more chance of gaining. Also, more chance of an injury with either process.
>It seems that if a person had one hour per day to do PE, that hour may be best spent doing an alternative PE excercise other than hanging. <
This could be true. Hanging is a rather static process. Apply the weight and let it do the work. The advantage is you can do other things while hanging. Manual exercises preclude this, but are easier to moniter second to second. Therefore, you might be able to apply more force manually for shorter times and keep up with it.
>I compare it to getting results working out. I would tell someone who only had ten miinutes per day to work out, that they should probably do some sit-ups and pushups in that ten minutes rather than going for a jog. <
While not a perfect analogy, it does have merit. You still need to warm up the tissues, but you could do manual exercises fairly easily as compared to wrapping and hanging saving a little more time for the actual work. But if limited in time, you still need to supply enough force to break through the next limiting factors in order to see gains. This can be a tough thing to do manually, especially later in the PE process.
There are many reports of guys not being able to make any gains with manual exercises. These guys may have tough tissues, and simply cannot supply the force to break through the initial limiting factors. They may not be able to do it hanging either. But possibly they can supply enough static force by hanging to do so.
>When I go for two hours or more, I feel worked out, but not if I only go for one hour. <
The only thing I could recommend to reach fatigue in a shorter time frame is to go up in weight. This of course should be done slowly, and increases the risk of injury. Of course, it is the same problem with manual exercises. To reach fatigue in a shorter amount of time you have to increase the stress. For many guys, the perceived risk is not worth the anticipated reward.
Above all, be careful.
Bigger